What is Pinterest? With Pinterest, the “visual discovery engine,” you can build dream boards, share branded content for your business, and tap into the platform’s massive traffic potential and one of the best ways to do that is by using Pinterest categories.
As a business owner or blogger, you can share Pins to educate your followers, lead people in your target market to explore your ideas, and even persuade them to make a purchase.
Pinterest continues growing in popularity for both businesses and consumers. In 2023, it had 465 million monthly active users. It keeps growing in popularity among many different demographics, too: women (of course), Millennials, Gen Z, men, dads, and anyone with a green thumb or DIY mentality.
So how can your business best take advantage of Pinterest’s massive consumer base and drive more traffic to your website? An essential part of the equation is understanding how to take correctly use Pinterest categories.
It’s time to use Pinterest to its fullest potential, viewing it as a search engine with the ability to drive qualified, targeted traffic straight to your business. Sharing valuable content in all the right places—where your target audience is spending time searching for brands like yours—can turn Pinterest into a goldmine for your company.
Let’s walk through everything you need to know about Pinterest categories so you can organize your Pins and Boards in the best way possible for maximum results.
What are Pinterest Categories? And Why Does They Matter?
Pinterest organizes similar topics and interests by category. If you’re looking for haircut ideas before heading to the salon, for example, you can browse the “beauty” category. You’ll find everything from trending hairstyles to crazy color ideas.
Pinterest forms specific categories for the most popular topics people search for on the platform. Having a good grasp of which categories people are searching for most often can help you form a more effective social media marketing plan for your business. Creating Pins for popular topics can result in more shares, clicks, and traffic for your business.
Main Pinterest Categories List
Here are the major categories you can choose from when building new Pinboards and searching for the best topics to cover on Pinterest.
- Holidays: Events, decorations, celebrations
- Christmas: Festive décor, recipes, DIY ideas, party planning
- Art: Tips, how-to guides, inspiration, techniques
- Animals: Pets, memes, baby animals
- Architecture: Modern homes, urban spaces, classic buildings
- Design: Packaging, book design, lettering, typography
- DIY and crafts: Projects, instructions, patterns
- Beauty: Hair, skin, nails, makeup
- Event planning: Menus, party favors, table settings
- Food and drink: Recipes, snacks, meals, prep
- Men’s fashion: Casual looks, formal outfits, accessories, sneakers
- Home décor: Popular styles, furniture, decorating
- Lawn and garden: Landscaping, planting, flowers
- Quotes: Humor, mindfulness, love
- Travel: Cities, beaches, traveler tips, bucket lists
- Weddings: Venues, outfits, invitations
- Women’s fashion: Casual looks, formal outfits, capsule wardrobes, cozy footwear
What’s a Pinterest Interest?
What a great question! As we already mentioned, Pinterest has its preliminary list of categories to strategically group Pins for users. But as you may have noticed, there aren’t that many categories when you consider the billions of Pins floating around the platform.
To break down their categories into more specific subcategories, Pinterest created “interests.” For example, the home décor category breaks down into various interests that users can search to find what they’re seeking. The top subcategories of home décor include room décor, flooring, and kitchen.
Suppose you want ideas for hanging wall art in your office or creating home floral arrangements. You can search for those specific interests rather than treading through enormous categories in hopes of stumbling across the right content.
The 10 Most Popular Pinterest Categories
This list changes regularly. For a current list of the most popular categories on Pinterest, click the “Analytics” dropdown menu from your business account, and choose “Audience Insights.” Next, click on “All Pinterest users” from the menu. You’ll find the most popular categories and related interests on the search engine, along with other useful demographic information.
If your niche doesn’t fit neatly into any of these categories, don’t worry. There are plenty of unlisted categories to choose from that still get plenty of traffic to make a difference for your business.
Right now, the top 10 Pinterest categories are:
- Home décor
- DIY and crafts
- Entertainment
- Education
- Art
- Women’s fashion
- Food and drinks
- Beauty
- Event planning
- Gardening
Let’s dive in and explore each of these categories individually for a better grasp of which ones are best for your business to focus on.
1. Home Décor
Home decorators, interior designers, and remodelers—unite! Home décor is where Pinterest surfers are looking for creative color palettes, ideas for different rooms of the house, and accessories to make every space unique. This category also encompasses DIY tips and tricks for homeowners, upcycling ideas, and more.
Top Subcategories for Home Décor
- Room décor
- Home accessories
- Wall
- Home accents
- Exterior
- Kitchen
- Bedroom
- Living room
- Flooring
- Bathroom
2. DIY and Crafts
DIY and crafts is the second most popular category on Pinterest, which is no surprise. The pandemic has led to a surge in DIY home improvement projects. With so many of us confined to our homes for long periods, we’ve had more time and energy to spend on fixing things up and making changes to improve our lifestyles.
The same goes for crafts and creative hobbies. More people have recently picked up or reconnected with hands-on activities like crocheting, scrapbooking, knitting, and flower pressing.
If you sell craft kits, knitting patterns, or handmade goods, or if you’re a contractor or interior designer, you should concentrate your efforts on the DIY and crafts category. Share all your tricks for converting junk to functional home pieces and how to make macramé plant hangers. We’re all ears—or in this case, eyes.
Top Subcategories for DIY and Crafts
- DIY projects
- Fabric crafts
- Upcycled crafts
- Knitting and crochet
- Kids’ crafts
- Cloths
- DIY home and decorations
- DIY event
- DIY stationery
- Sewing
3. Entertainment
Men and women use Pinterest to find quotes from favorite actors, band lyrics, ideas for movie nights, and TV show recommendations. Entertainment brands can use Pinterest to advertise new releases, run targeted campaigns, and share top recommendations.
Top Subcategories for Entertainment
- Movies
- Movies by genre
- Humor
- Music
- Celebrities
- BooksBook genres
- Memes
- Gaming
- Bands
4. Education
Teachers and parents of homeschoolers love searching Pinterest for innovative activities and lessons for the kiddos. You’ll find field trip ideas, how to conduct fun experiments at home, and engaging arts and crafts. From the looks of the top interests, science teachers love using Pinterest!
Top Subcategories for Education
- Subjects
- Science
- Art education
- Physical science
- Education level
- History
- Life science
- Applied science
- Language arts
- Teacher resources
5. Art
The art category covers everything from history and museums to drawing techniques and art supplies. If you’re an artist, teacher, photographer, tattooist, or designer, you can share your knowledge, work, and tutorials with the world. They’ll love you for it.
Top Subcategories for Art
- Drawing
- Photography
- Painting
- Body art
- Painting media
- Photography subjects
- Tattoo
- People photography
- Digital art
- Fonts and calligraphy
6. Women’s Fashion
If you own an online clothing boutique, have your own clothing line, or own a brick-and-mortar retail store, it’s time to familiarize yourself with the women’s fashion category. Fashion bloggers are welcome here, too.
Create boards sharing the latest fashion trends, new styles, and different types of clothing and accessories. Pinterest is an exceptional place to grow a unique following of fashionistas to build your brand.
Top Subcategories for Women’s Fashion
- Women’s jewelry and accessories
- Dresses
- Women’s style
- Women’s bottoms
- Women’s outfits by occasions
- Dresses by style
- Women’s tops
- Dresses by occasion
- Women’s shoes
- Skirts
7. Food and Drink
If you’re a chef, restaurant owner, or food blogger, you should post your gorgeous showpieces on Pinterest. People are continually searching for new recipes and party food ideas, especially around the holidays.
The “desserts” subcategory is by far the most popular, followed by “special diet.” I wonder how many Pinners are double-dipping.
Top Subcategories for Food and Drink
- Desserts
- Special diet
- World cuisine
- Fruit
- Drinks
- Cake
- Dairy
- Vegetables
- Meat
- Healthy recipes
8. Beauty
Hair seems to be the most popular topic in the beauty category. Many Pinners go straight to Pinterest for ideas to show their stylist before heading to the hair salon for a cut or color. If you’re into makeup, hair, or nails, you should share your before-and-after photos. Post tutorials, top trends, and ideas for experimenting at home to boost engagement and win loyal fans.
Top Subcategories for Beauty
- Hair
- Hairstyles
- Makeup
- Nails
- Haircut ideas
- Skincare
- Nail art
- Haircare
- Eye makeup
- Hair color
9. Event Planning
Pinterest users are also avid planners. From surprise birthdays to fancy holiday parties, Pinterest is the go-to platform for planning spectacular events. Event planners full of handy tips, designers with planning-related products, and organization gurus—you can go to town in this category!
Top Subcategories for Event Planning
- Holiday
- Personal celebration
- Christmas
- Birthday
- Gifts
- Halloween
- School celebration
- Baby shower
- Halloween costume
- Christmas décor
10. Lawn and Garden
Pinterest users also love finding new landscaping ideas and gardening tips. If you have a green thumb or you’re a landscaping expert, you can share your creative ideas, best plant care tips, DIY ideas to spruce up the yard, and budget-saving ideas to win over the plant lovers.
Top Subcategories for Gardening
- Planting
- Garden design
- Plants
- Garden types
- Landscaping
- Backyard
- Yard
- Flowers
- Planting ideas
- Desert plants
How to Choose the Right Pinterest Categories for Your Business
If your Pinterest content doesn’t seem to naturally fit into any of the popular categories we just covered, we have some tips for you. Run through this list of questions each time you need to categorize a Pin or board on Pinterest.
- Who’s your target audience?
- What do they do for a living?
- Why are they on Pinterest?
- Did they search a specific category to find your content?
- What category seems to fit your content best? You may need to look outside the “top 10.”
- Do the Pins inside the most logical category seem to fit your content or complement it?
Don’t try to “stuff” your Pins to make them fit into a category just because it’s more popular than another. Searchers are looking for specific categories and topics that fall into them. If they come across one of your Pins in a category where it doesn’t belong, the chances of them clicking are slim.
Always choose the most relevant category available for every one of your boards.
How to Fully Optimize Your Pinterest Boards for Best Results
A Pinterest board is where you save a collection of Pins. You can categorize your Pins by saving them to specific boards on your profile. Pinterest allows users to save up to 2,000 boards and 200,000 Pins. Your boards can be public or secret (visible only to you—the account owner).
Optimizing your boards for search helps users find what they’re looking for fast. When your boards are neat and organized, labeled accurately, and attractive, you’ll get more clicks, views, and conversions.
As you add new, optimized Pins to your boards, they can appear in users’ feeds—if you share similar interests or if they’re looking for what you have to offer.
Here are some quick tips to help you optimize your Pinterest boards:
- Use keyword research to name your boards.
- Optimize your board titles for search.
- Add a relevant cover photo to each board.
- Add accurate, engaging descriptions that contain relevant keywords naturally. Make sure you tell people what your boards are all about!
- Choose the most relevant Pinterest category for each of your boards.
- Organize your boards logically.
- Fill your boards with Pins that have similar content.
- Keep your content fresh by adding new Pins regularly.
- Consider adding subsections to large boards to help users find what they’re looking for faster.
- Try to keep all your boards and content within your niche.
- Keep up with changing trends, seasons, and holidays. Designate separate boards for showcasing seasonal Pins.
Make Your Brand Pinterest-Ready in 5 Days Flat
MeetEdgar is proud to be a Pinterest Marketing Partner. You can now use Edgar for creating, scheduling, and publishing Pins to Pinterest! Our new handy-dandy title means we have the expertise to take your Pinterest marketing to the next level. We’d love to share all our best practices and proven tactics with you so you can grow your business and hit your wildest goals.
If you’re ready to supercharge your Pinterest strategy, you can start by taking our 5-day Perfect Pin Plan. It’s an easy-to-follow email course designed to make your brand Pinterest-ready in five days flat. We’ll help you map out your Pinterest plan from beginning to end with step-by-step instructions and worksheets.
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And Why Does They Matter?
Pinterest organizes similar topics and interests by category.