Overall though, I’d say that it’s probably pretty hard to be successful as a horse blogger.

For a little more insight into the horse audience, I’ll share some of our stats for my site Equine Now and give you a so you can get a better idea of some specifics. You can follow along if you like by opening our Quantcast Profile since we publicly share our stats there (http://www.quantcast.com/equinenow.com).

The first thing to realize about the horse community online is that it’s dominated by women. The audience is at least 75% female and on Equine Now, I think 90% of the user accounts we have were created by a woman. Women ride and love horses a lot more than men. It’s also usually the woman in the house who takes care of any horses most of the time.

Further sub dividing the audience a bit more, you end up with a few different groups. There’s a large audience of girls under 18 who own a horse or are fascinated by horses. A lot of these girls own a horse, are into hunter jumpers and compete in horse shows.

A larger audience consists of older women 35 and up who generally own a horse for western or trail riding purposes. These women are generally more affluent than the average American (it takes land and property to own a horse) and live in areas that are a bit more rural than most people (not in larger cities). They often live in areas where the internet is an easier form of entertainment than might be the case for someone who lives in an urban environment. This is the group that I think a successful horse blogger needs to cater to.

So, given that, think about Fugly Horse again. It’s a site which gossips and talks about other people’s horses and does it in a scathing manner. For the audience I mentioned above, Fugly horse is the equivalent of the tabloids you see when buying your groceries.

M