I got around 1871 views per month on my pet site from 28 ref domains four my own sites other just directory sites.
Work on social media instagram upload regular photos or videos of pets in your niche or if you got own one do that regular using #cute cat,sweet cat# or any pet related ones to your niche
Pinterest use as well uploading images.
Make a youtube channel.
I done all the keyword research myself to allow easy to rank for things.
Be creative in your niche. I am not going to lie I find it interesting when people walk cats or hedgehogs so if someone did that kind of article would read it.
You can normally rank fairly easy by doing the right long tail keywords using semrush or Ahrefs or other things for data.
You can ask in these sort of groups for free pet guest posts some be good but most be okay but good places to get free links either way
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2694408500724571
Always compare your site to competitors lets say you compare your site and it turns out they got better images than you then delete lower quality images and upload higher ones to improve user experience.
Getting a few niche edits can be good ranking here if any exist in your niche.
Focus on niche guest posts.
Get other high quality ones to boost your site authority.