Zee & Zoey’s Chronicle Connection is a Blog About Cats – How About Yours?
There are only so many ways you can use the word “cat,” so just how does one go about picking a fresh, clever, and unique name for their cat blog amid the sea of competition?
It’s interesting, but when you boldly decide to write and self-publish your own book with no prior experience under the disillusioned assumption you will become an overnight sensation, that premise leaves a lot of room for reality, which is a vastly different scenario. I say this because now that I am a bona fide blogger with several years of blogging under my belt, I realize I didn’t really think things through in the naming of my blog department because I just assumed my renowned author celebrity status would be more than enough to drive traffic to my site. Brilliant plan, Deb…
First of all, I was one of those “old-fashioned” people who fought social technology tooth and nail and wanted NOTHING to do with it, therefore I knew very little about how the nuts and bolts of it operated to be successful. My blog, Zee & Zoey’s Chronicle Connection, was created solely as the companion name to the book, The Chronicles of Zee & Zoey, and Zee and Zoey were supposed to be icons like Brad and Angelina – everyone in the world would just naturally know who they were. I had no idea that I would evolve into a voice for serious cat advocacy issues, or be doing book and product reviews, interviews, or anything else not specifically related to Zee and Zoey.
As far as I was concerned, all I needed was Zee & Zoey’s name to drive traffic to my blog, after all, they were the infamous “Zee & Zoey.” Who knew back then that blogs actually operate better with pertinent key words in the title of the blog…
Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Had I known that I should have been thinking in a broader sense years ago about ways to drive traffic to my site, perhaps I would have applied some pretty basic logic to what I was doing, like maybe having the word “cat” somewhere in the title of my blog to let people know my blog is about cats. Moving forward, maybe one of these days I’ll do a slight design tweak and change the title of the blog to “Zee & Zoey’s Cat Connections” or “Zee & Zoey’s Cat Chronicles” to be more search engine friendly.
All of this got me to thinking about some of the other cat blogs I visit and their titles. There are some great one’s out there that any cat lover can relate to, such as “Covered in Cat Hair” by Robin Olsen. Who among us as a cat lover has not experienced cat hair on either our clothes or our furniture! Or like me, covered in actual cats!
One of those typical grainy photos that we can all relate to when we use our cell phones in a darkly lit room. Oh well, you still get the idea – this is me on any given night watching TV. Here I am covered in two cats – Harley on my chest and Zoey on my legs, with Jazz at my side and Zee at the top of my head!
I also see myself a lot in Tamar Arslanian’s “I Have Cat.” Yeah Tamar, so do I. Eight of them as a matter of fact! Caren Gittleman’s “Cat Chat with Caren and Cody,” Bernadette Kazmarski’s “The Creative Cat,” Ingrid King’s “The Conscious Cat,” and Layla Morgan Wilde’s “Cat Wisdom 101” also speak to me because the titles are very simple and easy to connect with – you know when you visit these blogs, one way or another it will be about cat related stuff!
Some of my other favorite named blogs are in the same boat as Zee & Zoey – I know them from reputation, but the titles don’t always suggest cats, such as “Our Life by Eric and Flynn” and typically blogs like this are found by reading other peoples comments – you see that they are very popular and go check out their sites to see who they are. Then they hook you in and you fall in love with them!
Then there are blogs like Debbie Glovatsy’s, “Glogirly,” whose title really throws you for a loop until you continue reading the tagline…”tails of two cats & their girl.” Oh, okay, this is definitely a blog about cats! Debbie is a marketing genius so I’m not really worried about title name recognition with her! Everyone knows who Katie and Waffles are in the kitty blogosphere!
After a while though, if you over think it, it just starts to get too complicated and crazy and you lose your personal element when you blog to cater to key words and optimization, which I just can’t do. I think making a slight change in my blog title might be a good idea and probably the easiest solution would be to change the name to something like “Zee and Zoey are Grumpy Cats” or “Zee, Zoey, and Simon the Cat” or “Zee and Zoey Play With Keyboard Cat.” I’m certain that would do the trick, although I might need a good copyright lawyer…
How about you – if you’re a blogger, how and why did you come up with the name of your blog? Or even more specifically, are you wrestling with the name of your blog like me after growing pains and thinking you need to change it? And for those of you cat lovers that don’t blog, out of curiosity, how did you find my blog without knowing it was about cats?
And as a reminder, don’t forget to nominate your favorite blogs for a Pettie and a chance for a rescue or shelter of your choice to win $10,000! Click here to nominate! www.zeezoey.com/blog
Best Blog Post Suggestions:
https://zeezoey.com/blog/zee-zoeys-spayneuter-series-part-one-the-facts-of-life-the-101s-of-kittens-and-conception/
(The piece I did on kittens and conception for Spay/Neuter month)
https://zeezoey.com/blog/dear-editors-my-response-to-the-cats-killing-birds-study/
(My editorial response to the cats killing birds controversy)
The Conscious Cat was inspired by Amber, who was the original conscious cat. At the time, I knew nothing about SEO, keywords, or anything of that nature, so it was just dumb luck (or feline inspiration?) that actually made the blog name SEO friendly. I think it is a daily challenge for those of us who want our blogs to grow to keep best SEO practices in mind even though our priority should be writing for our readers. It’s a never ending learning curve, and just when you think you’ve figured it out, Google will throw you a curveball by changing their algorithm. Keeps it interesting, I guess. One thing I know for sure: our cats couldn’t care less about SEO…
Ingrid – my priority is always my reader and that will never change for me. While I respect technology, I was brought in a world that was based on books, writing letters, and things of that nature and I don’t want to let that go! I love how Amber inspired the name of your blog – it’s purrfect – and you are right, cats could care less about SEO!
I so agree with Ingrid. Our priority should be writing for our readers in our own little way. It is interesting about all the names of the blogs. Anyway, have a great week end.
It really is interesting Marg and I agree with Ingrid as well!
I found mewz blog through Mousebreath mentioning Zee and Zoey. Mewz blog name attracted my Mom and I immediately as we were curious who they were and what they were like. When the site appeared on the screen, mewz design drew us in- it is so classy and cool just like we cats! As we read mewz family’s story of Zee and Zoey falling in love, having kits, and how mew all live together along with a few fur siblings we were hooked.
I don’t think mew need to worry about changes Auntie Deb, mewz blog and reputation as well as Zee and Zoey’s unique love story are well known and admired. I predict nothing but further success and an ever increasing, endless fan base in mewz future. Mewmew! *waves paws around crystal ball and purrs upon looking within and viewing Zee & Zoey’s blog future*
Ms. Phoebe – we sure are glad you saw us on Mousebreath and were curious enough to drop by and say hello! You are a true fan and we are so happy that you enjoy the love story of Zee and Zoey, the kittens, and the rest of the fur family!! And we love your crystal ball and wish you and yours all the best as well!! xoxoxoxo
Gee, I will have to put my thinking cap on to remember how my blog got the name MOL!
Hmmm… Brian, it might remain a mystery forever and ever!
I am obviously not a cat but did come up with the name of my blog by well, its my name 🙂 I thought that just my name would be enough to soar to stardom but it’s not. I have always read that your tagline is what most search engines find keywords to but now you have me thinking about if I need to change my name of my blog or not. Whatever you rename (wish you wouldn’t ) I will follow. I learn so much, I love the photos and I love the writer. Plus my kitty friends think I am super cool because I know so much about cats. I tell them its because Zee and Zoey brings out my inner cat senses 🙂
BOL and MOL Carma – I guess we went to the same school of misunderstanding when it came to naming our blogs as part of our rising star to fame!! Oh well, it least it brought us together and now we have something to think about moving forward!! And how sweet that your friends are impressed that you know Zee and Zoey – I happen to agree that they are pretty cool too!! 🙂
Well, I named my blog after taking a blogging class from the “social network ninja” Kristen Lamb, and since I’m primarily an author, the idea was to “brand” my name. . . AND make folks go “huh????” to check it out.
So it’s AMY SHOJAI’S BLING, BITCHES & BLOOD
Yes, I blog pet-centric stuff but also writer-icity, all with (I hope) some serious sparkle. If I wrote only about cats or only about dogs it would make sense, as you say, to include those names in the title. Great discussion!
Amy – I love the name of your blog and the boldness it inspires! Now that I know the author behind it, it makes it all the more fun to follow! Glad you enjoyed the discussion!
Deb, you makes some good points about adding the word “cat” into a cat blog .Before launching Cat Wisdom 101 (and thanks for mentioning us) I spent a lot of time and research mostly because all the names I wanted were taken or the URL parked. One of the issues I wanted to avoid was not naming my blog after any of my cats. i.e. Eric and Flynn is just Eric now. Re: SEO. Any changes with URLs will be impacted. I wanted to change the name (URL) of my Boomer Muse blog from a long sub domain when I migrate to WordPress and found out it was not recommended. I would speak to a web developer before making any decision.
Layla – I wish I had done more research prior to naming my blog, but I truly was a babe in the woods and a complete novice when I started this whole endeavor. It is what it is, but I have given myself something to think about moving forward.
Well, our blog name originated when our peeps moved to Grosse Ile, an island community in the Detroit, MI area. Even before we had our blog, the mom called us Island Cats…and our name tags even have “Island Cat” on them along with our names. When the mom started the blog it was a natural that the name would be “The Island Cats” along with our tag line…Every Cat wants to be an Island Cat…because us Island Cats have it pretty good here. The only problem we have with the blog name is that some peeps think we must live on a tropical island…which is not the case…but if they visit us for that reason alone, we hope they get hooked on our blog when they find out how fun we are (even if we don’t live on a tropical island) and come back again and again.
Island Cats – I have to admit that I was one of those people who thought you lived on a tropical island and I was very intrigued by that premise. Now that I know you live in an island community in Detroit, I find it even more delicious a tagline!!
I, too, chose the name of my blog before understanding anything about blogging. I was going for something unique to cats and that’s where “Moggie” came in. People in Great Britain call their mongrel cats “Moggies” but not so much in the United States. Then, I stuck “Purrs” on the end just because it is my favorite thing about a cat — their purrs! I write for my readers, not a search engine, so it’s pot luck if people find me, but I’m happy that almost 100 have found me and decided to follow! Thanks for this post, Deb.
Beverly – I have to admit that the word “moggie” was a new one to me and I learned about it from another cat blogger in the UK. I like how you added the “purr” to the title and it is very clever!
Thanks for the shout out Deb…
Actually, I began my blog, October of 2009. At that time, like you, I knew NOTHING about blogging. I simply began a blog to try and conquer depression that I was experiencing after having been a victim of company downsizing in 2007 at the wonderful “employable” age of 50, but I digress.
My blog name is actually “Cat Chat”….I wanted something simple…that had “Cat” in the title (I knew nothing about SEO, etc)
My goal then for the blog (and now) was to feature anything and everything pertaining to cats, in a relaxed, warm, inviting atmosphere. “Chat” was casual, I am casual, it speaks to who I am.
At the time I named the blog “Cat Chat” there was NO OTHER blog with that name…until…along came Martha Stewart…that is when I changed it to “Cat Chat With Cody & Caren” (bet Cat Tipper doesn’t know that HER “Cat Chat” on her blog leads people to Martha Stewart, but I digress)
Hence, “Cat Chat With Caren & Cody”
It wasn’t until sometime last year that I was SUPER happy with my blog name, when a reader who lives in France emailed me and told me that she loved the name of my blog because “CAT” in French is “CHAT”…so in France my blog is “CAT CAT!” Have I lost you yet? lol
I am happy with the name…and…because my parents chose to spell my name with a “C”…..I am partial to “C” words…..that was another reason I named the blog what I did!
I would absolutely consider adding the word “Cat” somewhere in your blog heading, I think that is a good idea. As for blogs being known in the “Cat Blogosphere” without the word “Cat” in the heading, that is all well and good but the Cat Blogosphere encompasses BLOGGERS. Now that we are social media savvy, other bloggers reading our blogs is great but that isn’t the audience that is going to sell books, etc…….you want your blog/book to reach mainstream USA.
When we are just reaching other bloggers we are speaking to a rather small sampling of the cat world. Just my opinion.
I average approx 20,000 hits per month and for me that’s good enough!
Caren, I believe the CAT CHAT you saw on CatTipper.com is referencing Tracie Hotchner’s CAT CHAT radio show that was on the Martha Stewart channel of Sirius/XM, hence the link. If it was supposed to be a reference to your blog, please let me know.
@Paris, sorry, thought it was on your Cat Tipper site…I follow over 200 so I could easily be having a brain lapse. Could have been Traci and nope nothing was supposed to be referencing me!
Wow, Caren – I had no idea your blog had so much back history and it was fun to learn more about it! Thank you for sharing! I remember way back when in high school when taking French class was mandatory, that I was fascinated to learn that “cat” in french is “chat” – very cool that you have all that intertwining of words in your blog!
I have a lot to think about and have to admit that I have no clue how many hits I have per month!
xoxox
As most of what I write tends towards the weird and sort of if not outright fictional now, we don’t pay much attention to SEO (after all, Fiction was never in the subject card catalog in the library) and we pull in people in other ways. We had some very fine SEO friendly posts from back when we did aff marketing, about our products but find we are less interested in writing about stuff like that. As for other titles, the Woman uses her own name for her acupuncture blog/editing business and then she had the domain name My Big Fat Orange Cat, which became the name on her publishing company, which is probably not real SEO friendly but hey, it’s fun, right?
Chey – we very often think beating to your own drummer is the best way to go and when in doubt, that is what we always do!!
I too picked the name, “The Cat on My Head,” and commissioned art for my blog prior to actually getting it set up. I would not, however, change the name, even though I think there is a web-site called, “Cat on My Head.” I selected the name as one or another of my cats have always slept on my head. The current one is Misty May who is portrayed in our logo. Finding other cat blogs originally came from looking at blog rolls on others sites and then from reading comments on other sites. I do think having something cat related in the title is not a bad idea. All this other SEO stuff is a creativity killer in my book. I am not advertising or selling anything so I don’t feel that I am missing out on getting traffic to my blog. Of course, I am much newer to the game than you and so many others (1st anniversary will be next month), so maybe I’ll feel differently as time goes on.
Kitties Blue – I LOVE the name of your blog and just like “Covered in Cat Hair,” I can relate to “The Cat on My Head,” because there are many a morning I wake up with Zee at the top of my head! While I do have my book, I still try to keep it real when I blog and that being said, it can’t always be about SEO. You just keep doing what your doing – you have a warm, friendly, humorous, and honest style of writing that is very enjoyable!
Wow, thanks for thinking those nice things about our blog. We are such great fans of yours, that makes your kind words even more meaningful. Purrs and hugs, Lily Olivia, Misty May, Mauricio, Giulietta, Fiona, Astrid, Lisbeth and Calista Josette
Well I’ve never been called a marketing *genius* before….thank you Deb, but I think you’re smoking some serious nip. haha!
I love this post ….what a great thought provoker and conversation starter.
When I started my blog, I didn’t even know that it would end up being a CAT blog. I just thought I better get with the program and learn a thing or two about social media and blogging. When I couldn’t decide what to write for my very first post, my husband (Gloman) told me to have Katie (my cat) introduce me. It stuck and I never looked back. At the time I thought I was pretty clever. I mean, how many other blogs can there be out there written in the voice of a cat? HA!
My blog though is named after me. It’s my nickname. And trust me, I didn’t even KNOW what a key word was. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to change my actual URL to GlogirlyCats…the only way anyone would ever know it was about cats was if they actually visited. Ah well, that hindsight stuff of which you talk…
After I got into it a bit more, I did actually think about (sadly) how life and blogging could go on should anything every happen to my dear Katie-Cat. And that’s one of the reasons I’ve stuck with Glogirly. It made it very easy to add in Waffles. And at the end of the day, it really is about me and how I see the world through the eyes and minds of my kitties. ; )
Thanks again for your incredibly kind words, Deb. You’ve made my day. And you’ve made me blush.
XOXO,
GG
Oh Debbie – I certainly didn’t mean to make you blush, but I truly do admire your creativity and think you do a fantastic job marketing your site via Katie and Waffles. How incredibly interesting that you became a blogger, and not necessarily with a subject in mind. We owe Gloman a big thank you for his suggestion regarding Katie, as the world is a brighter place with a little of her sarcastic humor in it!
M says you always make us stop and think and that’s good cuz she doesn’t use her brain nearly enough these days. he he We named my blog after me when I started it because on Twitter everyone knew Mariodacat. (Not so much these days however). I also never thought beyond just doing stories and pictures about me with a few other things thrown in for good measure. I guess you could call us Hap Hazard bloggers with no specific goal in mind. We enjoy your blog and you always write an interesting one. Good luck on finding a name, if that is what you choose to do.
Mariodacat – nothing wrong with a little thinking now and again, although sometimes it can make your brain hurt if you think too much!! Anyhow, to us, you were always a superstar because we always saw you commenting on other blogs, or people commenting about you! We were never much with Twitter – it always overwhelmed us, but we are trying to get better at it! Sometimes blogs really don’t need a purpose and just reading about your daily adventures and seeing some pictures is more than enough to bring a smile to our face.
Glad you enjoy the blog and we appreciate your comments very much!
Very interesting, Deb!! 🙂 I think “Zee & Zoey Live it Large” would be apt 😉
I started out by calling my blog several different names, usually one word with cat in it somewhere. Then I decided as I love words, but don’t always use them correctly, Catachresis fitted the bill rather well, though I am quite aware a lot of people haven’t a clue what it means! Eventually the blog evolved, with Glogirly’s amazing help and creativity into a neat conduit for Austin to express his rather eccentric linguistic ideas! xx
I like the title suggestion, CATachresis and will have to give it some thought! As far as the title of your blog, I was captivated by it the moment I saw it and admit that I did not immediately remember what the word meant and had to look it up! You and Austin are always teaching me something and I really love that about your blog! The title and what you write about is such a perfect tie in, now complimented by Glogirly’s fantastic design work!
Thanks so much, Deb. It means a lot coming from you xx Glogirly is so creative, isn’t she! 🙂
This is an incredible timely post for me as it’s something I’ve been giving a lot of thought to lately.
Mochas, Mysteries and More began life 2 years ago as a book blog…with a litle of my other loves such as cats and coffee. As time went on I realized the majority of the books I read have cats in them, and I started to write more and more about my cat Tara (named from my love of Gone with the Wind, so she has a literary name) and writing posts from her POV. I ask authors to write about their cat characters and their own pets.
I debated starting a separate cat blog, but soon realized that books and cats are the 2 most important things in my life; my blog is a reflection of that, and I love it.
I do still wish I had “cat” somewhere in my blog title, though. (The amazing aforementioned Glogirly did my blog design!) I’m thinking the future may hold my getting another cat and naming her Mocha 🙂
Well Melissa – you have me intrigued, hook, line, and sinker, and I am off to check out your blog! It’s funny – I did an interview today for a blog podcast and the introduction about me is that there have always been 3 constants in my life – my love of cats, books, and writing – so we seem to have a lot in common! I hope we do see a Mocha kitty in your future one day! Thanks for popping by today and I think we will be seeing more of each other!
First of all, thanks for the mention!
I started the blog 7 years ago next month. I had badly broken my leg and was laid up for some time and was bored. I started googling cats, then ginger cats and found Fat Eric. His owner suggested I start a blog too and after a bit of lurking I did so. It was created to keep a record of their lives on the farm and their walks in the fields with me, so I came up with the most unoriginal title of “Our Life, by Eric and Flynn.” It never occurred to me to put cat into the title, and I certainly never thought we would get more than a dozen or so readers.
When Eric passed I knew I would never change the title. It was created for both him and Flynn and he will forever be a part of it. I keep him in it by making Fridays Eric’s Day. Maybe weekly is too often, I don’t know. It feels right for me though and it helps me to keep blogging for Flynn.
I seem to have gone off the subject a bit, I didn’t intend to, sorry.
Flynn – we all miss Eric dearly and you don’t have to apologize for talking about him! I am really enjoying learning all the back history of everyone’s blogs and now I understand all the walks in the fields! I am in the same boat as you, using Zee & Zoey’s names and don’t think I could ever change that part of it either…
Well, on one hand, I suppose that I got lucky when I dipped my toe in the blogging waters. I could have named Ryker’s blog after him and would have then been stuck with a blog named after a cat who was no longer with us after he passed so suddenly.
Instead, for some reason, I chose to do a play on words with his breed (the Tonkinese). I’ve always loved alliteration, and so it appealed at the time.
I have wracked my brain for a way to rename my blog that included the word “cat” in the title, especially once I began blogging on serious topics. (Tonk’s Tail– err, Tale seems too playful and whimsical for some of the more serious topics we address from time to time!)
I’ve been in a frozen state on this topic for the past year,caught between the desire to change the name, and wondering if a change would be received negatively by readers…?
*commencing hair-pulling now…*
Yeah, A Tonk’s Tail… I’m in the same boat as you! For the most part, time just gets in the way of thinking… so many things I know I need to do to be a better blogger, but so little time to apply the effort to it! I will be interested to see what you ultimately decide!
It’s astonishing how little thought (read: NONE at all) my Human put into naming my blog (SpittySpeaks). She’s an English teacher, it was alliterative, full stop. Since she has zero ambition to grow the blog (I mean, *I* do, but that apparently counts for nuffing at all), I doubt she will ever rename or redesign it. She is surprised we have any readers at all, MOL. It’s as good as it’s ever going to get. Sigh.
Spitty the Kitty – you never fail to make me laugh!! Your human just seems to have no regard whatsoever for your aspiring needs for fame and fortune… We found you during Zee & Zoey’s Cat Ruler of the World Contest and have been hooked ever since!
Our LONG blog name came about as a way to describe our shelter volunteering experiences, and the human-animal bond that exists between volunteers and the shelter kitties. In retrospect, we would have made our name a little shorter, but who knew we’d still be at it after four years (and that so many people would actually read our little blog)?:)
meowmeowmans – who knew indeed where all of us would be on this well traveled road we call life!! You guys are so amazing and it seems to me that just about everyone in the kitty blogosphere knows who you are!