Has It Really Been 5 Years?

Nothing about Kenzo or Tilde today I am afraid. The annual "Pet Blogger Challenge" is on the menu, where pet bloggers exchange experiences and make plans for the coming year.

But please hang around if you would like a look behind the scenes, or want to discover some new pet blogs on the link-list at the bottom of this post.

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Ready? Here we go:

1. How long have you been blogging? And, for anyone stopping by for the first time, please give us a quick description of what your blog is about.

I have been blogging as long as there have been Pet Blogger Challenges, 5 years!

In short, I write about my relationship with my two dogs, Kenzo and Tilde, and about the Hovawart breed in general - the longer introductory version you'll find on our About us page.

2. Tell us one thing that you accomplished on your blog during 2014 that made you proud.

I struggled with the question if the blog would be a place to grieve when we lost Viva, as you might remember from last year's PBC post. I also worried it would eventually mean the end of the blog as I knew it.

Today I am, maybe not proud, but thankful, I continued. I am also equally surprised how it changed the blog and my writing, I think, for the better.

When I reread last years comments on the PBC post, I think Jodi nails it, when she predicts what will happen with my grief, and with my writing:

"Grief has no timeline: it's infinite and eternal. Even long after the sting has gone from the passing, the memory stays on us, like a mark that can't be rubbed away. The gift of grief is that, if we let it, we can carry the remembrances forward with us and let the happy memories and our love permeate our writing and our love of the new dogs in our lives. I can already see Viva doing that for you. Even if you don't write of Viva, Viva will be in your writing. Always."

3. What lessons have you learned this year – from other blogs, or through your own experience – that could help us all with our own blogs?

My biggest mistake has always been to neglect my mailing list. I guess we all invest a lot of time in promoting our blogs on social media, SEO, work on designs, readability on different devices, etc. And what happens? Google changes their search algorithm. Facebook changes its timeline. A popular feedreader stops it service. A new design becomes fashionable.

Every time when that happens we lose readers because of it, or at least they have to find us again. But equally frustrating is, we have to redo, have to rethink, reposition, have to listen to the next Yet-Another-Internet-Guru explaining what to do. It drives me crazy.

If I would have nurtured and promoted my mailing list as the highest priority, the continuous changes from all these "channels" wouldn't have affected the readership base of the blog as much as it did. An email address is always solid. And more important ... it would have saved me tons of time I could have spent on blogging instead, or on the dogs for that matter.

Just last month I therefore organized our first giveaway exclusively for our mailing list, which was a great success. A couple of the participants unsubscribed again after the giveaway of course, but I was very happy to see a lot of mail addresses coming through from people I could actually recognize by name from social media, which are exactly the readers I try to reach. I will certainly do a couple more giveaways, and will also try to find other things I could do to add value for our readers to be part of the list.

4. What have you found to be the most successful way to bring traffic to your blog, other than by writing great content?

I am more than happy with our traffic counter showing 1,700,000 - plus a bit - pageviews, but hardly have a clue how that happened. My attempts at understanding the how, with tools like Google Analytics, have all miserably failed.

I am therefore probably the last person you should ask about traffic advice. There are so many things I don't do, I almost give the impression I am trying to avoid traffic. Like using click-bait blog titles, oh the horror! ... now that I mentioned click-bait, there is actually one click-bait post that was more than worth the read, written by A.J., "I bet you didn’t think dogs could write headlines. This post will seriously change your mind.". Go and have a look, I know you can't resist to click that link. I promise you won't regret it.

But seriously, looking back at 5 years of blogging, I think the handful of guests-posts I did, together with other bloggers referring to us - like in meaningful, not the occasional link or mention - brought the most sustainable and constant flow of traffic to our blog, other than writing great content. That's based on my feeling entirely though.

5. What was your most popular blog post this year? Did it surprise you that it was your most popular?

I am glad you asked, because it did actually surprise me it became the most popular one. Although popular might be the wrong word for it, controversial would describe it better, but it was by far the most read, most discussed in FB groups, etc.

The post was about Hovawarts and the Degenerative Myleopathy disease, and if we should worry about the Hovawart's future. What I didn't know was that the same discussion had already been a major topic behind the closed doors of the various breed-clubs, and it of course divided people, and clubs.

Bringing the story, brought that discussion out into the open.

6. What was your favorite blog post to write this year?

I never wrote poetry before, although I enjoy reading it occasionally. But I really wanted to climb that mountain for Viva, and write a poem for her on her first death anniversary. It was a long and hard climb, but I finished it.

7. Has your policy on product reviews and/or giveaways changed this year?

As mentioned, we did our first giveaway, of a FITPAWS Giant Balance Disc, at the end of the year.

I don't like writing product reviews, or anything sponsored, I value our independence more. Also the giveaway we paid for ourselves, without sponsoring, or any affiliation whatsoever with FITPAWS, other than that I am raving about their product.

8. What’s your best piece of advice for other bloggers?

I recently discovered Scrivener. It's actually a writing tool for book authors, script writers, etc. But I found it to be a great tool for bloggers too. The great thing with Scrivener is, it goes beyond a normal editor, and helps you outline, plan, and organize your posts. I especially like how you can play around with your draft posts as index cards - the corkboard - while keeping everything in one place, including your research. I absolutely love it.

When you are done writing a post, you can just copy/paste the text in your blog editor, or even export as html from Scrivener.

If you are interested, have a look over at Literature and Latte for more info and a trial download - did I mention Scrivener is crazy cheap too? - there are also example template for bloggers, just google for it.

9. What goals do you have for your blog in 2014?

Now that I am writing a book about the rise and fall of the Hovawart puppy mill in Denmark, I need the blog to be a platform for the book too.

How that would work, or what I have to do exactly, I don't know yet. But I will try to work something out soon on how the blog and the process of writing a book can interact. A real pain for me is, I already realize I will probably have to leave blogger.com in favor of a more professional paid platform. Which is a shame, we really became best friends though the years, and the last thing I need right now, is blog platform migration.

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

I am not challenged by it yet, but I know I probably will be in the near future, that dreaded migration from blogger.com to a paid platform I just mentioned.

So. If you have moved from blogger.com to a paid platform, do you have some great resources that took you through the whole process? Also, were you able to find a solution allowing you to migrate your comments from blogger.com too?

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Last but not least ... thank you for hosting the Challenge again this year, Amy! As always, going pet friendly! Sending good karma for your Ty, that he may soon have restored health.