Summer is a busy time for pet professionals. But it’s also a great time to do a quick mid-year check-in on your blog. Taking 20 minutes to review your blog’s focus can help you attract the right clients for the rest of the year. A mid-year check-in is a chance to make sure your blog aligns with the pet parents you most want to serve.
Why Is a Quick Check Important?
Here’s why it’s a good idea to periodically check your blog’s focus and direction:
- Pets’ needs are seasonal. You’ll want to be sure your blog adjusts to each season.
- New trends and local issues pop up throughout the year. You’ll want to be sure you’re targeting the news and trends that are important to the pet parents you serve.
- Your services may grow and change. By mid-year, you might have added new services that aren’t reflected in your blog. This is a good time to work them in.
A blog that’s focused on timely needs will connect well. If you keep your blog focus up-to-date, you’ll be better able to attract your best-fit customers.
Quick Blog Check-In
A mid-year check-in doesn’t need to take long. Here is a quick check guide to help you:
1. Audience Check
Do your blog posts speak to your ideal clients? Who is your ideal client and what are they looking for? Be sure your blog is addressing their needs and concerns.
For example, if you’re a pet sitter who prefers to work with long-term clients on home stays, rather than one-time doggy daycare, be sure your blog focuses on topics of interest or concern to home-stay clients.
2. Tone Check
Does the tone of your blog posts match the way you speak to clients in normal conversation? If your blog wording sounds too stiff or formal, focus on making it sound more conversational for the rest of the year.
Tip: It might help to talk into a tape recorder or record yourself talking to a friend (with their permission) to hear how you sound conversationally, when you talk about pet care-related topics.
3. Topic Check
Are your blog posts on track to address pet parents’ current concerns or questions? Are your blog posts in line with your most current service offerings? If not, you can adjust your blog calendar for the rest of the year to stay current.
4. Call-to-Action Check
Do your blog posts end with a call to action? Is that action the next step you want pet parents to take? Like signing up for an email list or calling for a free consultation.
Be sure your call-to-action links don’t lead to outdated pages or inactive email lists. Think about the best and most realistic next step that will help a new client connect to your business. That’s your call to action.
5. Engagement Check
How do the responses to your blog posts align with your business focus? Are you getting leads to your ideal type of client? Are you receiving questions and comments related to your current service offerings? If not, you can adjust your blog topics to focus on the conversations you want to have with potential clients.
For example, if you’re getting a lot of nutritional questions and comments from your pet grooming blog, and not a lot of questions about grooming, it might be because you shared a helpful post on pet nutrition.
While general topics can be helpful for pet parents, think about ways to tie those into your business focus. An aligned blog topic might be “How does pet nutrition affect grooming?” That’s a topic that allows you to share your insights on nutrition while reminding readers that your business focus is grooming.
Quick Adjustments
If you discover your recent blog posts don’t reflect your current service offerings or the concerns and needs of your ideal clients, you can update your blog calendar and your next three posts to address those topics.
If you’ve already written your next few posts, you may not need a complete rewrite. See if you can change a few things—title, intro, closing, tips—to reflect your desired focus. If that seems overwhelming, just plan to shift your focus on the next set of blog posts you write.
You may also want to check your Home page, About page, and Services page to be sure they reflect your current business focus.
You might also benefit from a blog post or Services page content that explains what type of pets or pet parents you help and in what ways.
It’s hard to keep a blog going when you’re busy serving pets and pet parents. Your blog content doesn’t need to be overwhelming. It just needs to connect with the pet parents you most want to service. A mid-year check helps you ensure your blog is connecting with the right people in the most effective ways.
Here’s a step you can take today: Take 20 minutes to review your last five blog posts using the checklist above. Make a note of one way your next blog post can be better aligned with your audience or business focus. In 20 minutes, you really can update your blog for greater success.
Janet Eriksson 