15 Mar Pet Nutrition Alliance Achieves Success in Advancing Optimal Nutrition for Pets

VMAE holds a seat on the Pet Nutrition Alliance (PNA) Board of Directors to support the goal of delivering clear and consistent messaging on the importance of nutrition as an essential element to optimal delivery of pet health services. During 2017, PNA had a number of successes, including:

• Relaunching the website with a focus on the nutrition calculators.
• Streamlining content and putting each article through a rigorous review rubric that included a veterinary specialist, a veterinarian, and a veterinary technician.
• Embracing international inclusion and diversity by teaming with World Small Animal Veterinary Association and the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association to translate the online calculators into both Spanish and French.
• Tremendous growth in traffic to the site. Comparing the period of September 1, 2016 to August 30, 2017 to the same time in the previous year, the PNA realized:
  • 348% increase in visitors (72,388 v. 16,143)
  • 637% increase in organic search
  • 365% increase in social media
  • 173% increase in traffic from inbound links from other sites
  • 600% increase in traffic from mobile devices

Lisa Freeman, DVM, PhD, DACVN, who serves as president of PNA, stated “As our momentum continues to grow, the Board of Directors approved a new exciting collaboration between PNA and a highly respected product testing organization to analyze pet food and develop an authoritative and evidence-based resource to assist veterinary healthcare teams in making pet food recommendations. We believe it is essential to provide unbiased information to veterinary healthcare teams to improve the nutritional recommendations for their patients and the authority behind those recommendations to the pet owner.” VMAE encourages its members to make the PNA website visible on your VMA website as a pathway to excellent information and tools on pet nutrition for veterinary healthcare teams.