Pet Blogging 101: How To Start a Pet Blog? Best Websites and a Complete Guide

Pet blogging is a great way to connect with other pet owners, share your experiences, and even generate some extra income. But before you get started, it’s important to understand the basics of pet blogging.

According to recent statistics, 70% of U.S. households (90.5 million homes) owned a pet as of 2022. 69 million U.S. households have a pet dog, compared to 45.3 million with a cat.

Additionally, 3.5 million American households own a horse, and 2.9 million own a saltwater fish. From March 2020 to May 2021 alone, roughly 1 in 5 U.S. households acquired a dog or cat.

If you’re looking to get started with pet blogging and potentially generate side income or more revenue from your e-commerce pet website, then this guide is for you.

In this blog, I will cover the basics of pet blogging, the best websites to use, and provide helpful tips and tricks to get you started. Let’s dig in!

What is a Pet Blogging?

Pet blogging is the act of creating content about animals, typically pets, for an online audience. It can range from general pet care tips to more specific topics, such as breed-specific advice or travel tips for pet owners.

Examples of pet blogging niches include:

1. Daschund Blog – Ammo the Dachshund
2. Dog Travel Blog – Bodie on the Road
3. Pet Blog About Two Cats – Rascal and Rocco

As the saying goes, “A dog is a man’s best friend.” So, if you’re looking for a way to make some furry friends online, pet blogging might just be the perfect fit for you!

Benefits of Starting Your Own Pet Blog Site

Starting a pet blog is a great way to share your love of animals with the world, and it can also be a great source of income. In this section, we will explore the three main benefits of starting your own pet blog site:

1. Side income
2. Selling pet products
3. Driving traffic to your local business

Make a side income from your passion for pets and animals using affiliate marketing

Make a side income from affiliate marketing

Pet products affiliate websites

With affiliate marketing, you can make money even while you sleep. Plus, you can join an affiliate program for free and start promoting products right away.

So how much money can you make with affiliate marketing?

The sky is the limit!

Spyq Sklar’s makes over $360K/year from bringing organic traffic using blogging and selling tuna-based treats that cats love. Plus, many pet product manufacturers have affiliate programs that you can join.

Sell Pet Products

Building a pet blog can be a great way to sell pet products through your e-commerce store. By using blogging and SEO, you can reach a larger audience and create a connection with potential customers. Study by Hubspot shows that businesses can drive 55% more traffic to their website.

According to a 2014 survey of 1,000 U.K. consumers by Dynata

• 84 percent of consumers bought products based on information provided in a blog post.
• 1 in 4 people bought something every month based on the content they read in blogs.
• 46 percent said they read blog content to research and investigate more about the products that might suit their needs.

While there are 1000s of pet and pet product categories, some of the most commonly known e-commerce pet categories are:

1. Pet food
2. Pet toys
3. Pet accessories
4. Pet health products
5. Pet grooming products
6. Pet supplies

You can also sell pet-related services such as:

1. Pet sitting
2. Pet walking
3. Pet Boarding
4. Pet insurance

Here are five tips to help you create a blog that results in conversions for your pet e-commerce store:

1. Target keywords that are bottom of the funnel to get more qualified traffic to your blog. Keywords such as “best god leash” or “best organic dog food” will generate traffic researching a potential solution to their pet problem. Keywords such as “how to make your dog shake hand” can create lots of traffic but no sales, these types of keywords should not be your priority. It is important to have a mix of money-making and informational keywords.
2. Create SEO-friendly and insanely value-added content. Use tools like Outranking to plan your blog and ensure your content meets the SEO standards.
3. Add website add-ons such as CTAs and in-line links to relevant products from your blog articles. Placing the right CTAs can dramatically increase the traffic you send to your product pages. A few case studies on Moz’s blog suggest how changing the copy and placement of your CTA can impact conversions.

Send foot traffic to your local pet business

Local pet businesses such as pet day care, pet spas, pet grooming, and pet health centers can benefit from blogging about pets in a number of ways. Here are three examples of how local pet businesses can benefit from blogging:

1. Pet Day Care: Pet daycare businesses can benefit from blogging by providing helpful tips and advice to pet owners on how to keep their pets entertained while away. They can also share reviews of their services and offer discounts or promotions to attract new customers.
2. Pet Spa: Pet spa businesses can use their blog to showcase their services and products, as well as highlight customer testimonials. They can also use the blog to share tips and tricks on how to keep pets looking their best.
3. Pet Grooming: Pet grooming businesses can use their blog to provide helpful advice on how to groom pets properly and safely. They can also share reviews of their services and offer discounts or promotions to attract new customers.

Build a community for pet parents

Blogging on a consistent basis can help build a community on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

By providing relevant content and a comment section, you can generate conversation and create a sense of connection with your readers.

This can also lead to side income from other platforms, as your blog can be used to promote products and services, as well as drive sales. Building a community by effective blogging can help establish your brand, increase email subscribers, and build relationships with potential customers.

Building a community is hard work, but it works!

Steps To Start Your Own Pet Blog

1. Choose a Domain Name

Note: You can skip this section if you already have a domain name.

Choosing the right domain name for your blog is an important decision. Your domain name has to be unique, memorable, and relevant to your niche. A .com domain is more advisable, as it is more recognizable and easier to remember.

Having the keyword your niche represents, in general, can also greatly help build authority in SEO. Having a keyword related to your niche can also help with SEO. For example “mygoldenretrieverpuppies.com” has the Golden Retriever word in the domain name.

Here are some options to consider when choosing a domain name:

1. Namecheap – Check if your potential domain name is available , a crucial step in ensuring an SEO friendly URL.
2. GoDaddy – Get help with setting up your domain name and web hosting.

You can use services like Domainwheel to get ideas for domains and brainstorm.

2. Find a Good/Cheap Hosting

Domain hosting is the process of renting server space from a hosting provider. This allows you to store your website and its associated files on the hosting provider’s server so that it can be accessed from anywhere in the world.

Some seek cheap hosting, while others seek reliability and support.

The tradeoff between cheap and good hosting is that cheaper hosting services may not provide the same level of features and reliability as more expensive services.

If you are starting a new blog, I would suggest going with cheap and learning everything.

Once your blog grows and needs more reliability and support switch to the one that fits your pockets and needs.

3. WordPress Theme

There are many WordPress themes available on Themeforest that can be customized per your taste. Getting a theme that is more pet-oriented can cut sometime in setting up the final blog. Below are some top pet WordPress theme templates from Themeforest:

While WordPress is an obvious choice for a CMS, there are other self-hosted blogging platforms to also consider.

Pick a pet blog niche (Dog, Cat, Hamster, Etc)

There are numerous opportunities to create successful pet blogging websites with many small and big niches still untapped.

Without a well-defined niche, you risk competing with larger, more established blogs and not getting the recognition or reward you deserve.

You could be writing great content, but if it’s not in the right niche, it won’t matter. It’s like shouting into a void; no one will discover your pet blog.

If you just have a general pet blog, you can still do well, but if you have a blog about hiking with cats, and cover everything about hiking with cats such as cat hiking gear, what to pack when hiking with a cat, cat-friendly hikes, etc. you connect with.

Read this guide on how to find the best blogging topics to make money.

You will know exactly who you are writing for and the pain/problem they might be facing. You will get these people excited to finally have found someone who gets them and wants to help.

You can use tools like Semrush.com or Ahrefs.com to do in-depth keyword research and come up with a niche that you care about as well as is profitable.

Some examples of successful pet blogging websites that target a specific niche are below, use these examples and come up with your own niche, heck even a micro niche will work.

To learn how to find the right niche, follow this guide on Youtube.

Create an SEO Content Strategy

When starting a new blog, an SEO content strategy is of paramount importance. Without a well-thought-out plan, you risk going after the wrong keywords and wasting time and energy with no rewards. Learn more about the importance of SEO for family photographer and how to use the correct keywords for photographers.

According to research, 90.63% of websites fail to make any money and it’s often because of a lack of an effective SEO content strategy.

Creating an SEO content strategy can be a daunting task, but it doesn’t have to be.

Here is a quick rundown on how to create an SEO content strategy. For a more comprehensive understanding follow the link above.

1. Find your primary keyword ideas
2. Curate the list of all the keywords related to primary ideas
3. Find the most valuable keywords and cluster the keywords
4. Pick the keywords you want to create content around and add them to planner.

Creating a successful SEO content strategy takes time and effort, but it’s worth it in the long run.

Outranking SEO content strategy planner can help you create a content calendar and keep you on track to success. It enables you to identify the best keywords to target, create content ideas, and track your progress.

Write Great SEO Content

If you are new to SEO copywriting, this is going to sound gibberish, but this is going to be the MOST important skill you will need to learn and learn to execute this in a repeatable fashion. So, getting a hang of how to create SEO content is going to be crucial to your blogging success.

Once you have the keyword strategy figured out, you can invest in some tools that can take your primary keyword and guide you into creating SEO content.

To create your first SEO blog post, you will need to optimize:

• Blog post title
• Meta description
• Learn to write introductions
• Write amazing content that resonates
• Create SEO outlines
• Insert internal and external links
• Add media
• Answer users questions

Watch the below video to get a gist of how SEO optimization works in Outranking. There are a few tools out there, but Outranking is a complete package for SEO writing checker use cases.

Find Ways to Monetize

Show me where the money is?

Every blog is not for a personal hobby, is aimed at monetization. There are a number of ways to turn your blogs into passive income or a consistent flow of order fulfillment.

Some of the ways are listed below:

Display and contextual Ads related to pets:

Running contextual ads related to the content of the blog, selling advertising space, and accepting sponsorships. Check out this example of how some pet blogs are displaying ads to earn money.

Google Adsense is a great way to monetize your blogs with contextual as well as banner ads.

The best part is that it’s a simple integration and Google automatically shows the right ads that can help you earn money even when you sleep.

Pet Info Products:

Selling e-books, online courses, and other informational products related to the content of the blog.

By creating digital products such as ebooks, and access to courses and classes, you can leverage your expertise and create a passive income stream. You can funnel people to purchase your info product using your blog pitch.

Creating digital products takes research, planning, and time, and you should focus on building an audience before creating a medium to sell.

Once you have an audience, you can use the information you have about them to market products and services to them. For example, check out this dog training website that sells dog training online courses for $95.

Let’s look at a second example of courses for someone who wants to be a pet trainer.

Both of these info products funnel uses the courses via their blogs.

About 2-3% of your email list/visitors will purchase your product, so keep that in mind when creating and promoting your digital products, but with enough traffic, those numbers can lead to significant income.

Monetize using Affiliate Links:

Promoting other companies’ products and services and receiving a commission for every sale made. This is one of the most known ways to make money from blogging besides ads.

You can register for some great affiliate programs such as the ones below can be a great place to start and then slowly expand into more affiliate programs.

If you want to make money with affiliate marketing, here are some tips to get started:

1. Promote quality products: Look for pet products that are being offered through a reputable company and that are in demand.
2. Find high-paying products: Look for products that offer a high commission rate so that you can make more money from each sale. You can use affiliate marketing platforms like Amazon, Chewy, Clickbank, Paw, etc to find high-paying products in the pet industry.
3. Create informative content: Create quality content that will help you sell the product you’re promoting. This content should be helpful and informative, and it should also be engaging enough to make people want to buy the product.

Check out this example about “best dog collar“, the blog is embedded with tones and tones of affiliate product links.

E-commerce Products:

Selling physical products related to the content of the blog, such as pet training tools, harnesses, pet beds, and other custom merchandise. Setting up an online store as an additional page on the blog, and selling products without having to stock them.

If you don’t have a product that you manufacture or source exclusively, you can opt for drop shipping and source products from these websites. Below is an example of how SitStay is bringing traffic to their blog and then showing the banner of the dog treats products they sell.

Here is a comprehensive guide on how to get into drop shipping with no inventory and little budget. You can also create a Shopify store which has numerous drop shipping extensions to help you facilitate the sales.

If you are using WordPress, you will need a WooCommerce extension to build an e-commerce store. WooCommerce is free and helps you build a physical product store in little to no time.

Promote Your Blog

Create profiles for your blog on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Ensure you include links to your blog on all your social media profiles.

Guest posting is a great way to reach new readers and build relationships with other professional bloggers. In addition, you can submit articles about your blog to online publications and directories. This will help introduce your blog to a wider audience.

Use Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find the right keywords for your blog.

Best 6 Pet Website Blogs to Get Inspired

Adopt A Pet

Adopt a pet blog is an excellent platform for anyone looking to get into pet blogging. It provides valuable information about pet adoption, rescue, and fostering. It also helps potential pet owners find the perfect pet for their families. By following this blog, pet owners can gain insight into the world of pet adoption and rescue, and learn how to better care for their pets.

Dogalize

Dogalize is a pet blog dedicated to providing helpful advice and resources for pet owners. It covers topics such as pet health, nutrition, grooming, and more. It is a great blog for pet owners who want to stay up to date on the latest pet trends and news.

PetKeen

PetKeen is a pet blog that provides valuable content to pet owners all over the world. You can use Petkeen to discover the latest in dog news, science-backed research, veterinarian-approved products, training tips, diet, and nutrition advice.

Animal Wellness Magazine

Animal Wellness Magazine is America’s most trusted source for keeping your dog and cat naturally healthy and happy! It covers a range of topics from food, behavior, and training.

The Reptile Magazine

The Reptile magazine covers a range of topics about pet reptiles, food they feed, how to care for them, and precautions to take. It’s a great blog for someone looking to buy or care for their pet reptile.

The Pet Food Industry

Pet food industry blog covers everything you need to know about new trends in the pet food industry. You can use this blog to discover new trends and new pet food products.

Tips For Maintaining a Successful Blog On Pets

Now that you know the basics of starting a pet blog, it’s time to learn how to keep it running successfully. Here are a few tips to help you out:

1. Keep your content fresh and interesting

Nobody wants to read the same thing over and over again, so make sure you’re constantly adding new content to your blog. This could be anything from articles about current events in the pet world, product reviews or simply posting pictures and stories about your pets.

2. Interact with your readers

Be sure to respond to comments and questions from your readers – they’ll appreciate the interaction! You can also get involved with other pet bloggers by participating in blog hops or Twitter chats.

3. Use social media wisely

Social media is a great way to connect with your audience and promote your blog content. Make sure you’re using all of the different platforms available (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) to reach as many people as possible.

4. Stay organized.

Maintaining a successful pet blog takes a lot of work – make sure you’re keeping track of everything by using some type of editorial calendar or scheduling tool. That way, you’ll always know what’s coming up next on your blog.

Our Wrap-Up On Pet Blogs

While there are many big and small things to consider when blogging about pets, the success of your blog will come down to your SEO copywriting ability or ability to hire writers to fill in the gaps. Writing SEO content will be one of the top skills you will have to master because you will need to write tones and tones of content. The more well-thought-out content and the more you write the more money your blog will make.

Remember to not take shortcuts (like using AI to completely write your blogs), if you want any form of success with your blogs.