Pinterest keywords: Does spelling matter?
Anyone with basic knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO) knows that keyword spelling and order matter. The term “keyword” is a term used to refer to words or phrases that make it possible for people to find your content. When people search on search engines such as Google.com or on various social media channels, such as Pinterest, they find your posts based on the words and phrases used.
The spelling of keywords matters to search engines like Google.com and Bing.com, as well as the order in of the words within a keyword phrase. Even the singular (dog) versus plural (dogs) have differences in how much traffic they can bring to your website. But does spelling affect the results the Pinterest’s algorithm? Let us compare two similar phrases on Pinterest to see if the spelling matters!
Pinterest has more than 150 million monthly active users worldwide. Although that pales in comparison to Facebook, it is a good place to share content. Popular categories include home decor, do-it-yourself, fashion, and food. If your business fits into one of these top categories, then be sure to optimize your content so it can be found!
Pinterest has worked to expand outside of the United States. Over 50 percent of Pinterest users are outside if the US. This has helped reduce the gender imbalance on the social media channel. How does the global user base affect keyword choices if you are trying to get the maximum exposure for your product or brand?
I did a little keyword research of my own. Keyword phrases using the word “color” must be very popular on Pinterest. The word color fits in naturally with fashion and décor!
I am just poking with my only going being to write a blog post about Pinterest SEO keywords so I decided to pick something fun. I chose a random keyword phrase, “coloring pages” to compare to the results of “colouring pages.” Does one “u” really make a difference?
Spoiler alert! The answer is “yes.”
I used SEMRush to give me traffic volumes for the phrase “coloring pages.” The result of from the US database is listed below. Note this is search volume data from search engines, not Pinterest! The volume shows the monthly search volume each phrase gets.
Keyword Overview “coloring pages”
US Keyword Overview “coloring pages”
Volume: 246K
Number of results: 62.7M
Next, I searched for “colouring pages” in the US database and returned this data:
US Keyword Overview “colouring pages”
Volume: 880
Number of results: 13.5M
As expected the search volume was lower for the British English spelling. A quick check of the UK database showed a much larger volume, but not as high as the US database. So the phrase is more popular but not as popular as in the US with the American English spelling.
UK Keyword Overview “colouring pages”
Volume: 18.1K
Number of results: 14.9M
How does this compare on Pinterest? Will the two phrases show the same disparity in search volume? We do not have any way to count the search volume results since Pinterest does not natively give us any tools on natural queries. There isn’t anything in the Promoted Pins ads manager either! But we can still get some idea of how popular a phrase is, if we poke around a little bit
First, I searched for “coloring pages” in the search bar. I see that the search results were endlessly populated, no matter how I broke it down: Buyable Pins, all pins, boards, or people! Then I searched for “colouring pages.”
Only one person turned up in the search result! What a difference? There were still endless boards named “coloring pages” [Figure 1] but all used the word spelled with a “u” in it. It simply matches the search term.
Even if we go into the Promoted Pins ads manager, we can see that both spelling exist. A campaign would have to be setup t include all spelling variations.
However, we see a disparity when we use the search bar at the top of a Pinterest account.[Figure 2] Type in “coloring pages” and you will see pins, boards and suggestions with the American spelling (No “u” in the spelling). If I search for “colouring pages”, the suggested search phrases have a mix of both spellings but the boards and pins use the spelling I actually searched for.
So yes, spelling does matter. If you have a product that has alternate spellings or names, then it is best practices to create a board and pins with for each variation of the spelling.
Disclaimer: I receive a commissions for purchases made through SEMRush links in this post