A breeder’s website has three jobs. Show the dogs properly, answer the questions buyers ask before they ring, and be findable by people who do not live near you. Most do the first well and miss the other two, which is why they get admired and not enquired about.

Your buyers are not local

This separates breeding from almost every other small business. Someone looking for a plumber wants one within ten miles. Someone after a well-bred puppy of a particular breed will travel a long way for the right one, and in my experience thinks very little of it.

That changes what the website is for. A local business needs to turn up when someone nearby searches. You need to turn up when someone two counties away searches your breed.

It also means Facebook alone will not do it. A page reaches people already in your groups or who know your name. It does not reach the family in Derbyshire who have settled on the breed and are working out who to ring.

What the law requires on the page

Worth getting out of the way first, because it is the one part of a breeder’s website that is not a matter of preference.

In England, under the Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations 2018, you need a local authority licence if you breed three or more litters in any twelve months and sell any of them, or if you breed and advertise a business of selling dogs. Scotland adopted the same three-litter threshold in September 2021. Northern Ireland differs again.

If you are licensed, two things apply to the website:

  • Your name and licence number, clearly and prominently displayed on any website used for the licensed activity.
  • Every puppy advert must carry the licence number, name the issuing local authority, include a recognisable photograph of that puppy, and state its age.

A litter page is an advert. Each puppy on it needs its own photograph and age, not just a licence number in the footer.

And no puppy under eight weeks may be sold or permanently separated from its mother.

That is what the regulations say rather than legal advice, and detail varies across the four nations. Your local authority licensing team will confirm what applies to you.

Answer the questions before they ask them

Every breeder gets the same messages. When are they ready? Are the parents health tested? Are they KC registered? What comes with them? Can we come and see them?

Answer those forty times a litter, or once on a page. The ones worth having:

  • Health testing. The tests done, the results, and which parents they apply to. Buyers who know the breed look for this first, and its absence gets noticed.
  • Registration. KC registered or not, and any endorsements.
  • What the puppy leaves with. Vaccinations, microchip, worming, insurance, puppy pack, food.
  • What happens next. Deposit, how you choose homes, visits, collection.

You will notice price is not on that list. Some breeders publish a figure, most do not, and there are decent reasons either way. What matters is that the rest is answered, because those are the questions that decide whether someone rings at all.

A page that covers them cuts the messages that eat your evening, and filters out the people who were never going to be right for a puppy.

Litters need to be easy to change

This is where most breeder websites quietly die. A litter page goes up, the puppies go, and eighteen months later the site still shows that litter as available. Anyone landing on it assumes you have stopped breeding.

Whatever the site is built on, you have to be able to update availability yourself, in a couple of minutes, from a phone. If you cannot, it will not get done, and that is a design problem rather than a discipline one.

Same with the waiting list. If people add themselves, you have a list. If they email you and you have to remember to write it down, you have a pile of messages.

Photographs do the selling

You already know this. The site often does not make the most of them.

What works: the parents, properly photographed, not a phone snap in a dark kitchen. Where the puppies are raised. Previous litters grown up, with a line from the family who has them. Those show a buyer what they are choosing, which is not a puppy but a decision they will live with for twelve years.

What does not work: thirty near-identical photographs of one litter. Pick the best six.

How buyers actually find a breeder’s website

Being found and looking good are unrelated. A site can be beautiful and invisible.

People search the breed, usually with a colour or type and often a region. That is what the site needs building around: the words buyers type, not only the words the breed world uses.

You do not guess at the start. You publish, you measure, and you write more of what turns out to be working.

Common questions

Do I need a licence to sell puppies?

In England and Scotland, yes, if you breed three or more litters in twelve months and sell any, or you breed and advertise a business of selling dogs. Wales and Northern Ireland have their own rules. Check with your council.

What has to be on a licensed breeder’s website?

Your name and licence number, clearly and prominently. Every puppy advert also needs the licence number, the issuing local authority, a recognisable photo of that puppy and its age.

Do I need a website if I have a busy Facebook page?

Facebook reaches people who already know you. A website is how people who have never heard of you find you. Different jobs.

How many pages does a breeder site need?

Usually four or five. What you breed, the dogs, current and past litters, what happens when someone enquires, and how to get in touch.

Should I show puppies that have already gone?

Yes, clearly marked as reserved or sold. It shows you are active and what your puppies look like. What you must not do is leave an old litter looking available.

Does a breeder need a Google Business Profile?

Less than most businesses, because you are not inviting the public to an address. The website and the search results matter more.

Where to start

Open your own website on your phone, as a buyer would, and count how many of the questions above it answers before you would have to send a message.

If it is most of them, you are in good shape. If it is one or two, that is where the work is, and it is writing, not design.