Pinterest unveiled this year a brand new and elegant feature named Guided Search that helps users find what they’re looking for fast and easy. The Guided Search features takes the shape of a tag bar, right under the Search box, displaying various categories connected to the keywords inserted by users and it looks like this:
Photo Source: https://about.pinterest.com
It looks so simple and so classy, users couldn’t possibly resist not loving it, also taken the fact that the major target for Pinterest users is focused on the female section. Not only is it simple and appealing, the Guided Search feature is also highly customised, based on an intricate set of parameters, including gender, geo-localisation, guides engagement and many other. Kevin Ma, one of Pinterest’s Discovery team software engineers recently provided with an extensive detailing on how Pinterest actually works and how Guided Search won our hearts so fast.
Pinterest’s clockwork, broken down to basics, is about placing popular guides on top for a couple of days, consolidating them as trending, then dropping them down the rank. Searches on Pinterest play a great role in the overall daily user traffic, and this is where Guided Search steps in. Since its release, the number of daily searches has reached a 25% growth, according to Kevin Ma.
The Guided Search feature provides a good perspective for app developers concerned with creating smart funnels for content discovery. Guided Search is keyword-triggered, it’s fast and it has a really friendly look, which makes it all the more useable. It is also data-powered, just like everything else on Pinterest.
Basically, you need sums of data to pull off an effective Guided Search-like feature, but, as long as you’ve got a solid platform of users and you keep your onboarding strategy on track, you can start exploring various means of data funnelling which can positively increase your traffic.
Pinterest came up with a fresh new perspective this year, and we’re expecting many more media presences to do the same, especially regarding mobile targeted audiences.
