Complete Guide: How To Organize Pinterest Boards

by Theja Pk
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Figuring out how to organize Pinterest boards can be overwhelming, but they’re also the cornerstone of growing successfully on the platform.

Whether you’re a beginner with a brand-new Pinterest business account wondering how many boards to create or a seasoned user looking to refresh your profile, this post is for you.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

  • Why Pinterest boards matter for growth
  • How to create and organize boards effectively
  • When to delete, archive, or make boards secret
  • Answers to common questions about managing your boards

Let’s jump in.

The Basics

Why Should You Even Care About Board Organization

A Pinterest board is simply a digital bulletin board where you gather and organize pins around a specific topic or theme.

Here’s why organizing your boards matters:

  1. Boost Your Content’s Visibility – when your boards are well-organized, Pinterest can correctly index your content so your pins appear in front of the right audience. After all, what’s the point of putting so much effort into Pinterest marketing if your content doesn’t reach your target customer?
  2. Create a User-Friendly Profile – organized boards make your profile easy to navigate. When potential readers or customers visit your account, they can quickly find what they’re looking for.

Board Creation Strategy

When I first started diving into Pinterest marketing, I came across 2 main strategies for creating boards – both of which are good options.

I’ve tested both and found that I prefer method 2, but I’ll share both here so you can decide which one fits your content.

1. THE CONTENT PILLAR STRATEGY

This is the most common approach and involves organizing your boards based on the types of content you create.

Here are a few examples:

  • Food Blogger: Boards organized by recipe types like vegan recipes and chicken dishes or by equipment like slow cooker meals.
  • Travel Blogger: Boards organized by location, such as by country (Finland, Australia, UK) or by region (European cities, Asian cities).

It’s straightforward and intuitive for most niches, making it a great starting point.

2. THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY STRATEGY

I picked up this approach from Heather Farris. While it’s designed for e-commerce sellers, I’ve found it quite effective for bloggers.

It involves structuring your boards around the customer’s journey—from discovering your content to making a purchase.

Here is an example using a coffee maker.

Image adapted from Moz

For New Users – Starting From Scratch

How To Create A Board

As most Pinterest business users use their desktop, I’ll stick to that moving forward for the instructions and to avoid overwhelming you with too much information.

There are 2 ways to create a new board on the web – using the saved tab on your profile and while saving a new pin.

1. USING THE SAVED TAB ON PROFILE

This is the same regardless of which account type you have.

  1. Go to the saved tab on your profile
  2. Click the “+” icon in the bottom right-hand corner

2. WHILE SAVING A NEW PIN

  1. Click on the boards drop-down
  2. Select “create board”

Now that you’ve created your boards, don’t forget to optimize their board titles & descriptions and add board covers if you’d like to give your profile a more cohesive look.

Optimizing Board Titles And Descriptions

The foundation of a really good board title and description is your keywords. So, if you haven’t done that yet, I’d start with some good ol’ keyword research.

Once you have that, here are a few tips to optimize your board titles and descriptions:

  • avoid cutesy or clever names like “wine o’clock” or “berry delicious” (they’re funny, I know), but unless persons are actually searching for these terms, don’t waste precious Pinterest SEO real estate by trying to be witty.
  • choose long tail keywords that are 3-6 words long. Going too narrow, like “Vegan recipes” or “Blogging,” will be too hard to rank.
  • use formulas and AI to write your descriptions faster (more on that below)

Here’s a quick formula I got from Kim Herrington’s blog that helped me write my board descriptions:

[What content is featured on the board] + [The problem the content will solve] + [Who the content is for]

Examples:

  • Blogging tips for beginners: Highlighting the best blogging tips for beginners starting on their online journey. This board helps you solve the challenge of getting started by offering a variety of resources that simplify the process. It’s perfect for aspiring bloggers and content creators looking for a leg up in the digital world.
  • Easy chicken dinners: Featuring a variety of easy chicken dinner recipes, this board is designed to help you quickly prepare delicious and healthy meals for your family. Perfect for busy parents, home cooks, and anyone looking for simple and tasty dinner ideas.

CHATGPT PROMPT:

Using the following formula, generate a Pinterest board description using these keywords:
– {insert niche specific KWs}
– [What content is featured on the board] + [The problem the content will solve] + [Who the content is for]

FAQ: How many boards should I create?
Unfortunately, there is no magic number. If you are new to Pinterest, start off with 3-5 boards, and as you publish more content, you can create more boards.

Avoid having too many empty, inactive boards and always prioritize board relevancy over volume.

According to Pinterest, you can have as many as 2000 boards! (but who really has time to keep track of all of that).

For Existing Users – Refreshing Your Profile

If you’re refreshing your keywords or rebranding to target a new audience, checking your Pinterest analytics is the best place to start.

This will help you identify which boards are performing well and driving the most engagement so you can build on what’s already working.

Once you’ve decided which boards to keep, there are 3 main options for handling the ones you no longer want – archive them, make them secret, or delete them.

Here’s a simple breakdown of each.

HOW THEY’RE DISPLAYED THROUGHOUT YOUR PROFILE:

  • public boards: at the top of your profile
  • archived boards and deleted boards are at the bottom of your profile
  • secret boards can be found in either public boards or archived boards, and you can spot them by the little “lock” symbol

1. Archived Boards

Think of archiving a board as a “temporary deletion” of a board. If you’re not sure whether you’ll need the board again in the future, then this is the option to use.

When I started my Pinterest profile, I mostly created content around books, so I had a lot of author name boards and book genre boards. As I shifted my content more toward blogging and online business tips, I archived a lot of boards that I didn’t need anymore (as you can tell in the image above).

I could have deleted these as well, but I didn’t like such a permanent option.

HOW TO ARCHIVE/UNARCHIVE A PINTEREST BOARD:

To archive or unarchive a board, simply adjust the board settings using the 3-dot menu.

Remember, you cannot pin to archived boards, but you can restore them anytime.

2. Deleted boards

If you are more confident in your decisions than I am, feel free to delete any boards you know you will not need again in the future.

You’ll find these at the very bottom of your profile, and you have 7 days to restore the board if you change your mind.

FAQ: Can I delete multiple boards at once?
At this time, bulk deletion is only possible with pins and not boards.

HOW TO RECOVER A DELETED PINTEREST BOARD:

To restore a deleted board, select “restore boards” at the bottom of your profile and choose the ones you wish to restore.

3. Secret boards

Secret boards are the only private boards that you can still add pins to.

USE CASES FOR SECRET BOARDS:

  • gathering inspiration for a personal event that you don’t want the public to see
  • collaborating with a private client or team member
  • plan product launches, content ideas, and marketing strategies without revealing to your competitors
  • collect pins related to personal hobbies or interests that you prefer to keep private.
  • mood boards for projects that you’re not ready to share with the world
  • private journaling – where you can pin articles, quotes, and images that are personally meaningful.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR BOARD SECRET: 2 WAYS

  1. go into board settings and check the box that says “Keep this board secret.” You will then see the small lock icon on the board cover.
  2. while creating a new board, you will see the same “Keep this board secret checkbox to select.

HOW TO MAKE A SECRET BOARD PUBLIC AGAIN?

Simply unselect the checkboxes above, and the lock icon will disappear. You can do this at any time.

Board Sections, Sorting & Merging

Board Sections

Board sections are a way to organize your Pinterest boards into smaller, more specific categories. Think of them as subfolders within a board.

For example, if you have a “Taco Recipes” board, you could create sections like “Chicken Taco Recipes,” “Beef Taco Recipes,” and “Vegetarian Taco Recipes.”

SHOULD YOU USE SECTIONS?

While sections might seem like a convenient way to keep your boards tidy, there are some important drawbacks to consider that make regular boards a better option:

  1. High Maintenance – keeping track of what’s a section versus a board can get confusing and requires extra effort to manage. It’s much simpler to just use boards throughout.
  2. Limited Third-Party Tool Support – you can’t pin directly to sections using third-party scheduling tools like Tailwind; only Pinterest’s native scheduler supports this.
  3. No Separate SEO Optimization – sections don’t let you add their own descriptions or keywords—they rely on the description of the parent board. This means you miss the chance to optimize each section for better indexing and visibility.

Sorting Boards

Customizing the visible boards on your profile is a great way to showcase recent or seasonal content or your business’s main content pillars.

  • go to your profile and choose the filters icon in the bottom left corner above your boards
  • choose one of the 3 ways available – alphabetically, custom, or last pin added.

I use the last pin added sort because I’d like my most recent content to be at the top.

Merging Boards

So you made the mistake of creating way too many boards and way too many sections. Don’t worry, you can just merge them.

But a few words of caution from Pinterest before you do that:

  • followers don’t transfer from the primary board to the destination board, so you will lose all followers of the primary board.
  • merging boards with different privacy settings (eg. secret board with public board) will result in the combined board taking the settings of the destination board.
  • if you want to undo the merge, you will have to create a new board and move the pins back in bulk.

2 WAYS TO MERGE BOARDS:

  1. You can go into the board’s 3-dot menu and choose merge (screenshot)
  2. Or you can simply drag and drop the board unto the other one (video)
how to merge boards using the drag-and-drop feature

FAQs About Pinterest Boards

1. How many boards should I create?

Unfortunately, there is no magic number. If you are new to Pinterest, start off with 3-5 boards, and as you publish more content, you can create more boards.

Avoid having too many empty, inactive boards.

According to Pinterest, you can have as many as 2000 boards! (but who really has time to keep track of all of that).

2. If I make some of my boards private, will it reduce my views?

It’s possible since Pinterest might re-index your content, which can cause a temporary drop in views. However, views from irrelevant boards or content wouldn’t have helped you in the long run anyway, so it’s worth it for better targeting.

3. Should I delete old pins from boards that no longer apply to my niche?

No, it’s not worth your time. Deleting old pins has little impact, and your time is better spent creating new, fresh pins that align with your current strategy.

4. If my old account has other people’s pins on my boards, should I delete them?

Again, it’s better to focus on creating new pins rather than spending time deleting old ones. Pinterest values fresh, relevant content, so prioritize that instead.

5. Should I use Pinterest group boards?

Group boards were originally designed for collaboration within a niche, but their effectiveness has significantly decreased over the years as Pinterest’s algorithm now favors fresh content.

Personally, I don’t join group boards because the time spent posting to them is better invested in creating new Pinterest graphics that perform better.

Conclusion

So there, you have it – everything you need to know about organizing your Pinterest boards.

I hope this guide was helpful and cleared up any confusion you may have had.

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