Guest Post Guidelines and Rules for Contributors
Complete and Submit Your Author Bio/Profile
When you establish an user profile on WowIsMe.net please include the following information:
- Register and set up your User Account the following minimum information:
- Biographical information, which will be attached to every post that is published on the our blog. This should be a short and sweet “tweet” type bio of who you are and why you’re important. We prefer to limit this to 200 characters.
- Twitter profile. This allows us to tag you online so that you can share!
- LinkedIn profile. This helps readers to connect with you and see who you are in the business world.
- Please add your additional social media accounts as well; Facebook, Instagram, Medium, YouTube, etc.
- Personal website or company name along with role and URL.
- A 200 x 200 profile photograph – This will be setup through Gravatar. Here is a step-by-step guide to setting up a Gravatar picture. This will also show up on any other WordPress site out there with this email.
Blog Post Lengths
- We are looking for posts that range from 1,000-3,000 words. Longer blog post lengths provide the reader with a significant amount of information that they can use that then encourages them to return again and again to the site.
- Keep in mind, the longer and more in depth the post is, the more likely it is to be syndicated by some of our partners.
Citations, Links, and Relationships
- Please link your first link in every post going back to a relevant internal blog post that compliments yours when possible.
- Use external links for when you incorporate any third-party perspectives, evidence, and statistics.
- Always rely on credible sources, including research studies and major publications. Do not use Wikipedia as a source as it’s always changing.
- Any relationship with a company or person that is mentioned in a post must be disclosed within the content. For example, Company A, a client of mine, offers….” when in doubt, disclose.
- If you have written a post focused on a non-sponsored, non-affiliated product review, there needs to be a disclosure included at the top and bottom of the blog post.
- If you use a quote within an article, you may only link to their Twitter handle unless previously approved by our editorial staff.
- We don’t mind if you do some self promotion for your business, but anything overtly salesy is not appreciated and will be removed.
- Our editorial staff reserves to right to add rel=”nofollow” to any link or remove a link attached to words or images before or after publication
- Do not link to any questionable sources or industries, such as pharmaceuticals, casinos, payday loans, or pornography.
- Buying, selling, or trading links that appear in posts is strictly prohibited.
SEO Best Practices
- HTML formatting related to bulleted lists, headers, bolding, etc.
- 1 WordPress category
- Shortened titles in the meta title section
- Alt tags for any images used in the blog post
- No keyword linking
- All quotes must be cited properly
- If there is a link in the post that isn’t valuable to the reader, it’ll be removed.
- We do NOT accept the following types of links in articles: Gambling, Casino, Drugs, Violence, Real Estate, Lawyers, Porn, Adult, etc., except as it concerns #SexTech which is allowed. We reserve the right to remove every and all links in every post. We rarely do this but occasionally we do.
Formatting
- Write out numbers from 1, 2, 3, etc.
- Write percentages as digits.
- Use one space after all punctuation.
- Use the Oxford comma format.
- In headings, first and last words are always capitalized. All other words are capitalized in a heading except articles (an, a, the, etc.), coordinating conjunctions (for, and, or, but, etc.), also, prepositions that contain three or fewer letters (in, one, at, etc.).
- Headers in H2 tags and sub-headers in H3 and H4 tags.
- No spam or div tags.
- No filler formatting that impacts how the content appears.
Images
- Always upload a featured image that is at least 650 pixels wide and 400 pixels tall. Make sure that the featured image appears correctly before submitting the blog post for editorial review.
- Use center alignment for photos used within the blog post unless they are aligned with text.
- Set the display size for all images to “large.”
- Preferred to upload at least one image per blog post and place it within the first approximately 150 words with proper attribution, alt text and caption.
- Use image from sites that release all licenses, such as Unsplash, Pixabay, etc. You may also use images that you have created, photographs you have taken yourself, and illustrative screenshots that you have developed.
- All images must have alt tags and title attributes. Use the title of the blog post or a brief description of the photo.
- Do not use charts, graphs, or illustrations from other websites unless you have the consent of our editorial staff as well as the original author of the post that designed the graphics. However you may create your own original graphs.
- Do not use any images that have a brand, logo or have external links displayed on them. Do not include any branded images that may appear to make the blog post into sponsored content.
- Do not use memes unless the story is specifically about memes.
- The editorial staff has the right to replace or remove any images that they believe are irrelevant, inappropriate, or that carry a negative connotation at any time, including before or after publication.
All images used must be properly attributed like seen in the example below:
- Image Credits
- Featured Image: URL of Photo with link
- In-post Photo: URL of Photo
- Screenshot by [Author’s Name]. Taken Month Year.
Due’s Publishing Process
Your first post should be submitted using the form below. Once your article has been approved, your User account will be upgraded to “Contributor” where you can log in and submit your posts directly. Once your account is upgraded, after you hit the “Submit for Review” button, here’s what happens to your blog post:
- The post arrives on the desk of our Editorial Assistant who then checks to ensure that your blog post draft follows our editorial guidelines.
- The post is then submitted to copyeditor review where an editor looks for any necessary changes related to grammar, spelling mistakes, and content flow. Links are checked for accuracy, relevance, and adherence to our linking guidelines. References are also checked to ensure proper attribution. Depending on the content flow and overall writing there may also be some copyedits at this stage in the publishing process.
- Your post will go to Editor Hold if the editorial staff has requested that you make changes and we are awaiting a response. You will be notified by email about any change requests. At that point, you can login and view the editor’s requests under “Editorial Comments.” The sooner you respond with the changes, the faster your post will get published. If you see “Editor Hold” on your post’s status but have not received an email with requested changes, please contact us at [email protected]
- Once all editorial changes are completed, your post will be changed to “Ready for Publishing” status. Typically, each post involves a two to eight day turnaround from post submission to publication.
- Once your post has been published, you can actively participate by responding to any comments that are posted. This can help you build a larger following and develop your personal brand. If there are any comments that are deemed controversial, we ask that you defend your article in a calm, rational manner rather than to give into any baiting from the person who posted something negative.
- We are fortunate to have a quality volume of posts from our regular contributing authors. Please note that we cannot share all blog posts that are published on our social media platforms, which include Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. Our social media team determines what existing content fits the company’s social media strategy.
Editorial Review
- You must write your own posts. If our editorial staff finds that you have other writers handling your blog posts, then we have the right to reject or delete any post. The editorial staff may also decide that you will no longer be invited to serve as a contributing author.
- A blog post can be edited and/or rejected for any reason.
- A disclaimer may be added to any blog post that discloses any type of relationship that you have with a company or organization that is listed within the post. These posts, if shared, will only be shared via “handshake” on Facebook.
Content Republishing
- To maximize the search ranking potential of all blog posts, it’s important to ensure that there are no duplicate content issues with Google.
- We only permit content to be republished on Medium with the proper syndication links. You are restricted from republishing content from our blog on your company or personal site for two weeks after being live on our site.
- If we see a post published anywhere else, your post may be removed.
Ready to Contribute? Fill out the below form:
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