Thank you for your interest in contributing to Rocks Digital. We have a mission: providing business owners and pros in marketing, SEO, search and content with the information and insight they need to stay ahead in digital marketing.
We would love for you to add your wisdom and experience to a ROCKING collection of posts on these topics:
- Local Search and SEO
- Social Media
- Mobile and Web
- Branding and Marketing
- Business Development
Get a feel for reader favorites; take a look at the 2016 top 15 posts. Our readers really love tips and how-to articles that help them become more effective in their digital marketing efforts.
Two Types of Rocks Digital Contributors
- Guest contributor – guest contributors publish an occasional post on the Rocks Digital site.
- Regular contributor – regular contributors make a commitment to publish biweekly, monthly or quarterly on Rocks Digital. The type of exposure a contributor gets on the site and on social media is determined by the level of commitment.
All contributors will receive social media exposure when their post is published. All blogs are promoted in Rocks Digital’s daily and weekly emails.
Regular contributors will receive additional promotion such as social media “Thank You” shout-outs from the brand and the publisher’s social media.
Regular contributors receive a listing on the contributor page, along with a longer bio and link to their website. They also receive preference in opportunities available at the annual Rocks Digital Marketing Conference.
We welcome all contributors, but… we will need to verify contributor identity before publishing on Rocks Digital. Please complete this form. You’ll need to provide links to your social media accounts, previously published articles, and if you are associated with or work for a particular brand, supply a link where your bio resides on the brand or business website.
Rocks Digital Contributor Guidelines
1. Content Must Be Your Original Work
Posts should be written exclusively for Rocks Digital. If you would like to publish an excerpt of your post after it is published on Rocks Digital on another site (such as your own or LinkedIn), you must include the canonical tag. Here’s an example: <link rel=”canonical” href=”https://www.rocksdigital.com/augmented-reality-retail/”>. You would replace the URL at “https://……” with the URL of the blog post on Rocks Digital.
An excerpt is usually the first paragraph of the article, and its purpose is to drive the reader to the Rocks Digital website to read the full post.
2. Hit the Right Post Length
The recommended length is from 600–900 words. But it’s also quite true that some of the top posts are longer, so use your judgment here. Posts less than 400 words will be returned for revision. Please be aware: if you submit a post over 1,500 words it might be divided into a series, depending on topic.
3. We Provide the Photos
We’ll add photos to illustrate the post. We love suggestions, so if you would like to select an image we can use:
- go to bigstock.com
- find the photo you’d prefer
- send us the link to the photo along with your post – we’ll use it if possible
If you submit images along with your blog post, we need to know the source of the photos. If providing screen captures, they must have been taken by you personally. Rocks Digital must give credit to all photos that we did not license directly.
4. Link Policy
Thinking about writing for us just to get a backlink? We appreciate your honesty. Here’s what you need to know when it comes to links:
- Nope, we don’t include outbound links of any type in the byline bio.
- We won’t link to the homepage, product or service page of your website within your blog post either.
- No affiliate links are allowed. If you include an affiliate link within your post, we reserve the right to remove the link – and the post if we choose.
- The best way to get a backlink to your website is within the blog post. Linking to a blog post on your website or an article by you that is relevant to the topic is acceptable and recommended.
- Sponsored links are not allowed in contributor posts. If it is determined after the fact that a link was sponsored, we will removed the link, and possibly the post.
- Links that appear spammy or self-serving will be removed.
Please don’t try to sneak a link past us. Our publisher, Lissa Duty, is a genuine link sleuth and personally checks every post for this type of bad link.
There’s a reason for these practices… we are happy to give and get link juice, but we want to keep readers onsite longer, and coming back for more.
Our site is accepted into Google News because we follow these best practices.
Ready to Contribute?
Great! Along with your first post, we’ll need your author byline and the email address you used to register your en.gravatar.com account where you uploaded your headshot. Keep reading for details on these.
We Need Your Contributor Information to Publish Your Post
Requirements:
- a short bio for your author byline (max length: 200 characters with spaces)
- a gravatar of your headshot
To get a gravatar, go to en.gravatar.com and register a free account. Upload your headshot, then notify Rocks Digital of the email address associated with your account. The headshot uploaded to en.gravatar.com pulls across to the site and appears with your author byline on the bottom of the blog post.
Consider Contributing Biweekly, Monthly or Quarterly
We would love to have you as a regular contributor and appreciate your interest! Here’s what else we will need when you make a commitment:
- a bio for the Rocks Digital contributing author page (max length: 600 characters with spaces)
- a photo for the contributing author page
We Know Our Readers – Here’s What They Like
- Provide your unique insight
- Choose a popular or hot topic
- Grab the reader’s attention with that opening paragraph
- Use a solid wrap-up at the end
- Go after engagement – close your post with a question for the reader. Yes, reader comments attract and engage even more readers!
Have a question? Email Editor@RocksDigital.com. Ready to get started? Complete this form.
