Guest Posting Guidelines for the WordStream Blog

Thanks for your interest in the WordStream by LocaliQ blog! We love guest posts because they allow us to provide a diverse range of topics and expert insights for our readers. We do, however, get a lot of requests, and we can’t accept them all! But these guidelines will give you the best chances of success.

About the Wordstream blog

The WordStream blog has been a go-to resource for online marketing and advertising for over 12 years. Here are some things to know!

• Our audience: Marketers, advertisers, business owners, or students looking to learn and improve in the digital marketing and advertising space. Particularly for small to medium-sized businesses and marketing agencies.
• Our tone: Our blog is authoritative and informative but friendly and fun to read. Conversational writing is our style—think approachable expert.
• Our topics: B2B, content, copywriting, ecommerce, landing pages, lead gen and conversion, marketing ideas/strategies/psychology, organic social media, PPC (search, display, social, cross-channel), SEO, website content (we do not cover topics related to app/website development).
• Our posts: We publish a wide variety of post types, including (but not limited to!):
  • New or different angles on common topics.
  • First-hand accounts of experiments/strategies/tests
  • How-to guides/cheat sheets for techniques and platforms.
  • Lists of tips, tools, or compelling strategies.
  • Industry trends, data, and insights.
  • Vertical-specific advice.
  • Creative ideas and real examples.
  • Examples/templates.

Guest post requirements

We love guest posts, but we do get a high volume of requests on a daily basis. As such, WordStream only accepts posts that are high-quality, timely, accurate, actionable, original, and resonate with our audience. Here are some best practices that will help us to respond to you faster and, if your topic is a go, get it published sooner.

1. Get a feel for our style

Please do this! To get a feel for not only our topics, but also our tone and basic format (short intros, lots of headings and subheadings, short paragraphs, value-adding images, etc.). Read a few posts in full, and then do some skimming and exploring.

2. Make sure we haven’t already covered your idea

We’ve been around for over a decade, so this is a must! If we have covered your topic, we may still be interested if you can offer something more up-to-date or approach it with a fresh angle or different perspective. The best way to see if we’ve covered your topic is to do a site search on Google:

site:wordstream.com [topic]

This search operator is your best friend.

3. Check our specs

Here’s what we want!

• Sufficient length: 1,500 words minimum (but don’t add fluff if you don’t hit that mark)
• Short intro: ~150 words. Introduce your topic and then tell the reader what the post will cover.
• Friendly tone: Conversational, not corporate!
• High quality: Original, actionable, organized, and accurate!
• Skimmability: Headings, subheadings, short paragraphs, etc.
  • Please use sentence case with your headings!
• Short bio: 1-3 sentences. You can include links to your website or social accounts.
• Images: NO STOCK IMAGES. Images should add value by illustrating concepts and data. A Google image search should be more than sufficient; just be sure to cite the image source link under the image. You can also reuse any of our images. Just head to the image tab in Google and run the same site search mentioned above:

Here’s what we DON’T want!

•  Too many backlinks: You can include a maximum of 3 per post, to YOUR site. That includes the link in your bio.
  • External links to sites other than your own are okay for citing images and stats. They are not okay for earning that site a backlink.
• Thin content that demonstrates a lack of depth of knowledge on a topic.
• Fluff: redundant, filler words, uses many words to say little.
• Overly promotional content.
• Previously published or sponsored content.
• Stock images! (Worth mentioning again).

Guest posts we love

To get a feel for what a great guest post looks like, head to our Guest Author bio page.

What to expect

We get a large volume of guest pitches, so please be patient with us throughout the process.

1. Pitch response: If your pitch is chosen, we’ll do our best to respond within 1-2 weeks. Please follow up in three weeks if you haven’t heard from us.
2. Outline: Once we nail down the topic and title, we’ll request an outline. If the outline is approved, you’ll get drafting!
3. Draft: If the draft meets our quality standards, we’ll move on to editing. If the draft does not meet our quality standards (i.e., it is thin content and/or cannot be improved without heavy edits), we will let you know that we cannot move forward with the post.
4. Edits: We will edit the content to align with our standards as well as the WordStream style guide. If we need anything on your end— a better quality image, a change to a section, or further elaboration on something, we’ll let you know.
5. Publishing: Depending on the level of edits needed and our content calendar needs, your post could get published anywhere from 2-4 weeks after you’ve submitted it. This can be longer if we are particularly backlogged.

Ready to pitch?

Send an email to Stephanie at [email protected]!

Here’s what to include:

• [GUEST PITCH] in the subject line
• A little about yourself: What experience or expertise will you be drawing from in your post?
• Proposed ideas: Topic ideas are great, title ideas are even better!
• Writing samples: Please link to at least one existing publication.

We’re looking forward to learning from and working with you!