It is important that all guest authors format their posts in a similar way so that there is consistency between posts. Every author has their own writing style, though it’s important that each author follows my formatting rules and general guidelines so that the quality of content on KevinMuldoon.com remains high.
Posts must:
- Be high-quality
- Be at least 1,000 words long
- Have no spelling or grammatical errors
- Not include any personal affiliate links
- Not be self-promotional
- Follow all the guidelines on this page closely
It is also an author’s duty to proofread their articles. Articles that are littered with basic mistakes and grammatical errors will be automatically rejected and will not be allowed to be resubmitted.
Formatting Rules
Please ensure any posts submitted follow these rules:
- Use H2 tags for section headers and H3 tags for sub headers. No H1 tags should be used in articles.
- All headers should use title case (you can use a tool such as TitleCase to convert your header text)
- If you use a blog editor such as Windows Live Writer or Microsoft Word, please make sure that no style formatting is included in the post as this overrides the default theme styling of the site.
- Posts should be assigned to only one category
- Paragraphs should be two to three sentences long
Image Rules
Please include images in all of your articles.
Rules about images:
- Images placed within the content area should preferably be 2,000 pixels in width, but images which are between 1,500 to 2,000 pixels will be accepted
- Be sure to crop images to the correct size before uploading
- Please avoid inserting small images in posts
- Photographs should be optimised in JPG format at around 80% optimisation. Screenshots should be optimized using PNG
- Images should have alt tags entered for them
- Images should be centred
- Save image files using keywords e.g. jetpack-main-settings-area.png
- Do not link the image itself
- Do not use stock images. Only use screenshots, photographs you have taken personally, or images from Creative Commons approved sources
- Do not hotlink images – Images should be hosted on KevinMuldoon.com. Not only is hotlinking a crappy thing to do to other website owners, there is also a high chance of the image being removed by the other website at a later date. This would make the article on KevinMuldoon.com incomplete.
Link Rules
Please take a note of the link rules below:
- Give credit where credit is due. If you got inspiration for a post from another blog or website, link to them. Not only is this good karma, it makes the post more useful to the reader.
- All links should use the title attribute
- All links should open on the same page. Do not use target=”_new” or target=”_blank” in the anchor link. This allows the visitor to decide which tab a link is opened in.
Links are useful to readers, therefore I encourage you to link to useful pages that support your point.
Links should, however, always be relevant. You should not insert links if they do not enhance the article.
It is not permitted to sell links in your articles to third parties. All advertisers should approach me directly about advertising options. Anyone found profiting from selling links in articles they write for KevinMuldoon.com will will have their articles deleted or re-written (this note does not apply to the 99.99% of you who are honest bloggers).
General Writing Guidelines
Some simple guidelines to help you write a better post:
- Stick to what you know and write something you are comfortable writing about. Do not profess to be an expert on something you are not
- Proofread the article once or twice to ensure the quality of the post is high
- Connect with readers who leave comments to your posts
- If you are unsure about anything, please contact me and I will do my best to help