GoodBed Blog Guidelines
Guidelines for Guest Editorial Contributions to the GoodBed Blog
GoodBed is the world's largest information destination for mattress shoppers. If you have important insights or expertise to share with mattress shoppers, we would love to have you as a guest editorial contributor on the GoodBed Blog. For guest blog posts, we are particularly interested in data or experience that is related to mattresses and/or sleep, but falls outside our core expertise. We will not consider any promotional posts for backlinking purposes. If you have information and expertise that you think would be a good fit, please let us know and feel free to propose some topics that interest you: editor [at] goodbed [dot] com.
Core Guidelines
In drafting a post for the GoodBed Blog, please note the following guidelines:
- Focus on consumers. Choose topics that will be of interest to mattress shoppers, not subject matter geared toward mattress industry professionals.
- Write on behalf of yourself. First person prose is OK. You are not writing on behalf of GoodBed, so you are free to share your personal point of view with our readers. By the same token, it should be clear to the reader that your opinions are solely your own, not necessarily those of GoodBed.
- Be transparent about any inherent biases you may have. All contributor posts feature an author profile that enables you to link to your company or personal website, and that should disclose any relevant industry affiliations.
- Use tags and categories. Always tag and categorize your posts. This will help consumers and editors find your posts when they are looking for info on related topics. Email us to add new categories if needed.
- Write a brief intro paragraph. Include a 2-3 sentence introduction to the general theme of your article and any particular expertise you bring to this topic (e.g., "I work for one of the leading producers of memory foam, so I’ll be sharing some tips on how to evaluate the memory foam contained in a mattress, including what to look for and what to avoid.")
- Incorporate a relevant image. Where possible and appropriate, try to embed a strong image/photo/video in the top of the article to draw the audience into your post. Always credit the image to the photographer/videographer and link it to their website
Best Practices
The following are some additional best practices to keep in mind:
- Length: Most articles on the Mattress Blog are between 400 and 1,000 words. That said, we have no set requirements on length, and the appropriate length depends heavily on the context. For example, if you are introducing a link to a video or outside article, you may need only 100 words, but if you are publishing an interview with an industry leader, you may need as many as 2,000 words.
- Hyperlinks: All hyperlinks should be configured to "open in a separate window."
- Quality: Please be sure to spell check your articles, use standard punctuation and grammar, and avoid the use of ALL CAPS.
- Sources: To the extent your article makes note of facts and figures (which we love!), please include references to sources, ideally with a hyperlink to each source that the reader can follow for more detail.
- Truthfulness: Of course, we expect all contributors to be clear and truthful. Any attempts to mislead consumers will not be tolerated.
- Decency: Make sure your content (and links) aren’t objectionable – e.g., no profanity, sexually explicit content, etc.
If you would like additional guidance on blogging, you may be interested in some of the following training videos:
Policies
All blog posts are moderated, and may take a few days to appear once posted. We reserve the right to decline any submissions for any reason, and the right to remove or modify them as we see fit at any time. As the author, you retain full copyright ownership of the submission, and will be credited as the author of the article. By submitting your post to GoodBed, you agree to grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, unrestricted and irrevocable license to distribute, make derivative works of, and publicly display this content, and you represent that the publishing of this post on GoodBed does not infringe upon or misappropriate the intellectual property rights of any third party.
If you have any questions, or wish to join as a Mattress Expert on GoodBed, please email us at: editor [at] goodbed [dot] com.
