As with Mrs Beaton's old recipe for Jugged Hare "You first must catch your hare!", so it is with Pinterest.

In order for you to develop a good, profitable, successful Pinterest Board you first must decide which topic(s) you are going to devote your board to.

Once you have decided which topics you are going to feature you need to build a keyword list for each topic. I have found it easiest to create a spreadsheet in which I list the main topics (you can use Keyword Tool to expand your topic list!) and then subtopics can be added.

These topics and subtopics could be used for content inspiration - taking an example from the graphic nextdoor, take the first topic of 'articles', the first question is "on what?" Immediately you come up with marketing, blogging, emailing, etc.etc.

Even though these ideas are repeated later in the image as topics themselves (when 'marketing' can be multi-level, internet, network, content, native etc.) it doesn't stop you doing an article on each.

There is a multiplicity of tools available to help you find the best keywords, view search volume (helps prioritising topics and subtopics in terms of user interest).

Repinned will be of great assistance in finding the most popular boards in the same or similar category.

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This next image came from a board in the DIY&crafts section of repinned, it had 16,708 repins! This site, although it doesn't have a search function, will help you to find the most popular boards in your particular niche or category.

Repinned will allow you to determine which boards and which types of boards are effective and working best in each and every category, (if that's what you want to know!) but keeping your eye on the main goal will be more important, and that is boards similar to your own!

This tool will also give you ideas for other content and subtopics, will help you find new and interesting repins for new topics.

You need a good mixture of repins from popular, well performing boards on related topics and original pins.

Because the site does not have a search function, you will need to Google search for whatever topic you want to search for. If you use the following form - ?your-keyword?site:repinned - and replace - your-keyword - with the topic you are looking for.

Once you have decided on the topics for you board or boards, then you start deciding what types of content that you want to use for the chosen topics. Go back to the spreadsheet and list which content types, videos, text, infographics, GIFS etc would be suitable, or work best for each topic.

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There is simply no end to the sorts of things you can add to your list to make your topic an attention-getter, at the same time, research which types are popular and being shared most within Pinterest. Something like 'Content Insights' by BuzzSumo will help in your search for content types.

Check out the competition!, There's always the chance that they haven't discovered Pinterest, but if they have you need to monitor their boards to get some insights on how they are doing it. Once again, it's back to the spreadsheet, create a new tab and list all your competitors, review the boards they've built, check their Pinterest profiles and note any content themes that might be pertinent.

Be aware that noting what has NOT workSimply Minimal Infographic Template Design. Vector.ed for them can be as valuable as what has worked, all of this info should be going into your spreadsheet along with which types of content have the highest degree of interaction

Once again, you can search with such software as Top Content (free from BuzzSumo), just enter a domain and click search, if there are a lot of pages in the result, narrow your search parameters by including your main topic (from Keywords) and the competitor's domain.

Find out which Pinners you should follow, PinAlerts can be used to track both competing pinners and who're repinning them, because you need to do the same. Create an alarm system or an alert to tell you which users are repinning their content.

You probably need to start pinning your new board with 15-20 brand new, high-quality, content-filled pins that will become evergreen and which compel users to follow you and your board. You are on your way, now curate new content to pin!