Cattery Website: What Every Cat Breeder Needs Online

When someone lands on your cattery website, they should be able to work out three things almost immediately. What breed do you have? Where are you located? And who are you?

If they have to hunt for any of that information, the website isn’t doing its most basic job.

A good cattery website should help the right kitten buyers find you, understand what makes your cattery different and take a sensible next step. It should look professional, feel personal and make it easy for someone to learn about you before they enquire.

What should a cattery website do?

Your cattery website is the front door to your breeding program. It introduces people to you, your cats and the way you raise your kittens.

It shouldn’t only be somewhere to display kitten photos. People can see kitten photos anywhere. Your website needs to help them understand why they would choose you as their breeder.

A useful cattery website should:

• Make your breed and location obvious
• Introduce you as the person behind the cattery
• Explain what matters to you as a breeder
• Show your cats and how they live
• Explain how you raise and place your kittens
• Answer the questions kitten buyers ask repeatedly
• Give visitors one clear next step

That next step doesn’t need to be a full kitten application. In many cases, asking someone to join your Kitten Update List is much more appropriate.

They may have only just discovered you. They may not be ready to apply for a kitten, and you may not have kittens available. Asking for their name and email gives them an easy way to remain connected without making the first contact feel like a job application.

Make your breed and location immediately obvious

A surprising number of cattery websites make people work far too hard to find out what breed the breeder has or where they’re located.

Your breed and general location should be clear near the top of the home page. Don’t assume your cattery name tells people what you breed. And don’t assume somebody will dig through your contact page to discover which country you live in.

For Cuddleton, that means making it clear that I breed British Shorthair cats and kittens in Perth, Western Australia.

This helps the person visiting the website, and it also helps Google understand when your website may be relevant to someone searching for your breed in your area.

Show the person behind the cattery

People aren’t only choosing a kitten. They’re choosing the breeder they may remain connected with for many years.

One of the things I teach breeders is to look at their own website and ask whether a visitor can actually work out who they are. Is your name there? Is there a photograph of you? Do people get any sense of your experience, values and personality?

I’ve looked at breeder websites where I can see the cattery name and plenty of cats, but I still don’t know who the breeder is.

I make sure my own website is very much about me as a person. My experience matters, but so does allowing people to see who they’ll actually be dealing with.

You don’t need to turn the website into your life story. You simply need to stop hiding behind the cattery name.

Use real photographs from your cattery

Professional looking doesn’t mean formal or impersonal.

Some of the best photographs for a cattery website are relaxed photos that show your real cats, your real home and the way your kittens are raised. They help potential kitten buyers imagine where their kitten is coming from.

You still need clear, good quality images. Dark photographs, cluttered backgrounds and tiny pictures won’t present your cats well. But you don’t need to make your cattery look like a photography studio either.

A website filled with generic cat photographs tells people very little about your breeding program. Your own cats should be the stars.

Keep the photographs current too. If a cat has retired, the website should say so. If kittens shown as available left months ago, update the page. Old information creates confusion and more messages for you to answer.

Include the information kitten buyers genuinely need

Your website should answer the questions people need answered before they contact you.

The exact pages will vary between breeders, but most cattery websites need information about:

• The breeder and the history of the cattery
• The breed and what it’s like to live with
• The breeding cats
• Health testing and veterinary care
• How kittens are raised
• What’s included with each kitten
• How kitten availability is announced
• The process for applying for or reserving a kitten
• Collection, transport and location
• Frequently asked questions

This information helps people decide whether your cattery is right for them. It also means your first conversation can move beyond answering the same basic questions you’ve already answered hundreds of times.

Help the right kitten buyers find you

A beautiful website isn’t much use if nobody can find it.

Many kitten buyers begin with Google. They search for a breed and location, such as British Shorthair breeder Perth or British Shorthair kittens Western Australia.

Google needs words on your website that explain what you breed, where you’re located and what your pages are about. Photographs alone can’t do that.

Your page titles, headings and written content should use your breed and location naturally. Your website should also include useful information that answers the questions your potential kitten buyers are already asking.

That doesn’t mean filling pages with repeated keywords or awkward writing. Your content should still sound like a real breeder speaking to a real person.

Social media also has an important role. It allows people to see regular updates, follow your cats and get to know your personality. But it should lead people towards your website and email list rather than leaving your entire audience on a platform you don’t own.

I’ve written more about how to use social media to promote your cattery.

Build an audience before you have kittens available

One of the most valuable things a cattery website can do is help you build a list of people who are genuinely interested in your kittens.

This matters because pedigree cat breeding doesn’t operate like a shop. You won’t always have kittens available when someone first discovers you. They may need to wait several months, and they can easily forget about you during that time.

A Kitten Update List gives them a reason to remain connected.

I already had an established local email list when a breeder friend of mine, Sharon, had two thirteen week old blue male kittens still available. I sent one broadcast email to my list of a couple of thousand people. Within about three hours, all her kittens were sold.

That’s the value of building an audience before you need it. You’re not trying to find buyers from nothing every time kittens become available.

Your website can invite people onto that list. A welcome email sequence can then introduce your story, your cats, your values, how you raise your kittens, what’s included and how applications work.

By the time somebody is ready to apply, they already know a great deal about you.

Your cattery website and enquiry pipeline are different things

The website is the front door. The pipeline manages what happens after someone comes through it.

A complete kitten enquiry process may include:

• Joining the Kitten Update List
• Receiving welcome emails
• Completing a kitten application when the time is right
• Reviewing and approving the application
• Allocating or reserving a kitten
• Sending the kitten agreement
• Requesting the deposit and balance
• Providing collection information
• Following up after the kitten goes home
• Requesting a review

The system should manage the repetitive administration while the breeder keeps control of the decisions and relationships that require personal judgement.

You still decide whether someone is suitable for one of your kittens. You still choose which kitten may suit which family. Automation doesn’t replace the breeder. It stops you having to remember every routine email, copy information between several places and search through old messages to work out what happened next.

I already had a website and kitten enquiry system

My own website history goes back a long way. I built websites using Microsoft FrontPage, moved through WordPress and other website editors, and most recently had my Cuddleton website on Kajabi.

I also already had a Kitten Update List, email follow up, an enquiry pipeline, applications, contracts and payments. I’d built that system over years.

Some parts worked beautifully. Other parts still depended on me remembering to do something manually. And because the process had developed over time, different parts lived on different software.

Moving Cuddleton to Purrsonality Websites wasn’t about suddenly discovering that I needed a system. It was about bringing the website and the process I’d already developed together in one place.

That distinction matters. A breeder may already have a good process but be holding it together across several different programs. Another breeder may have a nice website but no real process after somebody enquires. And a new breeder may be starting with neither.

The right solution depends on what you already have and what you’re currently doing yourself.

How much does a cattery website cost?

The cost depends on whether you’re paying for a basic website or a website with the complete system behind it.

You can build a website yourself, but the true cost includes your time. You need to write the pages, choose the design, organise the photographs, connect your domain, keep everything updated and manage the other software used for enquiries and emails.

A professionally built website costs more because somebody else is doing that work. If it also includes email tools, an enquiry pipeline, contracts, payments and ongoing support, you’re comparing two very different things.

You can enter your own figures into my cattery website calculator . It lets you choose your currency, enter your expected kitten sales and see what each Purrsonality plan represents across those sales.

It isn’t a profit calculator and it doesn’t include every expense involved in breeding and raising kittens. It’s a practical way to look at the website cost using your own cattery numbers.

Can you build your own cattery website?

You absolutely can.

I’ve built and managed my own websites for years. If you enjoy doing it, understand the software and have time to keep the site current, a do it yourself website may suit you perfectly.

But building the pages is only one part of the job. You also need to consider how people will find the website, what they’ll do when they arrive and how you’ll manage them from their first expression of interest through to taking a kitten home.

You may decide to build everything yourself. You may keep your existing website and improve a few specific areas. Or you may decide that you no longer want to spend your time managing the technology.

The important thing is knowing what you actually need rather than paying for a pretty website that doesn’t do anything after somebody looks at it.

Purrsonality Websites for pedigree cat breeders

Purrsonality Websites was created from my real Cuddleton website and kitten enquiry process, together with Meg Burrage and the team at SaaSy Funnels.

It brings the cattery website, Kitten Update List, emails, enquiries, applications, contracts, payment requests and follow up into one system. The breeder still makes the important decisions, while the routine communication and administration can happen in the background.

It’s designed for pedigree cat breeders who want the website and the process behind it built together. Every website requires an ongoing monthly plan, with different levels depending on how much of the website content and social media you want the team to manage for you.

What makes a good cattery website?

A good cattery website makes your breed, location and identity clear. It uses real photographs, answers the questions kitten buyers genuinely have and gives visitors an easy next step.

It also connects to what happens afterwards.

That may be a simple email list you manage yourself, or it may be a complete enquiry pipeline covering applications, contracts, payments and follow up. What matters is that interested families don’t disappear simply because you don’t have a kitten available on the day they find you.

Start by looking at your current website and process honestly. Work out what already works, what you repeat constantly and what still depends on you remembering every little step. Then you can decide whether your website needs a few thoughtful improvements or whether it’s time to bring the whole system together.