Are you a local business who works with families? We'd love to share your expertise with parents in the community. Here's the benefits and how-to's of writing an article for ChatterBlock.
ChatterBlock is the go-to source for thousands of parents to discover kid-friendly activities, events, camps, classes, and local resources. If you're a business and have expert advice that you'd like to share with parents in the community, while benefiting your business, we would love to work with you.
The benefits of writing an article for ChatterBlock
Free promotion - we consider it a win-win. ChatterBlock gets useful, relevant content to our users, and you get awesome exposure at a (very) reasonable price point
Reach a highly appealing audience - as a business who works with kids or parents, you'll reach the audience that matters to you: local parents actively searching for activities and resources
Our users are very social - if you supply a relevant, interesting, and engaging article, parents can easily share via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+ with our 'Share' buttons. With articles we think would be highly valuable and timely to our parents, we sometimes promote it to our own followers on ChatterBlock's social media platforms or through our popular email newsletter.
How to write an article for ChatterBlock
Apart from writing an engaging article, it is important that you have a captivating title, summary, and photo to actually GET the readers there.
Main photo - you want a relevant and inviting photo. We find logos or business names, etc. do not perform well as main photos (however we are able to include them in the body of your article). Photos must be high resolution, and minimum 1200 pixels wide, there is no requirement for height. We can include 1-2 additional photos in the body of your article as well.
Title - the highest performing titles are 5-9 words in length and easily convey the topic of your article. You want the title to jump out at them (the first 2 words are the most important) to avoid people skimming past.
Summary - you have up to 160 characters to summarize the topic of your article. Best practice is to include (weaving in) the title of your article in a natural language. This is for SEO (Google) purposes so your article will rank better in search results.
Body - your article should be about 800-1,500 words in length. Here are some good tips to keep in mind:
Break it up - whether this is with headlines or bullet points, people like for things to be clear and skim-able. A 1,000 word essay can appear daunting for the web savvy reader
Remember your audience - you may be an expert in your field but much of your audience won't be (that's why they want to hear your advice / opinion!). Try to stay away from jargon, so that it's easy to read for a wide audience
Make it original - there's tons of advice on the Internet. Pull from your own knowledge and experience to make a truly unique and engaging read
Give some self promotion - we won't allow it to sound like a big sales pitch but do recommend you weave in some information about you and your business so that your effort is worthwhile.
Guidelines for writing an article for ChatterBlock
This is not one giant ad. Articles must be meaningful for parents, but you can tie in information about your business and have 1-2 links to your own site
Content must be original
They should be roughly 800-1500 words in length
An original photo to be provided
We reserve the right to make edits, for reasons including: grammar, readability, search engine optimization, site fit, etc.
These edits are in effort to increase the effectiveness of your article, and to help it rank in Google better, however, if you disagree with the edits we can revise
If you'd like to start writing for us, please contact us at community@chatterblock.com and we'd love to hear what you have in mind.
