SPI Media Guest Blogging Guidelines

Note: We're not currently accepting guest blogger submissions. We may do so again in the near future.

Hey there! Thanks for your interest in writing for the SPI Media blog.

The guidelines on this page explain what you need to create a high-quality guest post that aligns with our values and standards—and will wow the SPI Media audience.

There’s a submission form to send us your blog post ideas at the end of this page, but please read these guidelines carefully before you fill it out.

SPI has a dedicated and loyal audience of people who expect excellence from our content. We hold ourselves to that standard, and we will hold you to it as well. Even if you have already drafted an article for our consideration (and that’s great if you have!), please make sure your submission honors these guidelines. When guest post submissions fail to do so, we usually reject them. At minimum, we insist upon big edits/rewrites. Let’s try to avoid that for everyone's sake.

One final thing before you dive in: we encourage you to have fun with this. The articles that perform best with our audience not only burst with value but also convey a genuine passion and joy for the subject matter. Be an authority on your topic while also being a fan of it.

Okay, here you go: the SPI Media Guest Blogging Guidelines. We look forward to reading what you come up with!

Writing for the SPI Media Blog: Is It a Fit?

First and foremost, we are looking to publish and promote excellent written content by experts and thought leaders across a number of topic areas relevant to entrepreneurship and online business building.

There are two crucial criteria you'll need to confirm before we'll consider working with you on a blog post:

• that you are a real person with a real name and some sort of online presence that helps us verify who you are. That means we don't accept submissions under pseudonyms. It's all about trust—our readers need to know who's talking to them.
• that you're an expert in the topic(s) you're writing about, and that, well, you know how to write! Our editors will work with you to polish your piece up to our standards, but you need to have a strong baseline ability to express yourself in written form. So we'll ask that you share some examples of your past published content.

Let's talk about audience size now. SPI Media is focused on helping entrepreneurs at all stages build businesses they love, including those just getting started. And you may be wondering, If I'm just getting started as a writer, can I write for the SPI Media blog?

The short answer is yes—but we'll be honest: it definitely helps if you already have an established audience (on your email list, social media, etc.) to whom you can promote your article. But if you don't yet, that doesn't mean we won't consider working with you! Great content written by someone our audience can trust is key.

So that's all about you. Now let's talk about what we're looking for in a blog post.

SPI Media Content: What You Need to Know

Readers come to smartpassiveincome.com for expertise, authenticity, and transparency. One of our core values, Share without Ego, says it well: We offer the complete picture of our experiences—to ourselves and to our audience—to enable authentic learning that promotes our values without compromise.

So, if you want to write for SPI, we expect that you’ll:

• Be honest: Don’t sugarcoat, simplify, or deceive.
• Be generous: Our primary objective is to teach and serve, not sell.
• Be comprehensive: Be ready and willing to go deep and open your books, so to speak.

In addition to those guidelines, please note that we are only interested in publishing new content. If you have a blog post that's already been published on your own site or elsewhere, it's unfortunately not a fit for us.

So what kinds of topics are we looking for? Content on the SPI Media blog typically falls into one of five main categories:

• Affiliate Marketing: The methods for making money ethically while you sleep.
• Community: Building a business around an audience that you serve and connect with deeply.
• Email Marketing: How to build, nurture, and grow your #1 asset: your list.
• Online Courses: The why, how, and what of creating online courses that will engage and educate your audience
• Podcasting: Powering your brand through this fast-growing medium.

Naturally, there will be overlap between categories, but this should give you a good general sense of what we talk about and teach in our blog posts, online guides, and courses.

SPI Media Audience: What You Need to Know 

The SPI audience is made up of people with a similar goal—our readers are looking to find ways to take control of their financial future by starting and growing an online business. While our readers come to SPI at different stages in their entrepreneurship journey, they all share that goal in common.

Through a recent survey, we have learned that our audience is segmented roughly into three categories:

• ⅓ have not yet started a business.
• ⅓ have been in business for up to one year.
• ⅓ have been in business more than one year.

A small portion of the audience has an existing traditional brick-and-mortar business, but most do not. Overall, we have found that the primary concerns of each group are:

• No business: Overcoming fear, uncertainty, and other obstacles to getting started.
• New to business: Shortening the amount of time it takes to learn new business-critical skills; building traffic/audience engagement.
• Established business: Learning to run a business more efficiently; making the most of data, opportunities, and relationships.

In most situations, a post will be primarily geared toward one of these three groups, but it’s not necessary to explicitly state that a post is for new business owners, for example.

And finally, SPI Media is a family-friendly place—no swearing or overtly adult content—so keep that in mind as you’re writing.

SPI Media's Guest Blog Submission and Writing Process

Here’s what the process of submitting and writing for us looks like.

Selecting a topic

Because it bears repeating: We do not publish articles that have been published elsewhere.

We ask that you start by sending us 3 to 5 topic ideas, including potential headlines and a brief description of each article. The SPI Media editorial team will discuss your suggestions, and determine if and when one of them fits into our editorial calendar, which is typically planned out at least three months in advance.

Once we select a topic, we’ll let you know and start coordinating with you on a deadline, how to submit your article (we use Google Docs), any feedback and revision requests, and publishing date.

Submitting your blog post ideas

Please use the form at the bottom of this page to submit your blog post ideas. It typically takes us 2 to 3 weeks to follow up on a submission (so don’t panic if you don’t hear from us in two days!).

Timing of publication

As mentioned, we plan out SPI Media content for a minimum of three months in advance. That means we can’t accommodate last-minute or rushed requests, so if your suggested topics are timely, submit them with plenty of advance notice. In addition, our editorial team will often have feedback, and will likely request a round of revisions from you, so we need to allow enough lead-time for that process.

In-depth posts and original content 

Our editorial team will work with you to determine the ideal length for your post, but most of our posts tend to run between 1,000 and 3,000 words. The main thing here is to dive deep into your topic, like we do in these posts:

• Top 10 Tips for Conducting an Exceptional Interview
• How to Launch a Brand New Website (With a Bang!): The Ultimate Guide
• A Beginner’s Guide to Email List Segmentation
• A Simple Traffic Generation Strategy You’re Probably Not Using—Take It!
• Advice from Pat: 3 SPI Readers Who Need Help with Optimization

Again, please do not send something that has already been published, even on your own site.

Enhancing your post with details

The best way to add depth to your article is with specific examples and details. Include step-by-step instructions for a tool you’re referring to, and use screenshots or embedded videos to demonstrate what you’re talking about. 

Here are some great examples of guest posts that have done well on SPI. Your guest post should be on par with these: 

• THE Backlinking Strategy that Works: 2014 and Beyond Editing
• From Course Concept to $141,659 in Sales in 6 Months
• 3 Online Business Case Studies Inspired by the SPI Community

Headline & Promise

Please suggest at least two headlines to accompany your post. And remember: Your headline is a promise to your readers, so it’s crucial that the content of your post deliver on that promise.

Links

SPI Media readers expect our content to be jam packed with useful resources. So be sure to include links to sources, resources, and tools you mention. Sure, you can include links back to your own site. But please also include links to SPI posts or podcast episodes where appropriate. You can use the SPI site search tool for this, and our team may make suggestions during the feedback/revision process. 

SEO

If you're able to do SEO research to help guide the selection of your topics, great! That never hurts. Nonetheless, our team will vet your topic ideas to make sure they'll perform well SEO-wise and with our audience, and we may suggest adjustments (or even different topics for you to write about) based on our internal research and vetting. If you're willing to be a little flexible, that may improve our chances of working together to publish some great content on smartpassiveincome.com!

Feedback, Revision & Editorial Discretion 

Our editorial team will work with you to get your post ready for publication. We don’t publish guest posts without some revision, so please take our suggestions seriously. If you are not okay with this, then writing for SPI may not be for you.

That said, we also expect that posts are in pretty good shape by the time they end up in our inboxes. Don’t send us a post that’s still in “rough first draft” state. If it requires too much editing on our end, we’ll likely send it back to you, and may decide not to run it at all.

Please also understand that if we are not able to get your post ready in a timely manner, we may have to kill it. This does not always reflect on the quality of the post or your writing, but logistically sometimes things don’t work out and we have to make decisions that are best for SPI and our audience. 

Finally, it should go without saying that we don’t accept any plagiarized content—and we will check for it.

Ready to submit your article ideas?

Note: We're not currently accepting guest blogger submissions. We may do so again in the near future.