Welcome to our Editorial Guidelines Newsletter Series, a six-part advice series to help you get published on Bliss.com!

Over the next three weeks we will be sending you tips and tricks on all things editorial–everything from headlines and images to the most common mistake made by bloggers! Following these guidelines not only makes it easier for our editorial team, it increases your chances of being featured on Bliss’ homepage (which drives traffic to you!).

We’re on a mission to find more great content for Bliss.com… so we’ve developed this editorial series to help authors know what we’re looking for!

Anyone who wants to have their content featured on Bliss.com!  We’re thrilled to have you as an author, and our editors couldn’t be more excited to showcase and promote your writing style as part of our larger editorial voice. Feel free to reach out with ideas, inspiration, suggestions, and comments.

1. Creating Great Content

Ready for some great content & editorial advice? Read on to discover what our editors look for and what to avoid.

• Make It Shareable and Spreadable
  • One of the main reasons readers click through articles is to help solve a problem. “How-Tos,” “7 Steps to” and “Best Of” lists are all popular items to pass along to friends. If your goal is some viral buzz, you should try to provide readers with takeaways as well as clear, concise advice.

• Be Timely yet Timeless
  • Bliss.com looks for content that walks the line between being relevant for today and still being interesting to readers several months from now. Our editors are more likely to feature something that won’t be old news in a couple of weeks.

• Include Quality Text
  • Heads up! We can’t feature a post that consists of only photos and links. We need at least three sentences of text in a post to feature it on our homepage.
  • Don’t forget the basics! Spell check your posts, read through for grammatical mistakes, and practice good copy-editing skills.
  • Adding quotes, doing your research, and including more context to your post will increase it’s value to a reader.

• We Love Original Content!
  • We’re looking for original content, so avoid copying press releases, old posts, or a Wikipedia article (yes, we’ve seen it happen!) in your post
  • If you need to reference old posts, give some context so the reader knows what’s going on. (“It’s Day 7 of my juice fast! In the last installment I started experimenting with green veggies”) By writing self-contained posts you keep your new readers from getting confused and encourage people to read past posts if they’re intrigued.

  2. Making It Visually Appealing

• Easy to Scan
  • Try to  clearly articulate the purpose or topic of your post within the first sentence.
  • Lists, bullet points, and headers make it easier for readers to get the gist of your article and focus on the information that’s most important to them.
  • Avoid large chunks of texts. It can seem daunting to the reader and cause them to press the “back” button.
  • To keep readers stimulated, break up long paragraphs with relevant (and high-resolution) photos.

• Visually Appealing
  • Be creative and incorporate interesting visual elements into your posts: photos, video, charts, infographics, drawings, collages, tweets, or just about anything else you can think of!
  • Don’t forget: a photo is mandatory for your story to be featured on Bliss.com.
  • Try to avoid stock images, cell-phone images, and low-resolution photos if possible. Photos must be at least 285px X 150px to be featured on Bliss.com.

  3. Create a Killer Headline

• Be Catchy
  • Bold & persuasive titles entice readers to keep reading, so lure them in with a magnetic, alluring headline. “Quinoa I Can’t Live Without” is better than “Quinoa Recipe Review”.
• Teach Something
  • Hook readers by stating a big benefit. Will it teach them something new? Share something relateable? Let the cat out of the bag early on.
• Get to the Point
  • Brevity is the key to a sure-fire click through. Shoot for 60 characters or less. Think of it as Twitter on steroids!
• Don’t Cheat ‘Em
  • If you bait them in the title, make sure you deliver the promised content. A duped reader is an ex fan. So no headlines that promise a “5 Minute Workout Routine!” and deliver a 1 hour cardio workout.
• Be SEO Friendly Using Keywords
  • While blog post titles should be written for humans, it’s important to attract search engine crawlers to ensure your posts get placed at the top of the indexes. This handy video will help you identify which keywords will boost your rankings!
• Avoid Buzzwords and Jargon
  • Not all of your readers are on top of the latest lingo, so write for a global audience and steer clear of acronyms. For example, use “ready to wear” instead of RTW.

  4. Know Your Niche

• Find Your Niche
  • Consistency is key, so find your specialty and own it. Readers will keep coming if they know you’re the “go-to” gal for all things Zumba, Vegan, or Homesteading.
• But Don’t Pigeonhole Yourself
  • Don’t be afraid to mix it up without loosing your own voice. So if you’re a yoga expert, you can still chime in on cardio trends.
• Know Your Demographics
  • Defining your audience gives you a sense of what to say & how to say it. IF most of your readers are 50-year-old women from the South, don’t rave about a new pole dancing studio that recently opened up NYC. Google Analytics and Facebook Insights are great tools to discover who your readers are, when they visit, & what they like,
• Know Your Competition
  • Familiarizing yourself with your popular counterparts helps set the bar and differentiate your blog. Take a look at some of your favorite blogs: What could you do better than them and what sets you apart?
• Be Flexible
  • Your blog’s audience and niche may change depending on your readers interest, so be receptive to what’s attracting new and returning fans. Growth is the name of the game so make sure newcomers feel welcomed and relevant.
• Listen Up
  • Use feedback to help guide the type of content you post. What receives the most interaction within your site? Which articles get the most tweets? Who’s commenting? These are great guideposts to drive your editorial strategy.

  5. Length and Proofreading
  

Long or Lean?

• Employ the Miniskirt Rule
  • Make your post short enough to keep readers interested, but long enough to cover the subject, if you catch our drift!
• Types of Posts
  • Different types of posts require different lengths. Informational posts, how-to guides, and interviews can and should dwarf posts dedicated to shorter updates.
• Frequency of Posts
  • Readers love seeing frequent posts, but respect their attention span. If you post multiple times a day, consider posting mostly shorter posts with regular longer features.  If you post only a few times a week, your posts can be of longer or medium length.
• Know Your Audience
  • What do they respond to? What posts get the most comments or traffic? Study that information to help identify the best length of posts for your readership.
• No Hard and Fast Rules
  • Still, don’t be afraid to switch it up.  Consider experimenting with regular features that are a departure from your typical blog post.  Some ideas: photo-only posts, long-form interviews, link round ups, guides, in-depth reviews, collages, “a day in the life”, weekly how-tos…the sky’s the limit!

• Edit Yourself
  • Once you draft your post, step away for a breather. The return with a fresh perspective and reread it for redundancies, irrelevant anecdotes, or anything that isn’t vital.
• Watch the Wording
  • If you come across a sentence that doesn’t clearly state your idea, rewrite it. Clarity is key.
• Spell Check
  • here’s no excuse for glaring grammar & spelling errors. Take the time to create typo-free posts or risk losing readers for good.