Ok, ok. You might be thinking I’ve lost it! But this is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
Before we had our sassy mini schnauzer, Loki, we had four tiny roborovski hamsters. I guess we were priming ourselves for the dog we’d inevitably get!
But the thing was, I made it my mission to give those four floofs the best life they could possibly lead. My obsessive researcher side popped out, and I couldn’t help but surf the web learning everything I could about these robo hams.
They had mahoosive cages, with climbing frames, chews, toys, sand baths, the lot. It was like a frickin’ hamster day-spa in there!
Spoiling them with everything they needed became like a hobby to me. I loved them all to bits!
With all the knowledge I’d gained researching, I was eager to use my writing skills to share it with the world. So I set up a hamster blog where I wrote weekly articles around hamster care.
Being a rather niche site it took off in the first couple of months receiving around 100 visitors a day.
I eventually monetised the site with ads and learnt a lot about running a blog and how I could improve the design, content and promotion.
A couple of years later, after my four hamsters left us and we brought Loki home, I closed the site down. I had something bigger and better brewing that I was keen to focus all my energy on – the GoneDogMad blog.
Over one year on and my dog blog is thriving! It averages around 6,000 visitors a month, which is far more than anything I’d hoped for in its first year. This is a real passion project of mine and I’m so proud of how far it’s come.
But the point is, it was my hamster blog and now my dog blog that spurred me on to specialise in helping pet businesses. After offering my copywriting and content strategy services to ANY business going for the last 6 years, the step to niche felt unbelievably right. You know when you just feel that alignment to your very core?
Those four tiny balls of fluff gave me the nudge I needed to go after what I really wanted. To work with businesses with the same love for animals I have. Because when you both have the passion bug and you’re all in alignment, that’s when great things happen.
And I’ve never felt more at home in an industry. I’ve found the one thing I could easily spend the rest of my life writing about.
And that’s pretty amazing. Wouldn’t you agree?