Thank you for your interest in contributing to BlitzLocal.com!

Read this document carefully and submit your article ideas, changes, or questions directly to articles@blitzmetrics.com.

• Don’t repurpose existing work. We also don’t accept co-authored articles or syndicate from other publications without explicit permission. Keep your content all-new and all-you.
• Check your facts.  We don’t want to put misinformation out there, nor do we want to get into legal trouble for copyright infringement.
• Any content submitted will have a two-week exclusive on our site. After that, feel free to do whatever you want with it (as long as you remove any images we purchased or created).
• We LOVE first-hand experiences and step-by-step how-to guides. Our motto is “Metrics, Analysis, Action” – Show your data, explain your data, then form a strategy. We do not accept untested theoretical strategies, and require that you show your work for everything.
• We’re looking for actual campaign execution and business stories, documented step-by-step. This isn’t something that can be done by contractors, VAs, or AI, since it’s authentic and specific.
• We want to have THE authoritative post on any topic we post about. `So, before submitting to our article team, ask yourself, “Is my post filled with valuable content that can be seen as expert advice?”

As far as copyright goes, you own it and retain all rights to your content.

However, once published on our website, we receive:

1. A two-week exclusive license.
2. A non-exclusive transferable license for us to use the content in perpetuity (forever) on our site and elsewhere.
3. A non-exclusive license to promote and syndicate the content across partner and affiliate sites in perpetuity.

We don’t accept outright ads for a product or service without reader value. All content must focus on educating a reader. You can still highlight a person or a business while also providing reader value. Promoting a business or person should only be secondary to the value of the content.

This includes using screenshots of your own product or service in a promotional way.

You can include a single link to relevant educational material housed on a website you own, but our editorial team will decide if it makes it into the published article.

If you promote a third-party product or service, we consider it a conflict of interest, and your article will be rejected. We’ll revoke your access if this is violated multiple times.

Your display photo will use Gravatar.com, so make sure it’s up to date. To maximize your exposure,  have your personal branding polished up by completing our Personal Branding Course.

We provide how-to articles, share insider campaign data using our Metrics Analysis Action (MAA) process, and highlight strategies from verticals such as sports teams and education topics.

We welcome articles written for beginners but encourage you to submit intermediate topics as well. Many of our readers have grown with our site and desire more advanced content.

We will not accept most forms of listicles, as we seek to provide actionable articles based on real-world results to our readers. However, if you have an original idea, please contact us, and we’ll consider it.

Avoid articles that are just interviews, general articles with no take-aways or actionable points, overly technical article with a lot of jargon. Include specific examples from your implementation or client’s implementation.

It can’t be an article that could have been generated by an AI tool. Google will penalize AI-written content or anything that doesn’t fit EAT.    

Make sure your content has a strong headline and opener to attract readers when it is shared on social media.

As a conclusion, give your opinion and your voice on the matter.

Be creative and professional and create a style of writing that our readers can start to love. For example, bold certain words, put in quotes you love, insert videos, pictures, infographics, etc.

For examples of content on our site:

• Your landing page might be broken — here’s how to fix it
• How to create your LinkedIn Professional Journey in just 3 clicks
• Why you can’t automate your campaigns

All submitted articles must be at least 500 words, but since we edit each submission, we recommend new authors send us a draft of at least 1000 words,

Content is key for BlitzMetrics, so be sure to include plenty of quality advice and examples.

Check out our 9 Triangles and pay close attention to MAA (metrics, analysis, action). Structure your article this way.

When writing, please:

• Use short sentences that are easy to read. Stick to 2-3 sentences per paragraph. For easy online reading and especially now with mobile, it’s important to keep your paragraphs short and flowing onto the next one.
• Watch for “weasel words,” which exist to confuse the reader…like passive speak; they obfuscate a clear, direct subject. Always remember the four W’s and one H – WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHY, HOW — your content should be clearly defined.
  • “Some users say…”
  • “We’ve studied many brands.”
  • “There are courageous executives out there.”
• Watch for passive voice.
• Transition to new sections using bold subheads.
• Begin subheads h2 with a verb and keep them succinct.
• Avoid second-level subheads h3, as they are not easy to format on the website.

You can learn more tips by downloading our Content Marketing Guide.

Because our articles are “how to” and tip-based, headlines reflect that. Here are a couple of examples:

• How to Use Twitter Remarketing Ads to Target Site Visitors
• 7 Facebook Marketing Tips to Improve Your Visibility

A few headline rules:

• The headline should always focus on why the reader should read the article, e.g., “5 Ways to Build a Facebook Following.”
• Use names of famous people and brands like “Elon Musk”, “Mark Zuckerberg”, “Apple”, etc., when appropriate. Famous people and brands get attention.
• The headline itself should never have a call to action in it, e.g., “Buy Facebook Followers.” — this is spammy, has no reader value, and will be denied and moved back to Draft/Trash, every time. If your article was placed back to Draft/Trash this might be the first thing to check.
• Headlines should not be too long. A general rule of thumb is more than 13 words is too much.
• All headlines should be in the title case
• Subtitles (sub-headline) should not be in the title case. These should be 1 or 2 short sentences.

Visit https://blitzmetrics.com/blog and look at the headlines for inspiration. We may alter your headline during the editorial process to fit our style.

Include 2-3 relevant links in all articles

Too many links within an article are also not good as it will distract the reader away from the article, but it’s also bad to have too few. So, aim at having between 2-3 for every article. 

When you refer to a name, company, tool, or quote, include a link to the source so readers can discover more, like this: Dennis Yu founded BlitzMetrics. 

• Only use links in the body of your text. 
• Use the source’s original link.  It’s always good as a writer to have a few sources from where you get your information from. This shows readers your authority on the topic. It also helps for SEO reasons and provides forward and backlinks to different content online. But, do not use affiliate links, links with the code from your Google reader or other sources (including UTM), or shortened links such as bit.ly.
• Link to at least one BlitzMetrics post.  Why? It allows readers to find additional resources on our site and helps us track unauthorized republications of your work.

• Once you’ve written a couple of articles, try to link back to some of your previous articles. This will create more authority for yourself on the subject matter as well as benefit the website’s SEO. You can link to other Blitzmetrics author’s articles as well to help them out.

We recommend one image for every section or five paragraphs, but you can place them closer together if you want (e.g., two or three paragraphs apart).

Please don’t stack (i.e., two images or more images without the text in between) or place them at the beginning of your article without first giving context.

Make sure you own and have rights to all content submitted with your article. Include proof of that permission with your article submission.

IMPORTANT: Photos/images should not exceed 1280 pixels wide and should be no smaller than 800 pixels high (this includes screenshots). Your picture must retain optimal quality when reduced to 480 pixels wide to fit on our website.

Save your images as .png or .jpg files. When emailing your article, attach images separately from the Word doc so we can upload them to our server.

In screenshots, please include enough of the page to make it clear to readers that it’s a screenshot, not a stock photo. Highlight important points with a red circle or box and explain the numbers.

If you absolutely must use a stock image (not recommended), go to https://www.shutterstock.com to choose an appropriate image and let us know the photo number so we can find it or a replacement for your article.

You may use videos in your posts. If you would like to link to other YouTube and Vimeo videos, include the URL to the video, and we’ll embed it.

Read over your content before you click “SUBMIT”. Minimizing as many simple errors on your end saves everyone time. The better you write an Article, the faster we edit the Article and the quicker we can Publish it.

We recommend checking your articles in Google Docs, Microsoft Word or, Grammarly first and then copying and pasting them into the editor. This is an effective and easy way to catch some simple spelling and grammar errors that we all do. Writing straight in the WordPress editor won’t catch many of these (unless you use Grammarly).

Editorial can take up to 3-4 weeks. Once submitted,  we will contact you if we need additional information, edits, images, or rewrites.

Be sure to check your article once it has been published and respond to as many comments and questions as possible using the reply button under each comment. Please continue to respond for the next several days following publication.

Please note that all comments will be moderated and may take up to 24 hours for approval.

It’s also important to check the BlitzMetrics Facebook Page for the post on your article and respond to comments there. This will give you more exposure.

If you have any questions, contact us at articles@blitzmetrics.com!

Topics: Real-world campaign data / actionable strategy, How-tos, Personal experiences.

Syndication: Not allowed.

Copyright: Author / Owner retained.

Exclusivity: 2 weeks with lifetime non-exclusive use after that

Minimum Article length: 500 Words.

Bio Length: 50 words with 1 link allowed.

Self-Promotion: Not allowed.

Picture / Video Sizes and attribution: 1280×800 (16:9 format) ORIGINAL content – No stock images allowed.

Links: Non-affiliate / non-promotional links allowed but must have one link to a BlitzMetrics property.

Ready to get started? Submit your article ideas, changes, or questions directly to articles@blitzmetrics.com.