We interrupt our regularly scheduled program to bring you a blog post about blogging.

If you ever wanted to start a blog about your pet or you currently are a pet blogger then today’s post is for you.

If you’re looking for puppy training tips then check out our archive of blog posts. We’ll be back to our regular scheduled programming tomorrow.

So, what is the Pet Bloggers Journey? It’s our blog post answering 10 pet blogging questions, but it’s much more than that…

• It’s our chance to share our pet blogging accomplishments from the past year and share a glimpse into the future by sharing the hopes and dreams we have for our blog.
• It’s a time to support our fellow pet bloggers by sharing some of our own wisdom from the things we learned this past year.
• It gives us the opportunity to learn from others and leave words of encouragement as we comment and follow other bloggers on this journey.

Without further adieu, here’s our PBJ post for 2021:

Pet Bloggers Journey 2021

Check out our Pet Bloggers Journey informational blog post for directions about how you can join and follow other bloggers participating in this community event.

1. When did you begin your blog and what do you currently write about on your blog?

I launched my blog on August 1st, 2007. I write about my experiences raising and training service dog puppies.

2. Name one thing about your blog, or one blogging goal that you accomplished during 2020, that made you most proud.

2020 wasn’t all doom and gloom. I took a step forward in several areas, hitting all time highs in traffic and revenue. Since this is my full time job that’s a big deal.

Even though I hit recored numbers, the one thing I’m most proud of this year is I finally asked for help. I hired a coach and I started bringing on writers to help with content.

In 2021 I’d like to continue what I started in 2020 and outsource more work to help with Pinterest, graphic design, content, social media, scheduling, etc.

3. Which of your 2020 posts was most popular with your audience? Why do you think it does so well?

When we picked up our black Lab puppy, Elsa in June my plan was to put together a series of posts tracking her week-by-week progress.

Unfortunately, I was overwhelmed and only able to put together a post about her first week home.

I wrote a very detailed post about bringing home an 8 week old puppy. Almost immediately I started receiving emails and comments thanking me for sharing my experience with Elsa and how helpful it was to hear about our experience raising and training her.

Someone even told me my post was better than the entire Puppies for Dummies book he ordered from Amazon! High praise for sure!

Here’s the post in case you want to take a look: What Should I Expect From My 8 Week Old Puppy?

Oh, and why does the post do well? I tried to make it as detailed as possible and answer every question you’d have about an 8 week old puppy.

4. What was the biggest blogging challenge you faced in 2020, and how did you tackle it?

I’m sure a lot of us will have the same answer to this question. The pandemic has been my biggest blogging challenge.

I’m lucky that traffic and revenue have gone way up thanks to the pandemic, but beside those key metrics other parts of my blog suffered.

We decided not to put our kids in daycare because of the pandemic. The big challenge is taking care of my 3 year old daughter and 2 year old twin girls and trying to blog at the same time.

I’m cherishing this time with my girls and enjoying every minute, but the truth is my blog has suffered because it’s tough to work when you have three young kids running around the house like wild animals.

Oh and did I mention we had a litter of 8 puppies to go with a 5 month old puppy. It was a busy ending to the year.

It’s definitely fun. It’s definitely exhausting. I’m glad I get to spend this time with my family. 🙂

5. Tell us one thing you learned in 2020 that can help us all become better bloggers.

Constantly test new things. Small changes can have big results.

You can increase your ad revenue by making small changes like changing the size of your font, increasing the line space, making smaller paragraphs. Mediavine has an RPM Challenge that have helped me increase my revenue.

Test different affiliate programs and products. Some products will resonate better with your readers than others. Promoting the products that your readers are looking for will greatly increase your affiliate earnings. The trick is finding those products. You do this by testing and trying new things.

“Big things have small beginnings.”

David – Prometheus

One more thing. Always check to see what your site/blog posts look like on mobile. There’s a good chance the majority of your visitors are reading your blog posts on their phone.

Ten years ago 9% of my traffic was mobile. Today 79% of my traffic is mobile!

In my best Bob Dylan voice:

“The Times They Are A-Changin'”

6. What are your top three blogging goals for 2021?

The theme for my 2021 goals is diversify. Here are my top 3 for 2021.

#1. Diversify my traffic sources by mastering my email list – I’m part of an email mastermind group sponsored by AdThrive with live sessions beginning this Monday. I’m so excited to be part of a mastermind group.

Complete by January 31st, 2021.

My reward: If I successfully complete all the lessons in this mastermind group then I’ll buy each one of my kids a special gift. Watching my kids open presents is my guilty pleasure. It puts a huge smile on my face.

#2. Complete all 15 challenges in Income Schools Ultimate Content Warrior Challenge – I don’t expect to win the 55 pound tub of Thai Curry, but I’ve already learned a thing or two completing the first 3 of 15 challenges.

Complete by February 22nd, 2021

My reward: If I complete all 15 challenges? I’ll order food for the family from our favorite Thai restaurant. If you haven’t had Nam Sod Kao Tod you’re missing out. Hopefully they’ll have the Roti for dessert. Sorry, Income School guys I won’t be ordering the Thai curry.

#3. Diversify my monetization channels by releasing a product – Last year I tried hiring a coach to walk me through the process. Even though we pretty much completed the project, I missed the mark with my product offer and pulled the launch 2 days in. My plan is to relaunch with a new product that should better resonate with my audience.

I’m currently working through a product launch course that I plan to Complete by March 31st, 2021.

My reward: Donate the first $500 in sales to my favorite charity.

7. In the perfect world, where do you see yourself and your blog one year from now?

In a perfect world a 50% increase in traffic and net profit would be amazing!

In a perfect world a more even distribution of traffic sources would be amazing. Right now traffic is heavily skewed towards Organic Search. In my ideal world this would be my traffic split in January 2022:

• 45% Organic
• 30% Social
• 15% Email
• 10% Direct
• Less than 1% Referral and Other

In a perfect world a more even split between monetization channels would be amazing. Right now income is heavily skewed towards affiliates. In my ideal world this would be my income split in January 2022:

• 50% Affiliate Income
• 20% Product Income
• 20% Advertising Income
• 10% Sponsored Content

One final thing. In a perfect world I’ll be able to celebrate birthdays and holidays with friends and family next year. I’m really hoping this will happen in the first half of this year. Fingers crossed.

8. If you had a $1,000 to spend on your blog how would you spend it?

I’ve had the same theme for over 5 years now. I’ve had the same logo for almost 13 years. I even wrote a blog post when I designed my own logo on July 30, 2008 (YOWZERS!).

I think it’s time for change. I got an invitation to Mediavine’s Trellis beta theme. The child theme designs aren’t great so either I’ll have to do some of the design work or hire someone to do it for me.

Two years ago I had a few designers work on updating my logo. I wasn’t totally satisfied with the results so I held off on changing the logo. I think I’d like to revisit a logo update.

So, moving to Trellis beta along with hiring a designer plus updating my logo could hopefully be done for $1,000.

9. What is one skill you’d like to learn or improve in 2021?

VIDEO! VIDEO! VIDEO!

Another one I bring up every year. I did a series of videos for my guide pup, Dublin between 2010 and 2012. Since then I haven’t done much with video.

Last year I published one new video. That’s right, just one!

A big reason is my lack of skill as a videographer, script writer, editor, actor, and everything else involved in creating a quality video. Plus I have stage fright. I need to up my video skill set.

I guess producing two videos would be an improvement. Doubling my year over year output! That’s sad.

10. If you could ask the pet blogging community for help with one challenge you’re having with your blog, what would it be?

Sorry, I’m going to throw two questions at you:

1. How do you organize, store, and backup your images?
2. What security measures do you take with your blog?

Thanks!

There you go! A glimpse into last years achievements and this years hopes and dreams.

Now that you’ve read through my post go and visit other bloggers participating in the Pet Bloggers Journey by clicking on the links in the table below.

If you are a participant don’t forget to leave a comment including a link to your PBJ post and I’ll add your post to the table.

I’ll continue to add participant links up until January 16th, 2021, 11:59pm PST.

Thanks everyone and all the best to you in 2021!

Pet Bloggers Journey Participants

If you’d like to participate in this years PBJ make sure you visit our first blog post with information and details about the Pet Bloggers Journey.

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Welcome to Pet Bloggers Journey 2020!

I’m so happy to be hosting the inaugural Pet Bloggers Journey. If you haven’t already you’ll want to check out our previous post that includes a little bit of history behind the Pet Bloggers Journey.

Pet Bloggers Journey: Share Your Adventure

Today we put our normal blog topics on hold and celebrate our accomplishments, share the dreams we have for our blogs, talk about goals, and encourage our fellow pet bloggers.

So, let’s get started and begin the Pet Bloggers Journey!

If this is the first you’ve heard of the Pet Bloggers Journey and you’d like to participate, you’ll find all the details and the questions in this post.

Pet Bloggers Journey 2020

1. When did you begin your blog? And, for anyone stopping by for the first time, please give us a quick description of what your blog is about.

My first post went live on this blog on August 1st, 2007. Yowzers! I’m coming up on my lucky 13th blogiversary!

I started my blog to chronicle the journey of my first Guide Dog puppy in training, Stetson. Since then I’ve trained many Guide and Service dog puppies sharing my training tips and experiences along the way.

2. Name one thing about your blog, or one blogging goal that you accomplished during 2019, that made you most proud.

This blog is my full time job. Yep, it’s been over a year since I quit my job in corporate America. One of my 2019 goals was to increase my earnings. How did I do this? I asked for more money.

It sounds simple enough, but when put into practice it’s extremely difficult because if you’re like me then you’re full of self doubt. Am I worth that much? Do I do a good job? Is my blog worthy?

In 2019, I pushed aside my self doubt, picked up the phone, and straight out asked for more money. And guess what? They said yes!

3. Which of your 2019 blog posts was your favorite and why? (Please include a link.)

We started this blog because of Stetson. In 2019 we said goodbye to Stetson. Losing a dog after 12+ years is nothing short of devastating. Not a day goes by without me thinking about my buddy.

Stetson, we miss you every day.

Here’s Stetson’s memorial post: Stetson, Our First Guide Dog Puppy In Training

As I answer this question I’m wearing a pair of socks covered with Stetson’s adorable face 🙂

4. What was the biggest blogging challenge you faced in 2019, and how did you tackle it?

June 2, 2019 – Google Core Update. It had been a while since I was really smacked down by Google.

On June 2nd…well to be honest it took a day or two, but by the time the dust settled I lost about 25% of my traffic. Yep, pretty significant when blogging is your full time job.

How did I tackle this challenge?

“I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” – Name that movie.

–Actor: T_ _ H_ _ _ _
–Movie: C_ _ _ A_ _ _

Yep, I kept forging forward and now I’m seeing some rebound and hopefully by June 1st 2020 (pre-google slap) my traffic will have increased by 25%.

5. One goal that we all seem to share is we want to reach more people. What is your #1 tip for bringing more traffic to your blog?

I know how to get more traffic to my blog. You’re not going to like my answer:

My #1 tip for bringing more traffic to MY BLOG is to produce more content. I think producing more content is the answer for most of us long time bloggers.

Sure Colby, but what would your #1 tip be for new bloggers, those of us trying to reach that 25K Sessions to join an ad network like Mediavine?

I know a lot of bloggers have found a ton of success with Pinterest (hint, hint maybe you and I should up our Pinterest game). I am not one of those bloggers. I get about 20K sessions a month from Pinterest. Good, but not great.

So, what’s your #1 tip?

Guys, there’s no magic bullet on this one. There’s so much you need to do as a blogger.

Carol Bryant and Maggie Marton’s book Pet Blogging for Love and Money is a great overview with tons of great tips and information. It wasn’t until I read their book that I realized how much you have to know to be a blogger.

That being said if I only get to dispense one tip…

My #1 tip would have to be to solve your reader’s problems.

1. What problems do your readers tell you over and over again?
2. Ask yourself: what questions do you have that you’d like solved in a blog post.
3. Email your readers, create a blog post, or social media post asking what problems are they dealing with right now.

After you collect these questions/problems answer them in excruciating detail.

6. Do you do sponsored posts/reviews? If so, what do you find works best and how do you determine what to charge for a blog post, social media shares, etc.? If not, is this something you’d like to do more of? What hurdle is getting in your way?

My best advice for sponsored posts/reviews is to not sell yourself short. Make sure you get paid what you deserve.

When I first started out I accepted free products in return for my honest review and I was thrilled that was back in 2008. Today I think all pet bloggers should charge something for a sponsored post/review.

How do I determine what to charge for a sponsored blog post?

First, here are some tools that tell you what they think you should charge:

• TapInfluence – when I was with their network they had a suggested rate for sponsored posts. I’m not with TapInfluence any longer, but I think their recommendation for my blog was $500 per blog post.
• Social Bluebook – they have a tool that tells you how much to charge for sponsored work. I just visited their tool and the suggested price was $679.75 per blog post.

These are the five things I think about when deciding how much to charge for a sponsored blog post:

1. How many hours do I have to invest in this project? – You should get paid for your time.
2. What premium should I charge for posting to my blog? – Your readers trust you, you get traffic, your blog has history. There is a ton of value in your blog.
3. Add ons – Shares to social media, email newsletter, etc. Is this included or are you charging an additional fee?
4. How much does the product cost? – If it’s an expensive product I might consider that when determining what to charge.
5. Do I want to do it? – Sometimes these projects fit perfectly with your website other times it fits, but feels forced.

I think the elephant in the room is what are pet bloggers charging for sponsored posts? Here’s my answer

Over the past few years I’ve charged anywhere from $300 – $1,500 per sponsored blog post.

7. Looking forward to 2020, if you accomplish only one thing through your blog, what do you hope it is?

Raven is going to have one more litter of puppies. I’d like to continue helping Service Dog Organizations by providing puppies for their programs, but I’m not sure if I will continue raising litters.

I had a series of posts about Raven’s first litter of Golden Retriever puppies, but I haven’t done much since then.

For Raven’s final litter I’d like to put together a video series about raising a litter of puppies.

8. What steps are you planning to take to ensure you reach your goal?

A litter of puppies is a ton of work and they grow fast! I have a pretty good idea of when the puppies will reach major milestones.

In the past when working with video I found one of the most important things is to have a script for what you want to shoot. I need to write a script for every video I want to produce.

At this moment the plan is daily videos which means I need to write 56 scripts between now and whelping day!

Don’t worry, we’re not planning on having puppies until September 2020.

9. The blogging landscape is constantly changing. What changes in blogging do you see coming in 2020 and beyond? What plans do you have to evolve?

Pretty much since I began blogging people have been predicting video will dominate the internet. I think it’s time to hop on that wagon.

I did a lot of video (by my standards) between 2010 and 2012. Since then I haven’t done too much. 2020 will be the year of video for me.

1. Beginning in February 2020 I plan on producing one video every week.
2. Raven will have one more litter in 2020. I’m planning a video series for her final litter.
3. Another puppy may be joining the family. If so, I’ll have another video series in the works.

Flashback – when I did my Puppy In Training TV series my iPhone did not have video and I did everything with a Flip Camcorder. Remember Flip Camcorders?

10. If you could ask the pet blogging community for help with one challenge you’re having with your blog, what would it be?

Every year I spend a ton of money on my email service provider, but I don’t think I’m getting very good ROI from my email list.

What is your #1 tip for building a successful email list?

There you have it. My contribution to the 2020 Pet Bloggers Journey.

Now don’t forget to drop us a line in the comment section and hop on over to the next post in the Linky. It’s a great time to chat with old friends, make new ones, share wisdom, and absorb the knowledge of others.

Thank you to everyone for participatinng! Be sure to add the direct link to your post below, and include the Linky code on your blog to make it easy for everyone to hop to your post.

I come from a family of traditions.

We have a Christmas party every year with my mother’s high school friends, they’re kids, and now grandkids. I haven’t missed this party since I was born…47 years and counting!

A few days before New Years we celebrate Mochitsuki, a Japanese New Years tradition pounding rice to make Mochi. I’ve done this every year with my wife and now kids since 2011.

In 2012 I participated in my first Pet Blogger Challenge hosted by Amy Burkert from GoPetFriendly.com and Edie Jarolim from Will My Dog Hate Me.

I missed the inaugural PBC in 2011 and also missed 2014 when my blog got hacked and was down for a month. Can you believe I nearly retired from blogging that year!?

Here’s a look at my past PBC posts:

Pet Blogger Challenge

• Pet Blogger Challenge 2011
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2012
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2013
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2014
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2015
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2016
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2017
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2018
• Pet Blogger Challenge 2019

I feel a little emptiness inside because I missed 2011 and 2014. In fact, I wish I had a Pet Blogger Challenge blog post every year for this blog.

It’s fun to look back and see your blog’s big goals, accomplishments, and failures.

Okay, enough chatter Colby, what’s this all about?

Unfortunately, today I learned that Amy is not going to host the Pet Blogger Challenge this year. 🙁

HISTORY LESSON: Back in 2010 the idea for the Pet Blogger Challenge was spawned. Take a look back at the origin of the PBC and the questions from the first Pet Blogger Challenge.

This was always my time to reflect on what we accomplished on the blog and develop a vision for where we’re heading in the future.

So, what’s a pet blogger to do?

Pet Bloggers Journey

I will always think of Pet Bloggers Challenge as a part of Amy/GoPetFriendly and Edie/Will My Dog Hate Me.

So, today we’re going to take the first step of a new adventure:

Pet Bloggers Journey!

Participating in the Pet Bloggers Journey will be just as easy as it was to take part in the Pet Blogger Challenge…

1. Publish a post on your blog between January 20th-26th (I extended the date to end the Linky Blog Hop at the end of the month, January 31st.) with answers to the questions below.
2. I’ll publish my answers on PuppyInTraining.com and include a Linky List in the post on the morning of January 20th.
3. After publishing your post, visit my post and add your link to the Linky List so we can visit everyone’s blog.
4. Finally, make sure you visit other blogs on the Pet Bloggers Journey and leave comments sharing your wisdom and encouragement.

So, beginning January 20th, 2020, join us in answering the following questions about your blog:

1. When did you begin your blog? And, for anyone stopping by for the first time, please give us a quick description of what your blog is about.
2. Name one thing about your blog, or one blogging goal that you accomplished during 2019, that made you most proud.
3. Which of your 2019 blog posts was your favorite and why? (Please include a link.)
4. What was the biggest blogging challenge you faced in 2019, and how did you tackle it?
5. One goal that we all seem to share is we want to reach more people. What is your #1 tip for bringing more traffic to your blog?
6. Do you do sponsored posts/reviews? If so, what do you find works best and how do you determine what to charge for a blog post, social media shares, etc.? If not, is this something you’d like to do more of? What hurdle is getting in your way?
7. Looking forward to 2020, if you accomplish only one thing through your blog, what do you hope it is?
8. What steps are you planning to take to ensure you reach your goal?
9. The blogging landscape is constantly changing. What changes in blogging do you see coming in 2020 and beyond? What plans do you have to evolve?
10. If you could ask the pet blogging community for help with one challenge you’re having with your blog, what would it be?

Ten blogging questions to reflect back on the past and look forward to the future.

The 2020 Pet Bloggers Journey is less than a week away!

If you need help or have any questions please feel free to reach out to me or leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Tell Your Blogging Friends

Yep, you read it right…Pet Bloggers Journey begins 01/20/2020

We need your help in spreading the word to all your pet blogging pals. The more participants we have the more we’ll learn from each other.

So be sure and spread the word by sharing a link, blog post, pin or social media update.

I can’t wait to read everyone’s answers.

I’ll see you all next week!