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If you’ve been on Pinterest for any length of time, there’s a good chance you learned to use boards the same way I did. You found something you wanted to save, decided which little category it belonged in, and tucked it away for later.
Recipes went into a recipe board. Vacation ideas went into travel. Home projects went into a board full of things we were absolutely going to recreate ourselves one day.
And then there were the boards with names that made perfect sense at the time, like “Someday,” “Love This,” or “Ideas.”
That’s a completely normal way to use Pinterest personally, which is probably why the idea of Pinterest boards being part of a business strategy can feel a little strange at first. They’re folders, right?
Well, yes. But once you’re using Pinterest for your business, they’re doing more than helping you stay organized.
Your boards are also part of the information Pinterest uses to understand what your content is about.
That changes how I want you to look at them.
Your Boards Help Give Pinterest Context
When you publish a new piece of content, you already know what it’s about. You know who you wrote it for, why it matters, and how it connects to the rest of your business.
Pinterest doesn’t have all of that background information sitting in its head.
It needs signals that help make sense of your content.
Your pin title is one of those signals. Your description helps. The actual page you’re sending people to gives Pinterest more information. The board where that pin lives adds another layer of context.
Imagine a travel advisor has written a post about choosing where to stay on Oahu. If she creates a pin for that article and saves it to a board called Hawaii Vacation Planning, the connection is pretty easy to understand.
If the same pin is saved to a board called Places I Love, that name doesn’t tell Pinterest nearly as much.
That doesn’t mean every board needs to sound stiff or like it was written for a search engine. It simply means the board should make sense to someone who doesn’t already know what you mean.
Clear Usually Works Better Than Clever
This is one of those places where I’ve learned that clarity matters more than being creative.
As business owners, we’re often encouraged to make everything unique. We want catchy names, clever phrases, and something that sounds different from everyone else.
Pinterest search doesn’t always need that from us.
If you’re a wedding photographer and you have a board filled with helpful wedding photography content, Wedding Photography Ideas makes sense.
If you’re a business coach with useful content about planning and organization, Small Business Planning gives both Pinterest and the person searching a clear idea of what belongs there.
If you’re a travel advisor who creates a lot of Hawaii content, Hawaii Vacation Planning is much easier to understand than a cute board name only you recognize.
You don’t need to squeeze keywords into every possible place or create awkward board names. You just want the name to describe what the board is actually about using words a real person might search.
Your Pinterest Boards May Still Belong to an Older Version of Your Business
This is probably my favorite part of reviewing an older Pinterest account because it can become a little bit of an archaeological dig.
Your business, meanwhile, has changed approximately 47 times since you created some of those boards.
Mine certainly has.
Maybe you started Pinterest before you had a business. Maybe you’ve changed your niche. Maybe you used to sell one thing and now offer something completely different. You may have years of personal boards mixed together with boards from previous versions of your work.
None of that means you’ve done Pinterest wrong.
It just means your account may not reflect what you’re doing now.
I wouldn’t immediately start deleting everything. I would first look at your boards as if you were seeing your own account for the first time.
If someone could only see those board names, would she have any idea what your current business is about?
That’s the question I care about.
You may find boards that still fit perfectly. Others might need a clearer name. Some may be completely unrelated to where your business is headed now.
You’re simply looking for the places where your Pinterest account and your current business have drifted apart.
Let Your Existing Content Help You Decide What Boards You Need
The other mistake I don’t want you to make is seeing this and immediately deciding you need 25 new boards.
Start with your content.
This is where my “use what you already have” philosophy comes into Pinterest again. Before we create more of anything, let’s see what’s sitting there already.
Look at your blog posts, podcast episodes, YouTube videos, freebies, service pages, products, guides, or other resources.
What topics keep showing up?
If you’re a travel advisor and you’ve already written several posts about Hawaii, Disney vacations, and cruises, those topics start giving you obvious board directions.
If you’re a business owner who regularly teaches Pinterest strategy, content repurposing, and business systems, those recurring topics tell you something too.
You don’t need boards for every possible thing your audience could ever search.
You need boards that support the content and offers your business actually has.
That’s a much easier place to start.
A Clearer Board Structure Makes Pinterest Easier for You Too
There’s another reason I care about board organization that has nothing to do with search.
It makes Pinterest easier to manage.
When your boards match the main topics you already talk about, you’re not sitting down every week trying to figure out what in the world you’re supposed to pin.
You have categories that make sense. You know which content fits those categories. You can see the relationship between what you’ve created and where it belongs.
That’s when Pinterest starts feeling less random.
And for me, that’s the whole point of building a system around your content. I don’t want another platform where you have to reinvent everything every time you open it.
I want the pieces to connect.
What I Want You to Do Before You Make Another Pin
This week, don’t worry about creating a bunch of new graphics.
Open your Pinterest account and just look at your boards.
Read the names.
Notice what still represents your business and what doesn’t. Look for vague names that might make sense to you but wouldn’t mean much to someone searching. Notice whether the topics you actually create content about have a clear place on your account.
You may find that you don’t need a bunch of new content right now.
You might just need to make your existing Pinterest account a little easier to understand.
If you’d like a little more structure while you’re reviewing it, my free Pinterest Profile Checklist walks you through the other pieces worth checking, including your profile, boards, keywords, and links.
You already have valuable content. Let’s make sure Pinterest has a clear path to understand it.
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