How to Get More Impressions on Pinterest

Seeing your Pinterest impressions stagnate can be frustrating, especially when you're putting effort into creating great content. But boosting that number often comes down to a few key adjustments in your strategy. This guide breaks down exactly how to overhaul your Pinterest approach with a focus on SEO, content creation, and smart pinning habits that get your Pins seen by more people.

Understand What Pinterest Impressions Actually Mean

Before improving any metric, you need to know what it represents. On Pinterest, an impression is counted every time one of your Pins is shown on screen. This could be in someone's Home Feed, in search results, or in the Following tab. Impressions are your top-of-funnel metric, they measure your content's reach and visibility.

Think of it like this:

• Impressions: How many times your content appeared in front of eyeballs. This is your potential audience.
• Saves (Repins): How many people found your Pin valuable enough to save to their own boards. This signals quality to the algorithm.
• Outbound Clicks: How many people clicked through to your website, blog, or product page. This is often the ultimate goal for marketers and business owners.

More impressions create more opportunities for saves and clicks. It's the first and most foundational step in the chain. Your goal is to tell the Pinterest algorithm exactly what your content is about so it can show it to the right people at the right time. That all starts with treating Pinterest not as a social network, but as a visual search engine.

Master Pinterest SEO: The Foundation for High Impressions

The single most effective way to drive impressions is through strong Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Users come to Pinterest to search for ideas, inspiration, and solutions. By optimizing your Pins, boards, and profile with the right keywords, you help them find your content.

How to Find the Right Keywords

Keyword research on Pinterest isn't complicated. You just need to think like a user and use the platform's built-in tools. Here's a simple process:

1. Start with a Broad Topic: Think about your niche or the topic of your Pin. Let's say you're a food blogger focusing on easy meals. Your starting keyword might be "dinner recipes."
2. Use the Search Bar's Autocomplete: Type "dinner recipes" into the Pinterest search bar and look at the suggestions that pop up before you hit enter. You might see "dinner recipes healthy," "dinner recipes for two," or "dinner recipes easy quick." These are all high-volume search terms because Pinterest is showing you what other users are actively looking for.
3. Analyze the Guided Search Bubbles: After searching, look at the colorful bubbles just below the search bar. These represent related or more specific keywords that can help you niche down. For "dinner recipes," you might see bubbles like "Chicken," "Healthy," "Pasta," or "Family." This is a goldmine for understanding user intent and finding long-tail keywords.
4. Check Out Competitors: Look at the top-performing Pins for your target keywords. What phrases are they using in their titles and descriptions? Make a note of common themes and specific keyword combinations.

Where to Place Your Keywords for Maximum Impact

Once you have a list of relevant keywords, you need to strategically place them where the Pinterest algorithm (and users) can find them.

• Pin Titles: Your title is the most important piece of SEO real estate. It should be clear, compelling, and include your main keyword. A title like "Quick 20-Minute Lemon Garlic Pasta" is a world of difference from "My Fave Pasta."
• Pin Descriptions: Use this space to write a few natural-sounding sentences describing your Pin. Weave your primary and secondary keywords in, telling a story or providing valuable context. Explain what the user will get when they click the link - is it a full recipe, a tutorial, a shopping list?
• Board Titles & Descriptions: Your boards need keywords, too. Vague titles like "Things I Love" won't help you. Use descriptive, search-friendly titles like "Fall Fashion & Outfit Ideas" or "Modern Farmhouse Living Room." Then, use the board description to add more related keywords that describe the board's theme.
• Your Profile: Include a couple of your main keywords in your profile name or bio. This helps Pinterest understand what your entire account is about, which has a positive halo effect on all your Pins.

Create Eye-Catching Visual Content

Great SEO gets you in front of people, but great visuals make them stop scrolling. Pinterest is a visual platform first and foremost, so high-quality, attention-grabbing content is non-negotiable.

The Anatomy of a High-Performing Pin

Successful Pins typically share a few common traits:

• Vertical Format: Always use a 2:3 aspect ratio (e.g., 1000 x 1500 pixels). This format takes up the most space on mobile screens, making your Pin more prominent in the feed.
• High-Quality Imagery: Your photos and videos must be crisp, clear, and well-lit. Stock photos can work in a pinch, but original, authentic content almost always performs better.
• Text Overlay: Adding a bold headline directly onto your Pin image is one of the most effective ways to command attention. It instantly tells the user what your Pin is about without them needing to read the small description below. Use a font that is easy to read on a mobile device.
• Subtle Branding: Add your logo or website URL cleanly and unobtrusively at the top or bottom of your Pin. This helps build brand recognition over time and can help protect your content from being stolen.

Experiment with Different Pin Formats

Don't just stick to a single type of Pin. Pinterest offers several formats, and the algorithm loves diversity.

• Standard Pins: The classic static image Pin. This is the bread and butter of most Pinterest strategies and is excellent for driving traffic to blog posts or product pages.
• Video Pins: Video is incredibly engaging and tends to capture attention better than static images. Keep your videos short (15-60 seconds) and make sure they convey your message without sound, as many users watch with audio off. Use text overlays to highlight key steps or information.
• Idea Pins: This multi-page, video-and-image format is perfect for step-by-step tutorials, recipes, or listicles. Idea Pins are designed to keep users on the platform, so they are a powerful tool for growing your following and overall impressions. While they don't have a direct outbound link on each slide, they position you as an expert and build an engaged audience.

Optimize Your Pinning Strategy for Consistency

Pinterest rewards accounts that are active and consistent. Sporadic pinning won't get you very far. You need a rhythm that tells the algorithm your account is a reliable source of fresh, valuable content.

Prioritize Fresh Pins

For a long time, the strategy was to endlessly repin the same content. That has changed. Today, Pinterest's algorithm heavily prioritizes fresh Pins. A fresh Pin is a new image or video combination that has not been submitted to Pinterest before. It can still link to the same blog post or product page, but the visual itself must be new.

For one blog post, you could create 5-10 different Pin graphics with different images, headlines, and calls-to-action. Spacing these out over time provides a steady stream of fresh content that keeps the algorithm happy and gives you more chances to see which designs resonate with your audience.

Pin Consistently at the Right Times

Consistency is more important than volume. It is far better to pin 5 new images every single day than to upload 35 images once a week. This steady activity keeps your account active in the eyes of the algorithm. To find your best times, go to your Pinterest Analytics > Audience Insights. There you can see the days and times your specific audience is most active on the platform. Schedule your Pins to go out just before and during these peak activity windows.

Always Save to the Most Relevant Board First

This is a small but powerful detail. When you publish a new Pin, always save it to the most specific, relevant board first. For example, if you have a Pin about a "vegan lentil soup recipe," save it to your "Vegan Soup Recipes" board before saving it to a broader board like "Healthy Dinner Ideas." This initial save gives Pinterest a strong, immediate signal about your Pin's topic, helping it categorize and distribute the content to the right audience faster.

Tap into Seasonal Trends

Pinterest users are planners. They search for holiday ideas ("Christmas decorations"), seasonal recipes ("summer BBQ ideas"), and fashion inspiration ("fall outfits") weeks, if not months, in advance. Use the free Pinterest Trends tool to see when searches for certain topics begin to climb. Aligning your content calendar with these trends is one of the easiest ways to catch a wave of user interest and see a massive spike in impressions.

Final Thoughts

Boosting your impressions on Pinterest boils down to a clear, repeatable strategy. It's about combining strong keyword research with standout vertical visuals and maintaining a consistent posting schedule filled with fresh content. By treating Pinterest as the powerful search engine it is, you can stop guessing and start creating content that the algorithm wants to show and users are excited to find.

Planning this consistent flow of fresh Pins can feel like a full-time job. With our visual calendar, we make it easy to see your entire Pinterest content strategy at a glance and schedule your content weeks or even months in advance. Because Postbase was designed for visual-first platforms like Pinterest, you can manage all your Pins and short-form videos from one clean workspace, knowing your content will go live exactly when you plan it, every single time.