I run a dog naming site with 11,000+ names — here's how it started
Hey IH 👋 idognames.com is one of the quieter projects in my portfolio, but it has a loyal audience and steady organic traffic. The idea is simple: when people get a new dog, they want to find the right name — not just scroll through a generic list of 20 popular names. They want names that fit their dog's breed, size, coat color, personality, or origin. So I built a database of over 11,000 dog names organized by every filter that actually matters to dog owners: - Breed — German Shepherd names, Husky names, Bulldog names - Coat color — Black dog names, White dog names, Brown dog names - Origin — Irish, Native American, German, Italian, Indian - Personality — Tough names, Gentle names, Funny names - Gender — Male and female separately - Random Generator — 20 random names at a time for when you just want inspiration Why it works Pet naming is a surprisingly strong SEO niche. People search for very specific terms — "female golden retriever names," "black dog names male," "unique husky names" — and a site organized around those exact queries tends to rank well for long-tail traffic. The content is evergreen. A dog name doesn't expire. Pages written years ago still pull traffic today. Lessons from running a content site - Specificity beats breadth. "Chihuahua dog names" outperforms "dog names" every time. - Long-tail pages compound. Each breed or category page is a new entry point from search. - Evergreen content is low maintenance. Build it once, it keeps working. I apply the same thinking across my other sites — icatnames.com and 9babynames.com follow the same model for cats and babies respectively.Happy to discuss niche content site SEO, pet naming as a traffic niche, or building evergreen content databases.
