Guest posting guidelines

Hi there and thanks for your interest in the Haegeum.com blog! We welcome and regularly publish guest posts because they allow us to provide a diverse range of topics and expert insights for our readers. We do get a high volume of requests, however, but if you read and stick to these guest posting guidelines, you can expect a much quicker response time from us and a better result!

guest post guidelines

About The Haegeum.com Blog

If you haven’t followed along on our blog, not to worry! But knowing more about it will help you to come up with a more effective pitch or first draft. Here are some basics to get acquainted with.

Our Audience

The Haegeum.com blog is an authoritative yet friendly resource that helps those with an interest in the traditional Korean instrument haegeum to learn more about the instrument, different performers, and the various haegeum related products that are available. From time to time, the site also features learning opportunities and video tutorials or reviews. We are a site for people of all ages and abilities of play.

Our Content

The Hageum.com blog publishes a wide variety of high-quality content related to the haegeum and those that play the instrument. Here are a few types of content that we’re particularly interested in from guest contributors:

  • First-person accounts of learning to play from a beginner’s perspective.

  • How-to guides for learning different techniques from beginner to advanced levels.

  • Reviews of different haegeum makers, products, and applications that can help improve performance. 

  • Reporting on various performances that were held (eye-witness accounts).

  • Originally produced (by you) sheet music with rights to distribute freely (Google Docs, Sheets, etc.).

NOTE:

  • The Haegeum.com blog does not accept previously published, sponsored, or overly promotional content.
  • Haegeum.com only accepts posts that are timely, accurate, original, and resonate with our audience.

How to Pitch Us

We love guest posts, but we do get a high volume of requests on a daily basis. As such, we prefer topic pitches over completed submissions, so we can better track and more quickly respond to them. That being said, here are some guest posting guidelines that will help us to respond to you faster and, if your topic is a go, get it published sooner.

  • Familiarize yourself with the Haegeum.com blog. Read a few posts in full, and then do some skimming and exploring to get a feel for our tone and our basic format.
  • Come with ideas. We love it when you come to us with topic ideas or ideally, titles.
  • Check to see if we’ve published your topic already. If we’ve already published a similar post, consider whether you could write something more up-to-date, or approach it with a fresh angle or different perspective. The best way to see if we’ve covered your topic is to do a site search on Google:
google search

This search operator is your best friend. Do not include the brackets in your actual search.

  • Tell us about yourself. If you have a specific experience or expertise that makes you the person to write this post, tell us! Also, if you have existing writing samples or publications, please share a few! But not to worry if you don’t.
  • Include [GUEST PITCH] in your subject line. It seriously helps!

What we Need in your Guest Post

Once we agree on a topic, and you get the go-ahead to start writing, keep these tips in mind:

  • Adequate length: 1,000-2,500 words please!
  • Haegeum.com links. We’ll add more internal links when we’re editing the post, but adding 3 or more Haegeum.com links to the post would be great.
  • A short bio at the end. Just 1-3 sentences about who you are, what you do, and/or what you’re passionate about. Feel free to include links to your business website, LinkedIn profile, YouTube channel, or social media handles. 
  • Images. THIS IS A BIG ONE! All Haegeum.com posts include one image early in the introduction, and then one per every 200-300 words. This helps us to get your post published more quickly. The images don’t have to be original (although those are great) or earth-shattering.

If You Get Stuck With Images

Including images is sometimes easy and other times not so much. Here’s help you if you get stuck:

  • Types of images. All kinds of images can work for a blog post, but here are some ideas:
    • Screenshots of a process you are describing.
    • The graph or visual depiction of what you are describing (just provide a link to the source).
    • Real-world examples of the strategy or tactic you are describing.
    • Recycled Haegeum.com images—do a site search in Google images (site:haegeum.com “image you are looking for” (without the quotes)) to see if we have one you can recycle.
  • The best way to provide images:
    • Paste them right into the Google or Microsoft doc, and we can save them off of there.
    • BUT, keep image sizes no smaller than 800px wide as much as possible (in some scenarios it just won’t be applicable or necessary).
    • When taking screenshots, Zoom in and then take the screenshot, to avoid a too-small or pixelated image. If you’re using an external monitor, move the window to your main screen for the best quality image.

Guest Posts We Love

There are a ton of guest posts on the Haegeum.com blog with great topics, interesting titles, unique perspectives, high-quality images, actionable advice, and engaged readers. The best guest posts, though, follow all the guest posting guidelines shown here. Here are a few examples of exceptional guest posts that we love:

  • Be our first featured post for extra exposure to your site and social media

  • Be our second featured post for extra exposure to your site and social media

  • Spots filling fast, be our third featured post for extra exposure to your site and social media

  • Only two left, be our second to last featured post for extra exposure to your site and social media

  • Hurry to be our last featured post for extra exposure to your site and social media

What to expect

Response time to your pitch

Once you’ve emailed your pitch, response time will vary depending on the current content calendar, but we do our best to respond in 1-2 weeks. If you haven’t received a response after 2 weeks, please do follow up!

Once we accept your pitch

Once we’ve reviewed your pitch, we’ll let you know whether we’ll consider a draft. If the draft meets our quality standards, you can expect the following:

  • Edits. Because the content we publish varies so significantly, our process for editing guest posts isn’t strictly defined. We do edit the content to ensure it matches the Haegeum.com style guide. If we need anything on your end— a better quality image, a change to a section, or further elaboration on something, we’ll let you know. Depending on the level of edits needed, your post could get published within anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks. We will be in communication about that date, so you can know when it’ll get published.
  • Exposure. The Haegeum.com blog has is set up to be a lasting resource of information, so your post will be seen for an extended period of time.
  • Social promotion. We promote our content on social regularly. If you’re guest posting for the Haegeum.com blog, we’ll ask for your social information to tag you in our promotion so that you can share with your network, too.

Ready to pitch?

Please complete the Guest Post Template or email guestposts@haegeum.com and please prepend your subject line with [GUEST PITCH]. Thank you!

Our guest posting guidelines mirror that of Wordstream and I thank them for providing a great model from which to construct this page.