Skip to content

The 10 Most Popular Pinterest Categories

What’s a Pinterest category and why do categories matter? Categories used to be manually applied to Pinterest Boards to provide more context on the content therein, but this option has been removed. So, why do we care about categories? Knowing what’s popular can help you present your content in ways that reaches all new audiences and appears in new searches. Cool, right?

So, which are Pinterest’s most popular categories? Let’s start with a look at all the options.

What Pinterest Categories Are Available?

There are 33 categories to choose from – from Animals and pets to Women’s Fashion and nearly everything in between.

How to Find a List of Pinterest Categories

Pinterest Categories List:

Check out the list of Pinterest categories and the kinds of content you would find in each one. Might your content fit into more categories than you initially thought?

It may also help you determine whether Pinterest is a natural fit for your business, though there are an awful lot of people finding success from within the “Other” category! Just because your content doesn’t fit neatly into one of the categories doesn’t mean you can’t also generate traffic from Pinterest.

Want to skyrocket your website traffic? This simple guide is your passport to free traffic growth from Pinterest (even if you've never Pinned in your life.) Grab it now!

  • Animals and pets – cute critter photos and memes
  • Architecture – Some attainable inspirations and some total eye candy
  • Art – Wall art, drawings, how tos
  • Cars and motorcycles – Hotrods, antiques, and car shows
  • Celebrities – Mainly shots from movies and tabloids
  • DIY and crafts – Painting, sewing, crafts of all kinds!
  • Design – Home style ideas, drawings, design inspiration, graphics
  • Education – Resources and ideas for kids, parents, and teachers
  • Entertainment – Party planning, movies, books, tv
  • Food and drink – Recipes, recipes, and more recipes!
  • Gardening – How to grow anything
  • Geek – A place to share all those things that are so uncool they’re cool – superheroes, nerd humor, etc. 🙂
  • Hair and beauty – Hair and makeup
  • Health and fitness – Exercise and weight loss
  • History – Funny, artistic, and curious photos of old landmarks and cultural history
  • Holidays and events – Holidays, decorations, celebrations
  • Home decor – DIY Home decor, home decor inspiration
  • Humor – From clever to cheesy and a little PG-13, gifs and memes aplenty
  • Illustrations and posters – Paintings, posters, designs, drawings – total eye candy
  • Kids and parenting – Projects, learning tools, activities, crafts, parenting tips
  • Men’s fashion – Tips and products for the well-dressed man. Learn to tie a tie, match your socks, roll up your sleeves 🙂
  • Outdoors – Outdoor design, landscaping, and gardenscapes
  • Photography – Amateur and artistic photos plus helpful how tos
  • Products – Mainly product photos
  • Quotes – Inspirational quotes and poetry
  • Science and nature – Science experiments, learning resources, and astounding (and sometimes odd) nature photography
  • Sports – Sports memes and workouts
  • Tattoos – Inspiration for your next tattoo – in the form of tattoos, designs, and photos
  • Technology – Privacy protection, shortcuts and productivity hacks, coding tips, and cool products
  • Travel – Travel tips, destinations, and gorgeous photography
  • Weddings – Wedding dresses, etiquette, planning tips, invitations, jewelry
  • Women’s Fashion – Current trends, fashion to buy, how-tos
  • Other/Everything – Quotes, recipes, crafts, humor – EVERYTHING

The 10 Most Popular Categories on Pinterest

Technically, there’s no true way to see a list of the most popular Pinterest Board categories. BUT, Statista did a study in 2017 which provided some insight; and experience and observation can fill in the rest.

While Statista looked at general categories or topics of interest, we will map our most popular categories to actual Pinterest categories listed above.

Our mostly-unscientific list of the most popular categories on Pinterest, and not necessarily in exact order features:

  1. Food and Drink – Showing up in the #1 and #2 spots in the Statista study (for food, drinks, and hobbies) – there’s no doubt that Pinterest is a go-to resource for all things recipes. In fact, some people report using Pinterest SOLELY for finding recipe ideas!
  2. Home Decor – The first place people go for home interior ideas? PINTEREST!!
  3. Travel – Is there any better way to plan a trip? I think NOT! Group Boards make it easy to collaborate with fellow travelers.
  4. Health and Fitness – Whether we follow through or not, Pinterest is a great place to find workout ideas and health information.
  5. Women’s Fashion – “What to wear to a spring wedding….” There’s no better place for style inspiration!
  6. Hair and Beauty – How many of you have saved Pins to show to your stylist? 🙋‍♀️
  7. DIY & Crafts – Part of art, art supplies, and hobbies, DIY is HUGE on Pinterest.
  8. Entertainment – Quotes, books, movies, music etc. Inspirational quotes, in particular, are incredibly popular.
  9. Weddings – There’s a reason for the stereotype. There’s nothing you CAN’T find for planning the wedding of your dreams on Pinterest.
  10. Holidays & Events – Pinners are planners and doers. Seasonal content is incredibly popular on Pinterest.

How to Choose Which Pinterest Categories to Target

While we might be inclined to try to wedge our content into Pinterest’s popular categories, the most important factor is going to be where your Pin really belongs. If you have a Pin for your article on “Food Photography,” you could present it in a way that would appeal to people interested in “Food and Drink.” But you wouldn’t try to make it (by changing text on image, title, and description), fit in the “home decor” category just because it’s a popular one!

That same Pin for “Food Photography” could be presented in such a way that it appeals to those interested in the “Design” category by changing the photo you use, the text on image, the title, and description. Remember to always save it to the most relevant Board first (generally you’ll look to the Board name to decide relevancy) and not to save it to more than 10 boards. Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to where you save your Pins. Quickly saving Pins at the best times for engagement and to more than one Board at a sensible intervals is where a Pinterest marketing tool like Tailwind can make you more effective AND efficient.

Create. Schedule. Publish. All in One Place.
Start a Free Trial of Tailwind for Pinterest!
  • Make beautiful Pins faster than ever before with Tailwind Create
  • Get more engagement with SmartSchedule.
  • Collaborate, share and grow with Tailwind Communities
  • Automatically reshare your best Pins at safe intervals with SmartLoop.

Was this helpful? Pin me!

Ecommerce Transformation: A Case Study on Tailwind Ads’ 525% Traffic Growth Success for Home Stitchery Decor

Ecommerce Transformation: A Case Study on Tailwind Ads’ 525% Traffic Growth Success for Home Stitchery Decor

Home Stitchery Decor is a Calgary, Alberta-based business that specializes in creating modern farmhouse home decor items. Founded…
Read More
AI Email Writers: An Email Marketing Superpower

AI Email Writers: An Email Marketing Superpower

Every small business owner can relate to the challenge of not having enough time and resources to market…
Read More
<strong>AI In Ecommerce: Where To Begin?</strong>

AI In Ecommerce: Where To Begin?

AI is causing shockwaves with the paradigm shift it is causing across verticals — and the ecommerce industry…
Read More
<strong>AI Social Media Content Marketing: The Definitive Guide [2023 Edition]</strong>

AI Social Media Content Marketing: The Definitive Guide [2023 Edition]

With AI social media tools, content marketers can create social media posts and all sorts of long-form, short-form,…
Read More
AI for Blog Writing: How To Use It?

AI for Blog Writing: How To Use It?

Lots of companies are turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to help them create blog posts and generate articles.…
Read More
AI For Small Business: Where To Use It?

AI For Small Business: Where To Use It?

Many small businesses working with limited resources think that new technology and new tools driven by AI are…
Read More
6 Benefits of Using AI Writing Tools for Content Creation

6 Benefits of Using AI Writing Tools for Content Creation

Writing content can be tedious, but with AI writing tools, it becomes easier and faster. Learn the 6…
Read More
The Power of LinkedIn Hooks: How to Stand Out and Get Noticed

The Power of LinkedIn Hooks: How to Stand Out and Get Noticed

Understanding LinkedIn Hooks: What They Are and Why They Matter To truly understand the power of LinkedIn hooks,…
Read More
The Only Instagram Image Size Guide You Need in 2023

The Only Instagram Image Size Guide You Need in 2023

Let’s face it: we’re living for all the fantastic new ways you can post your best photos and…
Read More

56 Comments

  1. Avatar
    Janet Granger

    Thanks for this! The problem I have with categories is not that I don’t know which category my pins should fit into (I sell dollhouse needlepoint kits, so DIY and Crafts is obviously a good fit), but that I set up my boards to be in the DIY and Crafts category, and the next time I look, Pinterest has undone it, so that it has gone back to having no category set! This has happened several times. If this is so ‘flaky’, what happens to the ranking of my pins if Pinterest ‘thinks’ I haven’t allocated a category for my boards?

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      You’re welcome. I’m so glad this was helpful. You know, I have seen this myself if I click on the edit Board option from the main Boards page, but if I click in to the Board itself and edit from there, the category IS set. Can you try that and let me know if it’s the same for you?

  2. Avatar
    Simone de Vlaming

    Thank you for sharing this with us Alissa! I appreciate your knowledge and ability to share this with us. I was wondering if you could write a post about organizing your Pinterest boards, what is the right amount of Pinterest boards etc.? I would be very interested in learning more about diving into a category and fully optimize my boards. 🙂

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      You’re welcome, Simone! Organizing your Pinterest Boards is probably not something I would spend time on – as people are more likely to find your content via search or the home feed than from browsing your account. The right number of Boards is a pretty individual matter. It depends on the content you create and how many logical ways you can break it out. So, if you write about vegan recipes, you could have a ton of Boards for each kind of vegan recipe (desserts, drinks, easy, for kids, dinner, lunch, snacks, etc.) and your Pins might belong in several. Does that help? Thanks for stopping by! ~ Alisa

  3. Avatar
    Christine Rößler

    Hi
    What is the right board for online marketing tips? Best regards Christine

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      Hi Christine, I usually go with Other – there just isn’t a great option!

  4. Avatar
    Anne-Claude Toral

    Dear Alisa,
    Thanks for this new blog – very very helpful, like all your previous blogs too!
    Warm regards
    Annie

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      You’re welcome! I’m glad you found it useful, Anne. ~ Alisa

  5. Avatar
    kuntal

    I have work from home boards, so which category I can choose?

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      I would go with Other. Business niches don’t have very specific options!

  6. Avatar
    Soumya Gayatri

    Thanks for this, Alisa. I am a travel blogger and I have a board called Food + World Cuisines. These are not recipes but round-ups of the best food in countries around the world. I have the category set to Travel at the moment. But sometimes I pin recipes of dishes from other countries. Now, I am not quite sure if the board belongs to Food or Travel. Could you please clarify? Thanks!

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      Hi, Soumya! You would set some Boards to travel and some to food! Share the Pins to any relevant Boards. Hope that helps!

  7. Avatar
    Allaeddine DN

    Really detailed and helpful post, thanks a lot Meredith. I haveOne quick questions tho, where would you put finance/business/marketing related post? Do you put in the others section? Like it’s crazy how Pinterest has yet to make a category for those kind of niches.

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      Hi, Alisa here. Yeah, it is a little surprising that there are no categories for those common industries! I would go with Other….

  8. Avatar
    Gabriela Green

    Hi Alissa, thank you for sharing this! I keep looking at these categories and was wondering where can I fit my boards which are about mindfulness and meditation? None of the categories seem to be a good fit.

    • Alisa Meredith
      Alisa MeredithModerator

      Hi Gabriela! You’re welcome. I think I would go with health and fitness! You could try “Other,” but I think that seems relevant. ~ Alisa

  12. How to Use Pinterest Without Worrying About the AlgorithmPingback

    […] from the bookmarking angle was home decor and home improvement.Guess which two categories are the most-searched-for on Pinterest? Hint: I’ve just mentioned them both. Now, since neither of these really apply to my main […]

  19. What Are Pinterest Categories? – ErickkasysavanePingback

    […] Categories used to be manually applied to Pinterest Boards to provide more context on the content therein, but this option has been removed. So, why do we care about categories? Knowing what's popular can help you present your content in ways that reaches all new audiences and appears in new searches. via […]

  40. 10 Best Facebook Alternatives Apps for Your SmartphonePingback

    […] The majority of concepts are still aspirational and to time- or cost-intensive to be implemented in real life. It’s possible that you don’t give a rip about what anyone in your “friends” group is thinking or doing at all times. On Facebook, you’ve seen plenty of that over the years. Instead, you’re seeking wedding-related decor ideas, meal ideas for this week, and travel suggestions. You can find anything you’re interested in on Pinterest. […]

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

shares