Published 2026-10-22 · 5 min read
Data: Twelve months of Google search volume for the top related phrases of 60 seed keywords across 20 niches, United States, via Keywords Everywhere.
The ranking
Twenty niches, 1,916 phrases with at least 50 searches a month, twelve months of data each. The seasonal share is the proportion of phrases with a seasonality index of 1.6 or more; the median index is the middle phrase's peak-to-average ratio.
| Niche | Phrases | Seasonal share | Median index | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christmas and holidays | 111 | 94% | 5.73 | Almost everything is seasonal, and extremely so |
| Etsy sellers (gifts) | 102 | 81% | 2.71 | Gift searches are a one-season business |
| Gardening | 112 | 67% | 1.86 | Strong spring peak, quiet winter |
| Online stores | 102 | 64% | 2.06 | Gift guides and holiday collections drive it |
| Fashion | 85 | 58% | 1.80 | Season words in most phrases |
| Bloggers and creators | 50 | 54% | 1.66 | Goal-setting peaks and summer lulls |
| Self care and wellness | 88 | 53% | 1.65 | New-year resolutions, back-to-routine moments |
| Teachers and classrooms | 71 | 52% | 1.60 | Back-to-school dominates |
| Health and fitness | 103 | 39% | 1.52 | Resolutions and pre-summer, otherwise steady |
| Real estate | 67 | 39% | 1.45 | Spring buying season |
| Beauty | 111 | 38% | 1.42 | Halloween and party looks on an evergreen base |
| DIY and crafts | 125 | 37% | 1.48 | Holiday crafts on top of steady projects |
| Personal finance | 91 | 33% | 1.45 | Budget season and tax season |
| Parents and family | 38 | 32% | 1.51 | School breaks and holidays |
| Wedding planning | 115 | 29% | 1.35 | Engagement season bumps, otherwise steady |
| Quotes and motivation | 123 | 26% | 1.37 | Mostly evergreen |
| Travel | 80 | 25% | 1.42 | Destination phrases are steadier than you would think |
| Photography | 77 | 23% | 1.42 | Fall sessions, otherwise flat |
| Food bloggers | 144 | 20% | 1.39 | Holiday recipes aside, people eat all year |
| Home decor | 121 | 20% | 1.37 | Room-by-room searches barely move |
Across all twenty niches, 44 percent of phrases are seasonal by this definition. The spread between niches is what matters: in home decor one phrase in five swings with the calendar, in the Christmas niche nineteen in twenty do.
Four kinds of niche
Calendar niches (Christmas, gifts, gardening, online stores): the majority of demand arrives in a window. A pin published after the window is a pin for next year. Planning is the whole game: these niches need the start-pinning dates in the holiday guide and a stock of evergreen pins to carry the quiet months.
Season-flavoured niches (fashion, teachers, self care, bloggers): a large evergreen core with a seasonal layer on top. The phrase "outfit ideas" is steady; "fall outfit ideas" is not. The tactic is to publish the evergreen pin once and the seasonal variants every year.
Moment niches (fitness, finance, beauty, DIY, parenting, real estate): mostly steady, with two or three predictable spikes a year tied to resolutions, holidays or the school calendar. One planned burst of pins before each spike covers it.
Evergreen niches (home decor, food, quotes, travel, photography, weddings): the pins you publish in March still work in October. Consistency beats timing, and the keyword tool matters more than the seasonal planner.
The most seasonal phrases we saw
The ten phrases with the highest index, all with at least 500 searches a month:
| Phrase | Niche | Monthly searches (average) | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| deer halloween makeup | DIY and crafts | 4,400 | 10.5 |
| holiday recipes appetizers | Christmas | 1,000 | 10.2 |
| parenting tips | Parents and family | 8,100 | 9.9 |
| halloween makeup ideas | Beauty | 9,900 | 9.7 |
| easy christmas recipes | Christmas | 1,300 | 9.1 |
| makeup ideas for christmas | Beauty | 1,000 | 9.0 |
| christmas gift ideas for wife | Christmas | 9,900 | 8.8 |
| halloween crafts for kids | DIY and crafts | 18,100 | 8.7 |
| easter crafts for kids | DIY and crafts | 9,900 | 8.7 |
| recipes christmas | Christmas | 8,100 | 8.3 |
An index near 10 means the average is a tenth of the peak: a phrase averaging 9,900 searches a month is really a phrase with about 100,000 searches in one month and a few hundred in the others. The average, which is what every keyword tool shows, hides this completely. "Parenting tips" is the surprise on the list; its data shows one dominant month, which may be a data artefact, and we would check it on Pinterest Trends before planning around it.
What this means for planning
- Look up your niche in the table. Above 50 percent seasonal, build the year around the calendar. Below 30 percent, build it around consistency.
- Treat the monthly average as a floor for evergreen phrases and as a misleading number for seasonal ones. For a seasonal phrase, the peak month is the number that matters.
- Pin seasonal content early. Pinterest's own guidance is to launch well before the peak, and the index tells you how much is riding on getting the timing right.
Method and limits
For each of the twenty keyword hubs we took its three seed phrases, fetched up to 60 related keywords per seed from Keywords Everywhere, kept phrases with at least 50 monthly searches, and fetched twelve months of Google Keyword Planner volume for each (October 2025 to September 2026 as labelled). The index is the busiest month divided by the mean of the twelve. Phrases are counted in the hub whose seeds found them, so a phrase can appear in two niches. Related-keyword lists lean toward commercial and product phrases, which will overstate seasonality in the shopping niches slightly.
One limit is serious enough to repeat: in the data as received, the month labels on the trend were offset for a share of phrases. We verified this with phrases whose season is not in doubt (Halloween, Christmas, Easter). The index and the seasonal share do not depend on which month is labelled what, so the table above stands. Exact peak months do depend on it, which is why this study does not name them and why the seasonal planner asks you to confirm the month on Pinterest Trends.
Where to go next
- Pinterest seasonal content calendar: what to pin each month, and when
- When to start pinning for Christmas and every other holiday
- Pinterest keyword lists by niche
Frequently asked questions
- What counts as seasonal?
- A phrase whose busiest month has at least 1.6 times the searches of its average month. Below that, the ups and downs are within the noise of monthly data and we call the phrase evergreen.
- What is the seasonality index?
- The busiest month divided by the average month, for a single phrase. An index of 1.0 is perfectly flat; 2.0 means the peak month has double the average; the most extreme phrases here score around 10, meaning almost all of their searches fall in one month.
- Why Google data and not Pinterest?
- Pinterest publishes no search counts. Its Trends tool shows the same shapes as an index, and in our experience Pinterest's peaks arrive a little earlier than Google's, because people plan on Pinterest before they shop on Google.
- Why do you not name the exact peak months?
- The month labels in the trend data we received were shifted by one to three months for some phrases (a Halloween phrase labelled November, an Easter phrase labelled July). The seasonality index does not depend on labels, so the figures here are solid, but we are not publishing exact months until the labelling is fixed. The seasonal planner shows the shape and asks you to confirm the month on Pinterest Trends.