How Sara B. Hansen’s Dog Blog Achieved 4.2 Million Pageviews in 2022 with SEO

Have you ever wondered how a niche blog can generate millions of pageviews without a massive advertising budget?

Take inspiration from the recent Zaxby’s Fried Chicken Philly campaign by Tombras. Just like Zaxby’s leveraged creativity and strategic marketing to capture attention, Sara B. Hansen’s dog blog achieved an impressive 4.2 million pageviews in 2022 through the power of SEO.

By mastering the art of search engine optimization, Sara turned her passion for dogs into a high-traffic website that attracts readers from around the world.

This interview post will uncover the specific SEO techniques and strategies Sara implemented, providing you with actionable insights to boost your own blog’s traffic.

Let’s dive into the key elements that drove Sara’s remarkable success and how you can replicate them.

Key Takeaways:

• Inspiration and Focus on SEO: Aim to provide valuable information for your audience and focus on SEO to reach a wider audience.

• Effective SEO Tactics: Create high-quality, helpful content, using keyword research tools like SEM Rush and continue analyzing and updating content to ensure it remains relevant and addresses common reader questions.

• Content Planning and Keyword Research: Make your site encyclopedic by covering common issues by creating cornerstone articles on essential topics. Do regular content analysis and updates.

• Overcoming Challenges: Build sufficient content and deal with traffic fluctuations due to Google updates.

1. Can you share the initial inspiration behind starting your dog blog, and how did you decide to focus on SEO as a growth strategy?

After I left my newspaper editing job in Fort Collins, Colorado, I was doing freelance work and a lot of it was technical and not very fun, so I decided to start the online magazine in 2011. 

I’ve always had dogs and wanted to use my experience and my journalism skills (20-plus years as an editor and newspaper reporter) to provide helpful information for fellow dog owners. 

So, I launched DogsBestLife.com, a WordPress site.

To reach the widest possible audience, I quickly started working to improve my SEO skills.

2. Generating 4.2 million pageviews is impressive. What were some of the key SEO tactics or strategies that you believe contributed most to this achievement?

The site generated 5 million pageviews in 2021 with $67k in ad revenue; 4.2 million pageviews in 2022 with $62k in ad revenue; and 3.6 million pageviews in 2023 with $81k in add revenue. 

Those numbers will only be a fraction of that this year after Google’s updates and its switch to AI answers.

I’ve always focused first on providing interesting, helpful content that would be beneficial to readers. 

Then I’ll analyze the content to make sure it addresses any common questions readers might have on that topic. 

Then I use tools to see if there are additional keywords I should add. But I don’t just add words or phrases unless they make sense in the context of the article. 

For several years I used SEM Rush to help with keyword research, but in January I switched my site to Raptive for Google ad management and it offers excellent tools to do SEO research and to analyze existing posts, so now I use them instead.

3. How do you approach keyword research and content planning for your blog posts? Any tools or methodologies that have been particularly effective for you?

I want the site to be almost encyclopedic in its content. So, I worked to include the most common health and training issues for dog owners. 

I also worked to provide as many dog breed profiles as possible. 

It’s also vital to continually analyze the content to look for opportunities to improve it.

I also created four cornerstone articles on the most important topics: 

• Ready to fall in love? Use our ultimate guide to 133 dog breeds

• Roadmap to optimal dog health: Navigate from A to Z with confidence

• Master dog training: 30 expert tips for a perfectly behaved pup

• Puppy training 101: 10 tips to prepare your dog for success

4. Building organic traffic takes time and effort. What were some challenges you faced along the way, and how did you overcome them?

In the beginning, it was a matter of focusing on building up enough content to make the site useful to readers. 

Then in 2019, I decided to spend more time focusing on the site and worked to build more internal links using LinkWhisper. 

And I started spending more time reviewing and updating existing content as well as publishing new articles. 

I’ve always seen fluctuations in traffic based on Google’s updates, but never anything as drastic as what happened starting last September. 

The site dropped from 10,000-12,000 pageviews a day down to 5,000. It’s continued dropping and now hovers around 1,000 a day. 

Truthfully it doesn’t seem to matter what I do to try to rebuild what’s been lost. 

5. Engagement and user experience are crucial in retaining visitors. How do you ensure that your content not only attracts but also keeps readers coming back?

My goal has always been to provide high quality content the provides helpful information. That hasn’t changed and I believe it’s why we continue to get new readers.

6. Has your SEO strategy evolved over time? If so, what adjustments have you made, and why?

In the beginning, I focused on writing new content. I didn’t do research before I wrote the articles and once I published them, that was it. 

Over time, I learned how important it was to research topics before writing and to continually update the published posts. 

7. Can you highlight any specific SEO techniques that you feel are often overlooked but have been beneficial for your blog's growth?

I can’t think of any secret SEO strategies that I use.

8. For bloggers looking to improve their SEO efforts, what advice or tips would you give based on your own experience and success?

Focus on providing quality content. Research your topic before you write to make sure you’re answering the most common questions. 

Those are also most often the primary keywords. Once you publish, periodically go back and review your content to see if it needs to be updated. 

Conclusion

Have you ever wondered how your niche blog could achieve similar results?

Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.