LEgal
Editorial guidelines
Updated on October 5, 2022
Linkub is dedicated to helping businesses build stronger relationships with their customers. Our content goal is to educate readers with the latest tips, case studies, trends and best practices in digital marketing. Check out the Linkub blog to get a sense of our style and voice.
Please carefully read the following guidelines before submitting your request. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will result in an automatic rejection.
1. General guidelines
Brand principles
- Our values: An empathetic partner who is passionate about growth and digital marketing, yet keeps it simple for all to understand.
- Our philosophy: Marketing is about building relationships, human to human.
- Our personality: Conversational tone. We are trusted colleagues, sharing our knowledge as a friend shares a story.
Audience
Our audience includes freelancers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, authors, makers, enterprises, and anyone who wants to build a strong relationship with their audience. The primary goal of our blog is to provide valuable and actionable advice. Your content should be tailored toward our audience. Submissions that are self-promotional will not be considered.
Content writing basics
- Use a conversational tone
- Speak in the second person: “you”
- Avoid plagiarisms. There is no situation in which duplicate content is OK. We run the text through Grammarly or Copyscape and ensure that there are no instances where the text is too similar to other online articles
- Proofread your post for spelling and grammar
Article structure
- All guest posts should be a minimum of 1000 words
- Write a short introduction. Use simple language to explain what problem you’re trying to solve. If possible, include supporting evidence or statistics.
- Add a table of contents based on your H2 subheadings after your introduction.
- Express one idea per sentence. If a sentence could be split into two sentences, do it. Shorter sentences are easier for reader comprehension.
- Besides the title of an article, which should be Heading 1 (H1), subheadings should start with Heading 2 (H2), then Heading 3 (H3), and so on, as you add additional subheadings. Avoid going higher than H3 in most cases.
- Try to limit paragraphs to three sentences.
- Use bullet points whenever possible to create white space and break up information. Capitalize the first word following the dash or bullet.
- Use the conclusion to suggest the next steps your reader could take. Summarize key points. Keep it concise.
SEO & Links
- Make sure the SEO title fits the SERPs (50-60 characters)
- Add a meta description based on the keyword (under 155 characters)
Per 500 words of content: (multiply by 2 for 1000 words, etc.)
- 2+ internal links
- 2+ external links to high-quality/relevant sources
- No affiliate links are allowed.
- The text you link to should be descriptive of what you’re linking to. So don’t link “click here” anchor text. Instead, link copy that incorporates the website’s name or the specific page you’re linking to.
- Avoid linking more than five words together.
- Don’t link to articles that are very similar to the article you’re writing. External links should enhance your article, not act as a substitute.
- Avoid citing our competition.
- When citing statistics, link to the original study, not the article where you found the information, whenever possible.
Images
- Submit supportive images every ~300 words to illustrate concepts. Do not incorporate generic stock photos that don’t add anything. These free stock photo resources can help.
- Suggest alt text (written as ALT: Your text below the image source link) for every image, incorporating the primary keyword (while also describing the image) that could also be used as an image caption.
- Linkub always designs the featured images, so you don’t need to provide one.
- We reserve the right to edit or remove images.
- Please observe copyright or usage restrictions, obtain permission for use and cite the source of your image where appropriate.
Author information
- All guest posts should contain an Author bio of 30-60 words. Please include your name, job title and company name.
- Provide a profile picture (thumbnail 150×150) in the Google Doc you submit.
Editorial ownership
We reserve the right to edit, partially or completely, every submission, including headlines, images, links and subheadings. We also reserve the right to update, partially or completely, every article at any time for content freshness purposes. Please read our Guest writing terms for more information.
2. Brand voice
Please keep our writing approach in mind when communicating in the Linkub voice.
✏ Know what you want to convey
What do you want people to do afterward? Be clear about your main idea, the call to action (e.g. comment, share), and why people should take action. We want people to interact with our content.
✏ All content is for the customer
If you share experiences or tech examples, share the lessons and tips that might be useful for our readers. We say “you” more than we say “we.”
✏ Use case studies
People prefer original, hands-on information that they can apply to their business. Be creative to deliver high-quality, optimized content.
✏ Engage readers
Our content is easy to digest and fun to read. Involve them by talking directly to them.
✏ Include everyone
Our content is easy to digest and fun to read. Involve them by talking directly to them.
3. Grammar and style
There are several grammar styles, so it is important that we’re using the same style for consistency. We use American spelling and grammar guidelines.
✏ Abbreviations
Whether we’re talking call to action or click-through rate, we first mention the full term before throwing around the CTAs and CTRs. First mention: click-through rate. Afterwards: CTR.
✏ Capitalization
When writing a title, use AP title case. The Title Case Converter tool can help.
When writing a sentence, capitalize only the first word. We don’t capitalize features in the middle of a sentence (“Check out our new drag & drop editor”).
✏ Numbers
Spell out numbers nine and under within the body copy (even if they refer to larger numbers: “three million” — not “3 million”). Numbers 10 and above should use numbers instead of letters.
✏ Em dash
It has NO spaces on each side.
✏ Commas
Use the Oxford comma. For example: item 1, item 2, and item 3.
✏ Percentages and temperature
We write 20%, not 20 percent. Same for °C and °F. When there is a range, we only include the symbol on the second number, 20-30%.
✏ Time
We write AM and PM in capitals. When there is a range, we include it only on the second number: 10.30-11 AM.
✏ Bullet lists
- Are they written like this
- Without any dots in the end
- Only when there is a sentence. And then another one
✏ Periods
Always go inside the “quotation mark.” And outside when (you write something in between brackets). If the words inside the parentheses aren’t a complete sentence, the period that ends the sentence goes after the parenthesis: Squiggly likes chocolate (and nuts). If the words inside the parentheses are a complete sentence, the period goes inside the parenthesis: Bring chocolate. (Squiggly likes sweets.)
✏ Ampersands
In general, we don’t use “&” unless it’s part of a brand name. This excludes the term “drag & drop editor,” or when you need to save space (for headlines or ads).
✏ Contractions
We use things like “they’re” and “isn’t” to make our writing more conversational and friendly.
✏ File extensions
Are written with capitals—GIF, JPEG, PDF, etc. For plural, add a small s (GIFs). Also, SMS.
✏ Names and titles
When talking about Marion, our Marketing Manager, we make each word of the title start with a capital. However, if we talk about the marketing manager or sales team in general a sentence, there will be no capital.
✏ Customers
Are called customers, or people or readers, or audience. Never users.
✏ Colons
If you use a colon: Start with capital after it.
✏ Slash
There are no spaces before and after the slash (“/”). Example: State/province
4. How words are written
- API key
- Click-through rate
- Drag & drop editor
- eBook
- E-commerce
- Emoji
- Internet
- Kick-start
- OK
- Podcast
- Pop-up
- Plugin
- Pre-designed
- Resync
- Re-use
- Signup form
- Time zone
- To-do list
- URL
- Webform
- WiFi