Guidelines for Guest Bloggers
We welcome guest bloggers on Blue Orb Travel and encourage you to submit an original travel related article for our review. You will find that the following guidelines reflect the standards used by most blogs and we hope that you understand they are not meant to discourage you, but simply to prevent any misunderstanding of the terms by either the host or the guest. Posting a guest blog is mutually beneficial for our guests as well as for Blue Orb Travel and we recognize that linking back to the guest’s website is one of the main incentives for submitting an article. For guest articles with links to a product or service, please see our page on paid advertising and contact us for pricing information.
Quality
Articles should contain unique, original content of interest to readers of Blue Orb Travel and should be between 500 and 1000 words in length. The content must be the guest blogger’s own original work. The content of the article should not be published on your blog or any other blog in original or modified form. The same article cannot be modified and published elsewhere, but you can link back to the article from your own blog to let your readers know about your posting and you are encouraged to promote it on social media sites.
Topics
Only topics related to travel will be considered. We are particularly interested in articles related to budget and independent travel, but will entertain any travel-related topic.
Link Requirements and Policies
Linking is an important aspect of blogging and guests are encouraged to link back to their own website. We encourage you to link to other posts on Blue Orb Travel and we may also add our own internal links to your article. We allow links in your articles if they are relevant to the topic you are writing about. A link to your website from within the post content must be relevant and point to a specific post and not the home page. You should also link to any of your sources in order to give proper attribution. Affiliate links are not allowed. Links to the author’s projects are only allowed in the by-line at the end of the posting. In general a total of three links are allowed in the by-line, including a link to your Twitter profile.
Image Requirements
We encourage the use of images in your article, but they must be original and correctly attributed to you. If your images include pictures of people, you must have their permission to use them. Images will be formatted to fit on our blog.
Republishing Policies, Exclusivity and Copywriting
The article you submit is assumed to be exclusively for use on Blue Orb Travel. Once your article is posted on Blue Orb Travel it becomes the property of Blue Orb Travel and it is assumed that you give us your consent to reproduce such content in any way, publicly or privately, in any form of media without any compensation to you. While you can write about the topic elsewhere, your article on Blue Orb Travel must be unique.
The By-line
The by-line or signature area at the end of the post is your opportunity to promote yourself as the author of the article. A total of three links are allowed in the by-line. We encourage you to include a 50 to 100 word bio and you may also include an image.
Editorial Policies
We carefully edit posts submitted to Blue Orb Travel by our contributors and guest bloggers. Editing is generally limited to grammatical errors and facts, minor edits, title changes and photo changes. If more than that is required, we will return it to you so that you have an opportunity to make the improvements and we may also make some suggestions on how to do so. We usually do not make many changes, but when we do, we will send you the complete text of the post for your approval before it is published.
Formatting Preferences
We prefer that your article be submitted as a word document with anywhere from three to six paragraphs, each introduced by a subheading. This posting of ‘Guidelines for Guest Bloggers’ that you are currently reading is a good example of the format we generally use on Blue Orb Travel. Your name will be placed at the top of your article, introducing you as the author. Choose the text of the first line carefully, as it automatically becomes the META description tag of the article which affects search engine search result rankings.
How to Submit a Guest Article
Send your guest article to John@BlueOrbTravel.com. We prefer that your article be attached as a word document. Images should be attached separately. Also include your website URL and your Twitter URL.
Common Reasons for Rejecting Guest Article
Some of the more common reasons that an article would be rejected include the following:
-article previously published
-self promotional articles for your product or service
-promoting individual products, services or companies
-containing affiliate links
-containing links to unrelated sites
-inappropriate language
-linking to banned sites, such as adult sites, gambling sites, etc.
-copyrighted content
After Your Article is Published
After your article is published you will want to respond to any comments from our readers. This will add to the credibility of the article, will raise your profile and will increase the likelihood that the reader will want to visit your website. Responses should be appropriate and timely. You will also want to promote your article on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Google+ and Pinterest and also let your friends and contacts know about your article. The more people who know about your post, the more likely you will have of directing more traffic to your site. Finally, you will want to link to the post on your own website or blog.