The 9th Annual Pet Blogger Challenge

Welcome, friends, to the 9th Annual Pet Blogger Challenge. This is my eighth time participating, and if you’re not a blogger, these Q’s and A’s might give you a glimpse into what it’s like!

It seems 2018 packed a punch for many of us. I know I spent the year caught up in my own stuff, buried under the weight of shifting responsibilities and a rapidly-developing toddler, leaving one job and trying to create another, finding a sense of structure and routine and purpose… and, more often than not, coming up short. That’s life, though, isn’t it?

I’m always grateful to our friends at GoPetFriendly.com for organizing this hop each year because I appreciate the opportunity to reflect, to look ahead, and to learn from others working in this space. Even though I haven’t started drafting my replies to the questions yet, I apologize in advance for the wordiness that I’m sure is to come!

Digging in to the 2019 Pet Blogger Challenge:

1. For those who may be visiting your blog for the first time, how long have you been blogging and what is your main topic? If we’re just now meeting, hello! I’ve got a lot to catch you up on!I started my blog in 2009. My purpose then was to chronicle my two dogs, Emmett and Lucas, and their adventures, from Emmett’s therapy dog work to Lucas’ reactive dog training and everything in between. I came up with the tagline obsessed with dogs and just decided to chronicle anything dog-related in the context of my guys. Since then, we’ve moved thrice, dealt with four bouts of cancer (two Em, one Lucas, one me), added another pup Cooper and cats Newt and Ripley, fostered, trained, volunteered, worked, adopted (human) baby Violet who’s now the sweetest/funniest/mulish almost-two-year-old around, and struggled through the most difficult goodbyes of my life to both Emmett and Lucas and the subsequent grief. In that time, I’ve had periods of prolific work and periods of silence. Last year, 2018, was a period of silence. I experienced some dramatic transitions in my work life, all while mourning Em and trying to keep up with Violet. I needed that period of silence to recover my sense of purpose because, man, I had lost my vision and forgot my way. But, I feel like it’s coming back, though I’m trying to ease into it.
2. What was your proudest blogging moment of 2018? Hands down: Being named the incoming Vice President of the Dog Writers Association of America. {{Here’s that story.}} Honestly, this wouldn’t be my life and livelihood if it weren’t for this blog. Starting this blog–really, adopting Emmett–changed the entire course of my life. {{And here’s that story.}} This tremendous honor feels so great because it’s a venerable organization that I was intimidated to join way-back-when, but it’s proof that finding your passion and working hard at it pays off!
3. What was the biggest blogging challenge you faced in 2018, and how did/will you tackle it? The internet landscape shifted dramatically these last 10 years. Whether it’s an algorithm change or new FTC guidelines or a social channel altering how they weight content, well, some people live and die by that stuff. In working with tons and tons of bloggers over the past few years, I think one of the biggest errors I see bloggers make is forgetting that none of those things matter if your blog does its job: delivering amazing/useful/helpful/entertaining content that serves your audience. Sure, stuff like a keyword strategy and a Facebook marketing strategy matter, but only to the extent that they support, not drive, your blog. OK, all that said, my biggest challenge is getting those content marketing pieces in place! 🙂 Seriously, I’m not worried about social channels or video marketing or whatever even half as much as I worry about creating great content here. However, I avoided social media (except Instagram, tbh) most of 2018. I was burnt out, not of the content marketing or anything like that, but of the negativity and just the plain old bat-shit-crazy state of the world. So, I took a giant step back, and I avoided it almost entirely. I didn’t tackle it. In 2019, I plan to dive back in. I started a Facebook group that has an extremely strict positive-vibes-only rule. And the rest? That remains to be seen… maybe some degree of automation… some degree of outsourcing… I really don’t know yet.
4. Which of your 2018 blog posts was your favorite and why? (Please include a link.) I stopped covering as many welfare topics in 2018 and 2017, and I have no good excuse other than… I was busy? Those posts require time? And research? And I was short on that? #noexcuse Animal welfare is a core value of mine, so I plan to do more of that moving forward. However, the two posts I did write that were specific to advocacy, I’m glad I wrote: a return to pit bull advocacy and pets as presents.
5. Which of your 2018 posts was most popular with your audience? Why do you think it does so well? So, circling back to point 3, I’ll say that this isn’t my most popular post in terms of traffic, but it’s the most popular with my audience. {{This post.}} I’ve received the most emails about this one than about any other post in a long, long time. In fact, just recently I received a DM on Instagram asking for me to share the link on that platform, and the post was from last April. When I reread it now, I’m tempted to edit. To revise. I wrote it when I felt raw and open. Yes, it could be better written. But people connected to the emotion. Honestly? I think it’s done well, not necessarily just in terms of traffic, but because it’s something that everyone who’s lost a pet can relate to and really, truly feel. Any post where a reader walks away nodding and saying, “YES! Me too!” forges that personal connection we all really need. And when it’s a bond over our pets? All the better.
6. Did you implement a new series, feature, or practice on your blog in 2018 that you’re enjoying? The only series I ran was a two-parter on pet blogging. {{Read part 1 and part 2.}} I’m not huge into series because I find them hard to sustain…
7. As the social media landscape changes, how are you promoting your blog posts and connecting with new readers? So, per point 3, I haven’t really been promoting my posts. I think I have a handful of solid evergreen posts that drive a lot of organic search traffic, but this is what I need to work on with purpose and intention in 2019.
8. Looking forward to 2019, if you accomplish only one thing through your blog, what do you hope it is? Last year, my friend and colleague Carol Bryant and I wrote a book about pet blogging. We’re currently pitching agents to get representation. I’ve wanted to write books since I wrote my first “novel” in a red, wide-ruled Mead notebook in third grade. I’m thrilled to have one done and ready to go out in the world. I started a second book that’s going back to my roots in narrative nonfiction, and a lot of the story arc comes directly from this blog. It’s in its infancy; I’m not ready to talk about the story yet, but I set myself a goal to write 500 words every morning so that in 100-200 days I’ll have a substantial first draft.
9. What steps are you planning to take to ensure you reach your goal? Writing those words every single day no matter what. Yesterday it was a slog. Each word was like a pulled tooth. Today, they flew across the screen, and I doubled today’s word count in about a third of the time it took me yesterday. So, just plowing ahead like a mule. And now I’m accountable to YOU to do my writing each day since I’ve let the project out into the world! 🙂
10. Now it’s your turn! How can we help? Is there an area where you could use some advice, or an aspect of your blog that you’d like input on? Share it here, and we’ll answer you in comments! I guess my main question for other bloggers is what tools do you use to streamline? I know everyone’s all about Tailwind, and I’ve had a Buffer account for a while that I just don’t love… How do you schedule/automate/remember to do all your social sharing and stuff? What’s worth investing in for you?

If you made it this far, you deserve a medal! Thank you for sticking with me. I love introspection and digging into questions like this, so a big thank you to Amy from GoPetFriendly.com for taking the time to put this together each year! I can’t wait to read everyone’s entries this weekend!

Take care, everyone!