Would you like to contribute to our blog – The Retail Factor?

Know someone who wants to start blogging or refresh their blogging skills? Then Check out or refer them to …

Get Your Blog Done Monthly Workshops

Send me an email if you are interested in attending our monthly workshops. We meet on the first Wednesday of every month. Everyone uses this 3-hour session to write their blog for the month. At least one blog every month. I am available to review your writing and answer any questions. 

We’ve been meeting on Zoom. WE WIL BE moving to Youtube Live.

10,000+ readers

You’ll be writing for an engaged audience (via email) that is very keen to learn about website strategy, digital marketing strategy, social media and everything to do with web marketing. Readers are typically in the Construction, Retail, Medical, IT, Universities, Energy industries and are tech savvy but usually not marketers.

They are looking for insights, how-tos and interesting posts to further their knowledge and to enable them to implement ideas from the blog. Thanks for taking the time to tailor your articles to our audience.

Submit as a Google Doc

Once given the approval to send a blog post through for consideration, please supply as a Google Doc. Send the link and also share us on the document. We do not accept Word documents because they take too long to manipulate and edit. Thanks!

Sorry to be fussy, but please note

These are the requirements to get considered for a guest blog post. Sorry for sounding too fussy but hundreds of low-quality requests come through, and we are forced to ignore them unless…  you disclose your:

• Full name
• Employer
• Website and blog
• Company email address (no Gmail accounts!)
• Phone number or Skype
• Where you want your back-links to point to

Please also

• Personalize your request
• Be patient
• Be human!

No guarantees

Also, if we agree to receive your guest post, it is not a guarantee that we’ll publish it.  We will provide feedback where possible, but we’ll reject and ignore posts if they are spammy, self-promotional, or off-topic. The same goes if they are too techie, have too much jargon, or too boring. Please understand that we usually won’t have time to explain why.

Spam

We hate spam too.  You’ll get your backlink in the author bio (usually placed at the start of the post), so don’t spam out your content with links.  In other words, we will not include contextual links within the article that are purely for promotional or SEO purposes.

Process

Ok, so if we’re all in agreement so far, here’s what needs to happen.

• Read our blog to see if it aligns with your subject matter expertise.
• Familiarize yourself with these guidelines, expectations, rules of thumb, and below suggestions.
• Email our CEO carol@hitthewebmarketing.com with a subject like: “Guest Blog Post Request – Your details (attn Carol)”
• IMPORTANT: Send us a few topic ideas *before* drafting anything.
• Follow up – spam filters, email overload, or human error may mean we miss your email, so please follow up if you don’t hear back from us.
• Then, congratulations, you’ll hopefully join our growing team of guest contributors.
• Guest contributor badge

The Retail Factor Blog Contributor Badge – Right Click to Download

When you’re successful, you’ll be able to place The Retail Factor Contributor badge on your website or blog, and link it to your guest posts.

Expectations

Guest blogging is most successful when the blogger submits a piece that is well written, from the heart and valuable to the reader. Therefore, we request that you adhere to the following expectations and are on board with our suggestions.

Submit original and useful content

Please send us an article written by you and that hasn’t been published before. You must also provide appropriate attribution for any content in your post that is not yours, such as images.

You can republish after 1 week

Please only republish the article at least one week after it goes live on Hit-the-Web Marketings’s blog – The Retail Factor.  (and attribute the original source with a backlink).

Your article will be syndicated

Every article on The Retail Factor blog will be syndicated in its entirety with Hit-the-Web Marketing blog, our Social Community. This simply gives your article more exposure.

Actively engage in comments

The best articles involve the readers in a discussion in the comments. So please interact with our readers and your article will get better results. Please also keep an eye on the syndicated post on Our Social Community because many people comment there too!  The tweet buttons also make it easy to see who is sharing your article, in case you’d like to thank or connect with them.

Share the article

Tweet, like, share, and email the article to your social networks. We will do the same to our email subscribers and social networks.

Proofread, spell check and format it

Please take the time to make sure your submission has been proofread (by someone other than you),

• that it is spell-checked, and that
• it’s in US English (not UK English), and
• that is formatted into paragraphs,
• uses headings and subheadings.

We will double-check the grammar, spelling, and formatting but if it is sloppy we are unlikely to publish it.

Provide a 100-word bio

Please include a bio that includes how best to contact you (eg. Twitter) and you are welcome to use this bio to include a backlink to your website. Please observe the 100-word maximum word count. Your bio will usually appear at the top of the article.

We reserve the right to request edits

You’ll be notified if there’s something we don’t feel comfortable publishing, and you’ll be given the opportunity to make changes. If you decide it will dramatically alter the article, you can opt to withdraw it.

Bloggers are unpaid

All guest blog posts are unpaid. However you will get visibility with our 15,000+ email subscribers, and social networks, and a backlink.

You agree it may be used in an e-book

The best articles on our blog are sometimes compiled into an e-book. If this is the case with your article, you will be credited as the author and it will mean more exposure.

You may earn money as an affiliate for e-book sales

In the event that Hit-the-Web Marketing decides to charge for an e-book you are featured in, you will be entitled and encouraged to sign up as an affiliate and share in the sales you generate. Typically we share 50:50. However, you agree that you won’t be paid directly for your article, nor entitled to royalties. You only get commissions for sales you generate that are tracked through e-junkie, unless we reach a prior agreement.

Disclosures

Keep everything above board. Disclose affiliate links and acknowledge if you are mentioning people or companies you have a commercial relationship with.

And of course, nothing black hat

• No keyword stuffing
• No spammy links
• No plagiarism
• No taking credit for other people’s work!

Rules of thumb

Write “you copy” not “me copy”

Good writing is about the reader and what’s in it for them. Therefore, where possible, write an article in terms of what is useful and interesting to the reader. For example;

BAD: “I’ll be writing about how to design a Facebook page”
GOOD: “You’ll learn how to design a Facebook page”

If in doubt, count the number of times you use “You, yours” and compare it to the times you use “Me, I, mine, we, us”. “You’s” should outnumber “Me’s”.

Aim for 1200-1500 words

There is no hard and fast rule, but the best guest posts on The Retail Factor blog have been around the 1200-1500 wordmark.

Spend time on a great title

The best bloggers spend as much time on their titles as they do on the article. You’re urged to do the same.  If you need a hand, an excellent, free guide is Brian Clark‘s (aka CopyBlogger’s) How to Write Magnetic Headlines article.

Provide next steps

If your article is popular, it is likely that readers will want to connect with you or take the next steps. Please make it easy for readers to take those next steps by providing your website, Twitter, email, or preferred contact method.

Photos and videos are very effective

Please be encouraged to include your own photos, source images (with attribution, of course), and embed YouTube or Vimeo videos.

Suggestions

The Ultimate Guide / Beginners Guide

The Myths About

Essential Tools And Resources

In-Depth Review of

Detail Lists or Checklists work well

One of the most popular blog posts Carol Scalzo has written was titled 13 Steps to OnPage SEO Checklist.

‘How to’ articles are popular

If you’ve got the practical experience and are happy to share it with our readers, then specific, detailed, step-by-step, ‘how to’ articles are incredibly useful.

Comparison

Before and after

Case Study

Categories of our Specialties

We pride ourselves on website design, website strategy, Website Security, and Blogging and SEO.

If the company you are associated with is in these specific niches; website design, blogging, seo – it’s most likely we won’t want to have your guest blog as we see it as a conflict of interest. Unless you can show us how your content complements these categores. That could work. We’re open to suggestions.

Thank you for reading and we look forward to partnering with like-minded entrepreneurs, business people, and people who love what they do and love blogging about it. You are an inspiration to us!