So you want to learn how to make a Pinterest board secret or create a private Pinterest board from scratch?
Pinterest is the best visual search engine for finding ideas and inspiration. But the longer you use it, the more cluttered your profile will get as you create new boards for new topics throughout the years.
Now, if you are serious about following a Pinterest marketing strategy to drive massive free traffic to your website, chances are you don’t want pinners to see your personal stuff when they visit your profile, right?
So how can you hide individual boards and make them private on Pinterest?
Luckily, creating secret Pinterest boards or making existing boards secret is super easy. As soon as you make a board secret, your followers and other users can’t see the pins you save to it.
Now, how do you make a Pinterest board secret?
Let’s jump right in!
Please note: This post contains affiliate links to products I use, trust, and recommend. If you choose to purchase a helpful product using these links, I may receive a small commission for referring you – at no extra cost to you. These funds help me keep this blog up and running.
What are secret boards on Pinterest?
Secret boards on Pinterest can only be seen by you and anyone you invite to them.
When you open a secret board, you will see that board is marked as “Secret board”:
When you save a pin to a secret board, the person you saved from will not get a notification and the pin’s statistics will not increase. Also, once you start saving pins to a secret board, your home feed may include suggested content for that board.
If you want to share a secret board with others, you can invite friends to collaborate, too.
Why use secret Pinterest boards? 4 examples
Why would you want to use private and secret boards on Pinterest?
Here are a few examples:
1: Saving off-topic pins
Do you use Pinterest marketing to drive traffic to your blog, shop or website?
If you do, you should optimize your Pinterest boards for your niche. Hence, your boards should be relevant to what your blog or website is about.
For example, if you run a recipe blog, your boards should be related to cooking. That’s going to help your audience discover related content when they visit your profile.
However, chances are you will sometimes want to save a few off-topic pins to your boards. Perhaps you want to save decor ideas for your bedroom or travel tips for your next holiday?
If your profile and all your boards are related to cooking and you suddenly create 10 off-topic boards, your profile will look cluttered. Your real audience is still looking for those inspirational recipes, right?
This is where secret boards step into the game. You can create as many secret boards for whatever ideas you’re interested right now. And your followers won’t be distracted or confused by boards you use for your personal stuff.
2: Gathering pin design inspiration
Whether you’re new to Pinterest or have been pinning for a while, I’m sure you know how crucial it is to nail your pin design.
The truth is: pinners scroll through hundreds of pins on the platform. So the only way to catch their attention and generate clicks on your pins is to create pins that people want to click.
If you don’t, people will simply scroll past your pins in their feeds. Not cool.
Luckily, we have free tools like Canva to help us design stunning, click-worthy pins within minutes.
To save even more time, you can use pre-made Pinterest templates, too. All you need to do is open the templates in Canva, replace the text overlay placeholders with your own headlines, customize the colors, and publish your pins — it doesn’t get easier than this.
Now, sometimes you simply run out of design ideas for your next batch of pins.
The best way to overcome that designer’s block is to go on Pinterest to find new design and layout ideas!
You can quickly find fresh inspiration for designing even more beautiful, stunning Pinterest pins. Save them to a secret board and you’ll have a pool of ideas to come back to.
3: Brainstorming new content ideas for your blog
Coming up with new blog post ideas can be a lot of work. Sometimes you simply run out of ideas and brainstorming blog post topics feels overwhelming.
Pinterest is a fantastic platform for discovering new ideas for your next articles!
Start by searching for your overall blog topic and peruse the search results for new, fresh ideas.
Use more specific long-tail Pinterest keywords to find even more inspiration for a given topic.
When a pin catches your attention, save it to a secret board. When it’s time to plan your content calendar for the next few months, you’ll have a pool of content ideas to draw inspiration from.
4: Cooperating with other pinners
Let’s say you have a family event coming up in a few months. A wedding or a birthday, for example.
When you’re planning the menu or the decoration, Pinterest is your go-to platform for finding ideas and inspiration.
But chances are that you’re planning the party with other people, perhaps even a professional party planner.
Secret Pinterest boards allow you to save and share your ideas with others on Pinterest. That way, those boards won’t look out of place on your Pinterest account and your followers won’t get distracted.
For my web design business, I cooperate with my website clients on secret Pinterest boards every day. It’s an easy way to gather ideas to a shared board for later planning. When it’s time to set our goals and start designing the first drafts, we discuss the ideas on our secret board to determine which features, layout templates, and design ideas we want to draw inspiration from.
How to make a Pinterest board secret
Let’s start by making an existing board secret on your Pinterest account. This is perfect if you want to hide some of your older boards or simply clean up your Saved tab so that your audience can find your best content faster.
Log in to your Pinterest account and head over to your profile.
On the Saved tab, click on the pencil icon on the board you want to make secret:
In the board settings, activate the option “Keep this board secret” and click Done to save your settings:
Easy-peasy!
How to create a secret Pinterest board
Now let’s see how you can make a brand new Pinterest board secret when creating it.
Head over to the Saved tab on your profile, click on the plus symbol to the right and select Board:
Give your board a name, toggle “Keep this board secret”, and click Create:
You will now see a lock symbol on your new secret board on the Saved tab, indicating that it’s hidden from others:
How to make a secret Pinterest board public again
If you want to make your secret Pinterest board public again, here’s how to do it:
- Navigate to your board settings
- Deactivate the toggle for “Keep this board secret”
- Click Done to save the board settings
FAQ: Pinterest secret boards
Making a Pinterest board secret means that only you can see it. It’s like having a private scrapbook on Pinterest. No other Pinterest user can find or view your secret board.
There are a few reasons to make a board secret. Maybe you’re using it for personal inspiration, or perhaps you’re planning a surprise party and don’t want anyone to see your ideas. You might also use it to collect research for a blog post or product without sharing your findings just yet.
Absolutely! You can make any of your Pinterest boards secret, whether it’s a brand new one or one you’ve had for ages. It’s a simple process that I walk you through step-by-step in this guide.
Yes, you can! If you change your mind and want to share your secret board with the world, you can easily make it public again by editing the board settings and deactivating the toggle for “Keep this board secret”.
Nope, your followers won’t receive any notifications when you make a board secret. It’s like quietly slipping away from the spotlight.
Definitely! You can continue to add pins to your secret board just like any other board. It’s a great way to keep your ideas organized and to avoid confusing your audience by having random off-topic boards on your profile.
Since secret boards aren’t visible to others, they won’t impact your Pinterest analytics. Your stats will only reflect your public boards.
There’s no official limit on the number of secret boards you can have. Feel free to create as many as you need!
Don’t panic! Follow the quick steps earlier in this guide to make a secret board public again.
Final thoughts: How to create and use private Pinterest secret boards
Secret Pinterest boards allow you to use Pinterest for discovering ideas and inspiration for anything, regardless of whether or not it’s relevant to your Pinterest marketing strategy.
That said, if you want to drive massive free traffic to your blog or website through Pinterest, make sure to hide any boards not relevant to your target audience. After all, you want pinners to find content that they’re most likely to engage with and save to their boards. A bunch of off-topic boards can quickly result in a cluttered profile.
Now that you’re familiar with making your Pinterest boards secret, don’t miss my complete Pinterest marketing guide for beginners. It’s packed with hands-on, actionable techniques for any niche to help you amp up your Pinterest traffic strategy. I’ll see you inside the guide!
Keep learning:
- Pinterest SEO: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide (For Faster Traffic Growth)
- Affiliate Marketing on Pinterest: The Ultimate Guide (To Make Money)
