Editorial Guidelines
These editorial guidelines are designed to help you understand what we accept and don’t accept for inclusion on our news platform. Our guidelines help ensure that we provide the highest quality experience for both website owners and users. By following these guidelines, you will see a better return on your investment and our users will see better results.
Useful Content
Common news angles include timely information about a new product or service, a business expansion or recent event, an organizational milestone like an anniversary or award or the issuance of a tip sheet or expert opinion on a newsworthy subject. Not everything is news. Your submissions must contain a clear, timely and newsworthy angle and be free of advertising hype, direct address and spam. They must be informative and share your unique expertise. Include tips, strategies, techniques, case-studies, analysis, opinions and commentary in your articles.
Objective Tone
Articles should be free of hype flags and direct address (i.e. “you,” “I,” “we,” etc.) unless used within a quotation from a spokesperson from a company or organization. Direct address is a flag that the content is an advertisement rather than a news story. Similarly, hype flags — exclamation points; hyperbolic product/service claims; descriptions of a product or service as AMAZING, or the use of upper case characters to create emphasis — challenge the credibility of your news announcement.
Length
SiteTrail articles should be at least 200 and at max 5,000 words. The length of your article directly affects its distribution, and articles that are overly short or long may have trouble being indexed in the search engines.
Grammar and Spelling
SiteTrail articles should be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Although jargon and acronyms are good for search engine ranking, make sure to include definitions for industry jargon so the average person can understand it.
Formatting
Articles cannot contain JavaScript tags and other formatting such as non-standard characters, tables or forced line breaks. Articles also should not be written partially or entirely in all capital letters.
SiteTrail Does Not Publish
Advertisements: Articles should be written in a standard format with a news angle, not to sell to consumers. A good story informs the media and the general public about a newsworthy topic. If your story reads like an advertisement, rewrite it.
Personal Opinions: SiteTrail will not publish content intended to harm or exact personal revenge against a person or group. SiteTrail typically accepts stories related to political, public policy and other sensitive matters, provided opinions are appropriately attributed and the story does not contain unsubstantiated allegations or excessive hyperbole.
Sexually Explicit Content: To ensure the integrity of our service for all, SiteTrail does not accept content about sexually explicit material or products. News articles should not contain references or links to explicitly sexual material, illegal material or profane language.
SPAM: Avoid getting caught in content filters because of a high volume or density of words and/or phrases that are frequently found in advertisements, unwanted e-mail (SPAM) or on non-newsworthy websites. Examples of these words and phrases include girls, amazing, FREE, sex, naked, “make money” and “don’t miss this opportunity” as well as anything to do with health supplements or pharmaceuticals for sexual enhancement.
Link SPAM: Please limit your link count to 1 per 100 words. This policy is in place to protect the value of the links in a news story and the value of links within the SiteTrail platform.
Opinion Pieces: Articles can be about a person or group’s opinion on a topical subject, but should not contain only opinion. Opinions not attributed to a source are flags that the content may be an advertisement or opinion column rather than a news story.
Fiction: All SiteTrail users must agree to submit only accurate information.
Duplicate Content: Our users do not want to see the same news story over and over again.
Intent to Harm: SiteTrail does not publish content intended to harm or exact revenge upon an individual or group. This content is defined as anything deemed intended to: incite, advocate or express hatred, bigotry, racism or gratuitous violence; promote personal opinions attacking an individual or group; maliciously affect a company’s stock; or stalk, defame, defraud, degrade, shame or victimize an individual or group.
SiteTrail’s editorial staff reviews all articles before they are published. SiteTrail editors have the final say in determining what content is appropriate to publish on the SiteTrail platform.
