Writing GuideLINES

Our blog explore a variety of topics and subject matter pertaining to digital marketing and digital ecommerce. Our goal is produce content that’s educational, informative, entertaining and engaging for our audience. Our content represents a diversity of viewpoints translated for a novice marketer, yet still interesting and useful to the marketing expert.

What We Publish

Discussional: Short length (250 – 300 words) discussion type articles aimed at triggering conversation and engagement with readers.
Inspirational: Short length (300 – 600 words), but well written, “inspiring” article that readers would want to share on social media.
Journalistic: Medium length (600 – 1,250 words) middle ground article with a goal to solve reader’s problem or inform them about something important.
Authoritative: Long length (at least 2,450 words) heavily researched, SEO-friendly article on a topic that the audience is actually searching for.

We publish articles of anywhere between 250–2,500 words, depending on subject matter and complexity. Average article is about 1,200 words. Articles range from casual to rigorously structured in tone and content. Here is quick breakdown:

Content

Make sure that your article is unique topic-wise or viewpoint-wise. Do your research to find out what has been already published about the topic and find a niche that the audience would appreciate.
Clarity first! Write concisely with clear headlines and intros. Avoid unnecessary jargon, trendy constructions, vagueness, and buzzwords.
For research articles, please fact check your story and provide sources for all your info.
Offer a clear argument—not just a list of tips and tricks.
Each article must include at least one image relevant to the article. You may include original or license-free images. If you use licensed images, please make sure you acquired all required licenses and provide us proof of such.
Keep the reader in mind. Also, pay attention to where readers will come into contact with article first and write effective intros and headlines.
Submission of a post does not guarantee it will be published on our platform. Our team will reach out if we’d like to publish your article!

Style

Each article must be accompanied by a title, introductory description, featured image, and main content.
Title must be 60 characters or less, 5- 12 words and must include at least one of your target/focus keywords. Uppercase the first letter of each word.
Introductory description must be 150 characters or less, about 1 – 2 sentences long. Must also include a call-to-action in some form.
Mark up article headings as h2 and subheads as h3 or h4 as needed. Do not markup your content with any other style elements such as font family, size et cetera.
Featured images must be high-resolution and be 1200 X 675 pixels. PNG, JPEG are acceptable formats for images. For videos, we prefer URLs from YouTube or Vimeo.
Inline Images: Although inline images are not required, it is our recommendation especially for longer articles to include a relevant inline image every 3-4 paragraphs to break the textual monotony and help carry the story forward visually. A combination of such and highlighted statements should help make long articles less intimidating to readers. Inline images must be centered within the main column of the article.
Image Tagging: All images must be tagged appropriately including:
- File Name – Use a name relevant to the image. You may generate the name based on caption.
- Title – Text that shows when user hovers over the image. Use article title.
- Alt (ernative) Text – Text that helps search engines understand what an image is about. Describe the purpose of the image using keywords related to the article. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and is in context of the content of the page. Avoid filling alt attributes with keywords (keyword stuffing) as it results in a negative user experience and may cause your site to be seen as spam. You may use your article’s Meta Description for Alt text.
- Caption – Text that appears below the image. Describe what’s shown in the image. You may use to attribute credits also.
*Here is a video with some helpful tips for images tagging.
<noscript><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3NbuDpB_BTc" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></noscript>
Alternatively, you may learn more about how to properly tag images at Image SEO: Optimizing images for search engines
Include images tags below each image you include in your draft in Google Docs. Then make sure that you include those tags when attaching each image to the the article on our website.
Outbound Links: Articles could outbound links referencing major points. Only use links pointing to domains with high authority and only when absolutely necessary and relevant to drive your story forward.. You may use this tool Domain Authority Checker to check DA. Do not over-flood the article with links, 3 – 5 links should be the absolute maximum.
Internal (Inbound) Links: We encourage linking to articles within our local domain if possible. Usually, 2-3 but no more than 4 internal links are recommended if opportunities to do so are present. As for linking format, please do not include the domain when linking to local content. For example, instead of this URL: https://webroi.agency/blog-writing-guidelines/ Instead use only this part /blog-writing-guidelines/
Highlights – Consider highlighting statements that you might want to draw reader’s attention to by isolating them on their own and H2.

Voice & Tone

Be authentic and let your personality come through in your writing.
Be confident in your writing but not patronizing. Remember, we are friends giving advice and in the know, but we’re not know-it-alls.
Use slang and abbreviations sparingly.
Keep images clean and safe for publication.
Have a voice. Be bold, interesting, and human.
Write for the audience but optimize for search engine and social visibility.
Keep it positive!

Outline Guidelines

How To Put Together An Outline

Start by putting together the outline for the article. The following are elements that should be part of your outline.

Key Message

If your reader only takes one thing away from your article, what’s that important message? How will this post benefit your ideal reader?

Target Audience

Who is your ideal reader for this article? Include their demographic profile.
Where are you targeting that audience mostly? Search engine or social media – be specific for social media i.e facebook, twitter, LinkedIn. Optimize for that particular medium. See How to Write Catchy Headlines and Blog Titles Your Readers Can’t Resist point 4 & 5 on how to optimize for each social medium.

Tone & Voice

Choose appropriate tone and voice depending on subject matter and audience.

Tone: Either Casual, Neutral or Formal
Voice: Examples – Optimistic, Humorous, Optimistic, Pessimistic, Sad, Cheerful, Positive

Purpose

*Do not write articles of this type unless given permission by editor.

Instructional – Provide detailed information about how something should be done.
Informative – Provide useful information on a particular subject matter.
Argumentative / Analytical – Present arguments about both sides of an issue supported with evidence; and establish your position on the matter.
Expository – Get all the facts, and then interpret them. You must reach a conclusion, and this has to be supported by your research or personal experience.
Descriptive* – Describe and share an experience with readers.
Editorial* – Give your opinion on a current hot topic in digital marketing.
Resource list* – Provide detailed list of awesome resources relevant to digital marketing.

Type

Select the type of article

Discussional
Inspirational
Journalistic
Authoritative

Target Keywords

Target or focus keywords (key-phrases) ‘describes what or who the article is about. In other words, what is the subject matter of the article.

Select a maximum of 3 target keywords / key-phrases
One of them must indicated as primary keyword/ key-phrase

Title

Resources

Descriptive title that captures your audience’s attention.
Limit to 60 characters. 1 sentence and 5 – 12 words .
Add at least one of your target keywords, don’t use each target keyword more than 1 time.
Optimize it for humans, and then search engines and social media
Must be inviting. Be honest and avoid clickbait.

Introductory Description

Your introductory description also known as Meta Description is going to feature your key message, that one key thing that you hope everyone reading your blog will take away.

Think of it as another opportunity to draw in the reader by highlighting the value / takeaway of the article.
Must be between 120 – 150 characters including spaces. 1-2 sentences.
Add at least one of your target keywords, don’t use each target keyword more than 1 time.
Must be optimized for the target audience on search engines and social media.

Body

Outline your key points for the main body of the article.

For each of your key points, jot down notes in dot point form that outlines what your secondary messages are and what you have to say about them.
Your key points are likely to be Heading 2s in your blog post and those dot points you write will be expanded into paragraphs under the headings. You can delve even deeper and come up with Heading 3s and even Heading 4s if it suits your blog style.
Research your topic if you need to and add snippets of information to your outline.

Conclusion

Where do you want to direct the reader? What is the call to action? In most situations, your conclusion should reinforce your key message. Think about how you can re-state your key message without duplicating your introduction.