• E-Commerce
    • eCommerce
    • Amazon FBA
    • Dropshipping
  • Marketing
    • Digital Marketing
    • Social Media
    • Email Marketing
  • Blogging
    • Blogging & Niche Websites
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • SEO
    • Monetization
    • Affiliate Marketing
  • Make Money
    • Side Hustles
    • Self Publishing
    • Start a Business
    • Make Money Online
  • Stories
    • Podcasts
    • Success Stories
  • Help & Guides
    • Start Here
    • Tools
    • About
    • Archives
    • Contact
    • Advertise On Niche Pursuits
Success Stories

How A-Z Animals’ Traffic Just Exploded Up To 6.9 Million Monthly Visitors

By Quenton Fyfe

August 1, 2022

When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

 

A-Z Animals is an online encyclopedia of animals covering wild animals, birds and fish as well as domestic pets like cats and dogs.

They're now getting nearly 7 million monthly visitors, so let's take a look at what they're doing:

Contents

  • A-Z Animals' Amazing Traffic Growth
  • Which Keywords do they Target?
  • Which Pages get the Most Traffic?
  • How do They Create Content?
  • How is A-Z Animals Making Money?
  • Keeping People on the Site
  • What we can Learn From A-Z Animals

A-Z Animals' Amazing Traffic Growth

Although A-Z Animals has been online since 2008, their traffic had remained steady at around a million monthly visitors since 2016.

But since January 2021 their traffic has risen rapidly, and it's now approaching 7 million monthly visitors.

The site has quite an international audience, with only 55% of traffic coming from the USA, which is a lower percentage than many sites.

So what are they doing to grow traffic so fast?

There are some clues from Ahrefs here:

Notice that from about December 2020 there's strong growth in keywords ranking outside the top 10 results.

That looks like a lot of new content is being added to the site, and of course, some of it is ranking higher as you can see from the darker orange lines.

If you look at the Branded Traffic Trend in this graph from SEMRush, you can see a steady decline in the percentage of branded traffic since 2021.

This isn't A-Z Animals losing brand recognition - it's just a symptom of ranking for a large number of new non-branded terms.

Which Keywords do they Target?

A-Z Animals have noticed that people search for "animals that start with a" and other letters.

They have created a comprehensive list of animals starting with each letter of the alphabet to satisfy these queries.

As a result, 3 of their highest traffic pages are targeting these keywords.

Which Pages get the Most Traffic?

Ahrefs shows there's a good range of content getting high traffic:

4 of their top pages are blog posts - 3 listing top 10s, and one comparing alligators and crocodiles.

How do They Create Content?

A-Z Animals say they maintain a library of more than 100 encylopedias and guides to the animal kingdom that form the basis of their research.

Each article sites their sources at the bottom of the page, for example, the page on the Alaskan Malamute lists 8 online sources.

There are lots of photos on the site - these appear to be mainly stock photos licensed for publication, creative commons photos, or public domain photos.

A-Z Animals don't claim any particular subject expertise or qualifications - they say:

Our editorial team has more than 30 years of experience directly managing editorial teams.

This shows that you don't need to be a veterinarian or a qualified zoologist to succeed in this niche - if you're prepared to put in the work and do the research.

Their articles about individual animals are all well-researched and cover the topic in-depth, with many sub-headings and FAQs which target common search queries.

How is A-Z Animals Making Money?

The two income streams for this website are display advertising and affiliate programs:

A-Z Animals is running display ads on most of their pages, including video ads which often pay very well. Their advertising income will be reduced by the fact that only 55% of their traffic comes from the USA - traffic from other markets is less lucrative.

They are also signed up to affiliate programs from Amazon and Chewy (one of the best-paying programs in the pet niche) and have created a lot of content, such as pet food reviews, to send targeted traffic to these affiliate programs.

Keeping People on the Site

We believe that time spent on site is a Google ranking factor, and A-Z Animals have come up with a great way to reduce their bounce rate and keep people on the site for longer:

Many sites display a pop-up when you move your mouse towards the back button (a so-called exit-intent pop-up), they're usually used to offer a newsletter sign-up or a special offer.

A-Z Animals are using an exit-intent pop-up to show other popular articles you might be interested in - thus keeping visitors on the site for longer.

What we can Learn From A-Z Animals

  • You don't always need professional qualifications to succeed in the animals niche.
  • Creating a large site with a lot of in-depth articles is an effective way to drive traffic.
  • It's worth creating related content relevant to your top affiliate programs as A-Z animals have done with pet affiliate programs.

Posted in

Success Stories

By Quenton Fyfe

Quenton Fyfe has been running an online business since 1999 and more than 50 million people have visited his websites.

When he’s not writing articles or doing SEO, Quenton enjoys running and playing guitar and piano.

Quenton lives with his partner Clare, their daughter, two dogs and a snake in the beautiful Scottish Borders.

Want to learn step-by-step how I built my Niche Site Empire up to a full-time income?

 

Yes! I Love to Learn

Learn How I Built My Niche Site Empire to a Full-time Income

  • How to Pick the Right Keywords at the START, and avoid the losers
  • How to Scale and Outsource 90% of the Work, Allowing Your Empire to GROW Without You
  • How to Build a Site That Gets REAL TRAFFIC FROM GOOGLE (every. single. day.)
  • Subscribe to the Niche Pursuits Newsletter delivered with value 3X per week

 

    My top recommendations

     

    How 7 Niche Site Owners Are Using Link Whisper To Grow Their Sites

    By Dan Morris

    Surfer SEO review.

    Surfer SEO Review: Is It the Best All-In-One On Page SEO Solution?

    By Eric Burns

    RankIQ review.

    RankIQ Review: Is This AI SEO Toolset Worth Your Time and Money?

    By Amy Derungs

    jasper ai review.

    Jasper AI Review (Formerly Jarvis AI): Is It Still The Best AI Writing Assistant?

    By Dan Morris

    Content Pit Review: Is it Possible to Find Fast, Inexpensive, and High Quality Content?

    By Brady Cargle

    Want to learn step-by-step how I built my Niche Site Empire up to a full-time income?

     

    Yes! I Love to Learn

    Latest articles

     

    beauty business names.

    Start a Business

    975 Creative Makeup & Beauty Business Names

    By Will James

    how much do affiliate marketers make.

    Affiliate Marketing

    How Much Do Affiliate Marketers Make? Hint: It’s A Lot!

    By Ashley Simpson

    Artificial Intelligence

    The Ultimate Guide to AI for Bloggers 🔥

    By Spencer Haws

    Success Stories

    How Elysia Cartlidge Earns $15k/Month From SEO Traffic To Her Side Hustle Recipe Site

    By Samara Kamenecka

    nail salon names.

    Start a Business

    520 Cute & Classy Nail Salon Names You Can Use

    By Will James

    monsterInsights vs google site kit.

    Wordpress

    MonsterInsights vs Google Site Kit: Which is Best To Add GA To Your Site?

    By Steve Allen

    View All Articles

    Ready to find your niche?

    I would love to learn about…

     

    Subscribe

    Join Over 67,000 People Like You!

    Learn how to build a business online

     

    • We will never spam or sell your information.
    • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Cookie Policy

    © 2023 Niche Pursuits

    • Earnings Disclaimer
    • Amazon FBA
    • Crafted by Fhoke

    Niche Pursuits is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.