3 Blog Topic Ideas for Marketing Your Pet Business

By now you may know that a pet business blog can be a very powerful way to add fresh content to your website and bring more customers to you via the search engines.

But “Blogger’s Block” (What do I write about this week?) is very common. Therefore I’m happy to provide you with some blog topic ideas to use for marketing your pet business or veterinary practice.

As you consider using these topics, have fun working them into a relevant angle for the pet services or products you provide. I have a few suggestions to help you tie these ideas to your unique offering.

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Pet Internet Marketing: It’s a Dog Eat Blog world

A few blog posts ago, I talked about the incredible power and value of using a blog to market your pet business website. It really is true that blogs can move your web pages up in search results while also positioning you as a helpful guide in your business category.

That’s why I call it a “Dog Eat Blog” world. The pet businesses and veterinary practices that blog get more attention online (if they follow a few simple guidelines). And those who don’t… well… sell themselves short.

But don’t take my word for it.

Here are three strong reasons to look at blogging as a fantastic strategy for your pet business.

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Simple Blog Guidelines for Pet Business or Veterinary Practice Marketing

If you’re using a blog to market your pet business or veterinary practice, you’ll be happy to know there’s an easy formula for great results, which means better search engine rankings, more traffic and more sales.

Using the following formula last fall, I started blogging tips for a pet-business services company, and just after 6 blog posts — voila! The blog appeared on page one, second spot in Google results. Not bad for only 6 posts.

Would you like to generate results like this for your pet business or veterinary practice marketing?

Try these “best practices” guidelines and see what happens.

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The Golden Retriever Blogging Approach for Pet Business Marketing

Golden Retrievers are big, lovable creatures. They greet you with utter joy and share their warmth, plus they’re eager to please. They’ll fiercely loyal, no matter what. And they’ll fetch just about anything for you. What’s not to love, right?

But what do Golden Retrievers have to do with successful blogging for your pet business? Everything.

Golden Retriever Blogging for Pet Business Marketing
Mimosa the Golden Retriever pup. Thanks to Lee Schwarz for this lovely photo.

The unwritten credo of Golden Retrievers is this: I love everybody and I live to please.

The best business blogs have a similar credo: I care about my customers, and I’m focused on pleasing them by solving their needs.

If your pet business or veterinary practice blog follows that credo, you’ll improve your search engine results, attract more prospects and build a loyal following. Ultimately, this will help you grow your business.

Here’s how to think of this in a Golden Retriever way: Your blog posts will work very well if you…

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Quality Content Defined for Pet Internet Marketing

With the mission of helping you keep up with the challenging world of search engine optimization (SEO) and how pet web content works best today, I try to follow the latest guidelines, trends and events that make a big difference in search results.

Finding quality websites for searchers has always been the goal of Google and other search engines. But just what does “quality” mean?

Last year, several strides were taken to clamp down on “thin” pages that offered very little information, keyword-stuffed articles that offered nothing of value, and duplicate content you can find on dozens if not hundreds of websites. So one definition of quality has been “original, useful and highly relevant content,” which I talk about a lot.

Today I read this new definition of quality, and it helps clarify things for us further, to a point.

According to Google, “High quality content is content you can send to your child to learn something.”

Hmmm.

Here’s how I interpret that for pet-industry marketers, whether you’re marketing pet products, pet services, veterinary care, pet business consulting or anything else related to this industry.

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Must Love Blogs for marketing your pet business

If you’re frustrated with your pet business website and you’re thinking, “What can I do to bring in more traffic and sales?” — consider the blog.

In spite of the explosive social networking platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others, blogs are still extremely helpful for attracting customers via the search engines.

Here’s proof. A client I now work with was unhappy with his search engine rankings for certain important phrases related to his services for pet professionals. Simply put, he was upset that, “My ideal prospects aren’t finding my website.”

So we started blogging tips about his pet-business services, and just after 6 blog posts — voila! The blog appeared on page one, second spot in Google results. Not bad for just 6 posts.

Is this a fluke? No way! I’m getting the same results for THIS blog, and many of the blog experts I follow are enjoying similar results or better.

Consider these 3 reasons why blogging is a fantastic strategy, whether you’re marketing to pet owners or other pet businesses:

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Brandi is helping me introduce 12 blog topics for marketing your pet business in 2012

Greetings and Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from PetCopywriter.com
Happy Holidays! This photo of Brandi, in her lovely holiday sweater, is from my friend and fellow copywriting colleague Sean McCool. (Thanks for the photo, Sean!)

This is my last blog post for 2011 because I’ll be traveling cross-country with my faithful companion Louie (the Westie pup) the week between Christmas and New Year’s. We’re spending the winter in the warm and sunny southeast.

I hope you’re doing something fun this winter, too, such as growing your business by leaps and bounds!

I’d like to wrap up the year with 12 ideas to get you blogging in early 2012. Perhaps these ideas will spark a series of blog posts that captivate your audience and even motivate them to share your blog with their friends and colleagues.

Ready? Here are 12 blog topics and categories to help with marketing your pet business in 2012:

1. Provide How-To Tips

People are always searching the Web for tips on pet care. Offer a whole series of how-to- tips related to the solutions you offer, whether you’re marketing pet products or services. For example, if you sell reflective dog collars and leashes (one of my favorite examples), you could offer how-to tips on dog-walking safety at night.

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Pet Video of the Year and What It Means to Your Pet Business

As the year 2011 comes to a close, I’d like to cast my vote for the best pet video of the year.

Before I reveal what it is, I’m happy to share some staggering facts with you regarding this video and a few others featuring pets… and then provide some ideas to boost your pet business outlook in 2012.

First, the facts:

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Fascinating Facebook Facts for Pet Retail Marketing

This weekend, I was browsing through some pet retail magazines and came across a new report that might interest you. It’s called Strategies for Effective Facebook Wall Posts for the Retail Industry, and it includes a number of fascinating facts that may well be worth considering for your pet business Facebook page, whether you’re marketing pet products or services.

  • Posting 1-4 times a week produces 71% higher user engagement than 5 or more posts for retail brands: quality trumps frequency
  • Posts containing fewer than 80 characters produce 66% higher engagement than longer posts (wow!)
  • Posts containing questions generate more than double the amount of comments, even if they may get fewer “likes,”
  • Top retail sales keywords that produced more user engagement: “$ off” and “coupon” worked best (55% higher user engagement rates); while the words “sale” and “percent off” (or % off) produced the lowest; even posts about offers less than $10 off produce 17% higher engagement than percent-off posts
  • The 2 most effective types of retail brand posts contain a single photo attachment or use only words. Posts containing only words produce 94% higher engagement than avg.
  • Wednesday is the best day to post, although you obviously shouldn’t post ONLY on Wednesday. 🙂
So — what kinds of topics should you post on your pet business Facebook page?

How to optimize your pet website photos for visitors and SEO

Last spring, I was driving my dog to doggie day care and came upon this hilarious scene in a neighbor’s driveway. I had to pull over and snap a quick photo from my phone.

Turkey lessons about optimizing your pet website for SEO, visitors
Turkey lessons about optimizing your pet website images

Everyone I’ve shown this to gets a big kick out of it, so I thought I’d share it with you.

What do these turkeys have in common with your pet business or veterinary practice website?

And what lessons can be learned from this photo when it comes to optimizing the images on your site?

I see 2 key take-aways for you.

1. Try to use distinct images for marketing your pet products or services.

This quartet of Tom turkeys are strutting their stuff in full regalia to attract the lone female who happens to be strolling by. Sadly, it’s hard to tell them apart, except the one on the right has some torn tail issues.

So how does the female know which one is her soul mate, or if any of them belong by her side? Hmmm. I wish I knew how that works. All I know is, it leads to an important point.

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