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Flipping Heck! Learning To Be Productive One Day At A Time

Editorial Guidelines

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Editorial Guidelines

These guidelines were last updated on: 18th November 2023

These guidelines cover any submissions for both standard guest posting articles and articles for Priority Posting submissions

Articles must meet the criteria laid out below. Priority Posts must follow the standard guidelines along with the priority posting guidelines.

This page should contain all of the information that you need to know, if something isn’t listed, please reach out and contact us and we’ll try to help as quickly as we can.

Guideline Contents

Content We Won’t Publish

Also, as we are getting lots of requests for people to jump our editorial queue by offering to place our website on one particular website directory (which we won’t name but it starts with a P) as a result, any email including it, or offering link exchanges with this particular resource will not be answered and the sender will be placed on an immediate block list.

We are sorry we have had to do this but some people are trying to take advantage of our way of working and get their links out in an underhanded way. We want to offer value to our readers and these people are taking advantage of our generosity.

Standard Publication Rules For All Articles

We are based in the UK and all links and content placed must reflect current UK legislation which includes any product or service being legal to be sold in the UK/EU. The websites you link to must not be region locked in order for us to be able to vet the content.

Any article that contains content or links to the following will NOT be considered for publication under any circumstance:

  • Casinos, gambling, betting, gaming for money
  • Escort services, porn/sex toys
  • Bitcoin/Crypto/NFTs
  • Drugs or pharmaceuticals
  • Health related articles (unless a priority slot is taken out) – This includes but is not limited to: Health services, Doctors, Dentistry, Teeth work, Plastic Surgery, Health Companies (Doctor’s surgeries, Dental practices etc), Health Insurance, Vet Services. Note: we do not provide medical advice or promote services in a free-of-charge standard article
  • Anything that relates to procedures (medical or otherwise) that aren’t recommended by licensed professionals in the U.K/E.U (this applies to priority slots as well as standard ones)
  • Fitness/well being supplements, shakes, proteins that promote diet loss, fat burning or other health claims.
  • Dieting Advice (weight loss or weight gain)
  • Vaping/e-cigarettes or associated products (including liquids and equipment)
  • CBD, cannabis or THC products
  • Advice on illnesses/ailments that aren’t provided by a licenced medical professional or relate to holistic therapies
  • Links to products that have not passed relevant E.U/U.K legislation showing it is safe for the use it is being advertised for.
  • Essay writing services, exam or course taking services, paraphrasing tools or similar
  • Purchase follower services including (but not limited to) Instagram, Twitter, TikTok etc.
  • Articles that include NSFW links, anchor text or keywords – all content must be suitable for a wide-ranging audience.
  • Articles that contain links to payday loan providers, financial services or derived products unless the article is a fair and balanced review of available services and does not serve to advertise one client/product. For example, a post about student finance that links to various student credit cards would be acceptable, however a post that only linked to the one credit card would not.
  • Any product that promotes Multi-Level-Marketing or Pyramid selling or similar sales methods.
  • Articles that contain links to websites that aren’t related to the article content or the link text
  • Articles that are not relevant to my readers
  • Articles that contain factual inaccuracies, spelling errors or require a lot of editing.

We reserve the right to amend the above list at any time and it is not exhaustive. If you supply something that is not listed above and we deem it unsuitable for publication we reserve the right to refuse publication of your article.

Please don’t waste your time and ours by contacting us if you plan to link to any of these items as we won’t accept your article.

While we may have linked to something in the above list in the past, we do update this regularly to reflect current trends or requests.

If we have previously published content which was accepted and are now prohibited we may allow this to stay on the site or, depending on the context edit it so it fits in with current guidelines. Editing may include removal of offending content, adding no follow links or rewording the content to avoid the impermissible content.

Attempting To Use The Guest Posting System To Promote Multiple Links To The Same URL/Domain

Due to a rise in the amount of what we can only class as SEO link spamming we have introduced the following new rule as of 17th August 2022:

If we receive requests from multiple authors looking to promote the same URL/Company in different articles within a short period of time we will consider this an abuse of our guest posting system.

We will remove any scheduled articles containing the link from our editorial queue, the author’s email will be blocked from contacting us and the company whose link is being spammed to us in articles will be placed on a black list.

Any previously published articles that referenced this company will have their links removed.

Additionally, if we receive emails from what appears to be the same author promoting different companies within a short space of time we will also consider this an abuse of our guest posting system and the author will not be eligible for free-of-charge guest posting slots.

Disclaimer Requirements

We also require that a disclaimer be present on each article (whether it’s a standard guest post or a priority post). This is placed at the bottom of the article, under the link to the featured image and an example can be seen below (note: we reserve the right to change the wording at any time):

Our advertising disclaimer text

Please note that this disclaimer will not be removed for any article.

General Requirements For All Articles

Wow! Thanks for your interest in writing for Flipping Heck, we love adding new voices and differing opinions on a variety of productivity, self-improvement and tech-related subjects. There are a few things to consider before submitting an idea for a guest post to Flipping Heck:

Article Format, Links, Length & File Types

  • Articles should be original and not published elsewhere
  • Articles should be a minimum of 500 words long
  • Articles should contain multiple links. Articles that contain a single link (excluding any cross-links within flippingheck.com) will be considered promotional and will only be considered for priority publication. Please ensure that your article links to several resources to provide the best value for our audience
  • Articles should be supplied in Word or Google Docs format, you understand that we reserve the right to reformat your article to fit in with the style of the blog, and edit your article if there are errors or omissions.
  • Articles should only link to relevant content on other sites, should not contain affiliate links, irrelevant links or multiple links to the same content. Whilst not required it would be nice if you linked to a relevant article on Flipping Heck too.

Topics We Will Accept

Topics should be relevant to Flipping Heck’s audience and cover topics based on the following areas:

    • Productivity/Time Management tips, techniques and commentary
    • Motivational tips
    • App reviews (productivity, organisational, finance management etc.)
    • Home Management (Organising, cleaning tips, home improvement etc.)
    • Interpersonal Relationships (Dealing with co-workers/subordinates/managers, family etc.)
    • Mental health/stress management
    • General wellness tips (fitness, exercise, meditation etc.)
    • Small/Medium business tips (finance, best business practices, marketing etc.)
    • Side Hustles/making extra money
    • Hobbies
    • Family/Relationships
    • Software/Website reviews and tips

Images

If the author supplies images they must ensure that any applicable licences are attained. Note that images may be modified to fit in with Flipping Heck’s design.

If using stock images from sites like Pexels or Pixabay, please supply the URL to the image so we can give proper credit to the image producer

  • The posts main featured image is displayed at 770px by 515px.
  • The maximum width for a post image is 700px with no limit on height.

Author Byline/Bio

This can contain links to the author’s website and social media. Links in the bio text will be no-follow links but you will have do-follow links to your main website and social media URLS.

Below is a sample author bio so you can see the links in place.Author Bio Links Explanation
You may supply a head shot or logo for use with the byline, this will be displayed at 250px by 250px.

Important Point: Your head shot must be a photo of you or representative of your logo or brand. Photos detected to be stock photos will be replaced with a generic icon.

We have the facility to use a staff account if you do not wish to add your personal information to your article. Let us know when submitting your article if you would like it published under our staff account.

General Article Notes

The following applies to both Standard and Priority Articles

Do You Allow “Do Follow” Links?

If your post fulfils the publication criteria then you can have “do-follow” links within the article if they’re relevant. Please note that the anchor text of your link must fit in with the article content and not be considered as spammy or keyword stuffing. We may request that anchor text is changed if we feel it does not fit in.

We reserve the right to add a “nofollow” to links we feel aren’t 100% relevant to the topic, are advertising a product/service or are sponsored. We’ll let you know if we plan to do this so you can swap out the link if you’d prefer

As mentioned above, the author bio text cannot have do-follow links in order to prevent keyword stuffing.

Will My Article Appear On Homepage?

Yes, all articles appear on the homepage. We cannot guarantee how long they will be placed there as this depends on the volume of content in our publication queue.

As new articles are added, your article will be pushed down the list until it will move on to subsequent pages.

From Passion To Profit

The same is true of the corresponding category page. Your article will be displayed at the top on initial publication and will pushed down as new articles are added into that category.

How Long Will My Article Be Available?

Articles are published indefinitely unless that there is a legal requirement to remove the article or that the content becomes outdated and cannot be updated sufficiently in order to make it relevant again.

While we try to update an article as links are changed or content is no longer relevant it’s not always possible for us to do so. If that’s the case, we will attempt to contact the author so they can provide updated information or place a disclaimer at the top of the page alerting the reader that the article may contain outdated information.

Where Else Will Be Article Be Linked From?

When your article goes live, it’s automatically pushed out to our Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and LinkedIn accounts.

We also send a weekly email out to our mailing list and if relevant may also cross-link to your article in future posts.

How To Submit A Standard Guest Post

If you want to write a guest post for Flipping Heck, please visit the Contact page and select the “Free Guest Post Submission” from the drop down enquiry type menu.

Please include the proposed title and brief synopsis of the proposed blog post. If you wish to write a post but are unsure of an exact article title then please let us know what topics you’re interested in covering and we can discuss the matter further.

We have the right to refuse any article and that if your initial submission does not meet any of the above criteria you may not receive a response due to the volume of interest we receive.

We will not under any circumstances publish links the items listed above in the General Editorial Guidelines section so please don’t try and sneak a link we – we check every link in every article sent to us.

Please note: Publication dates will be allocated on a First Come, First Served basis when the article is received and accepted. Standard guest posts spots are available every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and you can view current post schedule availability here.

If you are looking for a specific publication date or need your article published quickly on Flipping Heck or if you’re asking for a review then please read the Priority Posting Guidelines below.

Note: once an article is published, we reserve the right to add, amend or remove links, content and images etc. in order to keep the article up-to-date and provide additional information.

Priority Posting Guidelines

As we receive a lot of queries regarding priority content placement, it would be easier when you initially contact us to provide the following information which will speed up the process

  • What do you want us to do exactly (host a pre-written article, review a product, add a link etc.)?
  • How does this fit in with the content on our website?
  • How does this fit in and benefit with our readership?

It would also be beneficial to supply a link to a similar article so that I can see that quality of writing and type of links included.

What Are Priority Posts?

Priority posts are articles that jump the standard Editorial Calendar queue. You can either choose an exact publication date and time for a priority post or if you don’t have an exact date in mind, we can usually publish these within 48 hours of receipt.

Turnaround Time

If you don’t give us a specific date for your article publication then our turnaround time for publishing Priority Posts is 48 hours from receipt excluding weekends once our publication terms have been accepted.

How To Submit A Priority Post

You will usually receive a reply to any submission or enquiries within 12 hours (weekdays), but please note that as we’re in the UK, this may be outside of what you would consider your office hours. We try to be as flexible as possible but please understand that we do like to sleep and have a day off off every now and again so please only chase up with us regarding your enquiry if we’ve not replied to you within 24 hours (Monday to Friday).

Please choose the “Priority/Sponsored Content” option on the Contact page.

Do You Allow Link Additions To Old Posts?

This is something we can certainly look at if the link adds extra value to our readers and is relevant to the content. Due to the volume of link insertion requests we receive we usually don’t go back and edit old articles and reserve the right to charge an admin fee for adding links to old articles. If you’d like to discuss this further, please contact us and choose the “Add A Link To An Old Post” option.

Please note that you can specify your own text or add additional text to the article but your new content cannot impact on any existing links.

Turnaround time on link inclusion is 48 hours on acceptance of our terms (excluding weekends).

Free Weekly Round-Up Link Inclusion

If you don’t have a budget, that’s completely understandable but we’re unable to offer this service for no cost – we’d spend all our time editing old posts and wouldn’t be able to add any new content! If you still have a link you’d like to add for free, please choose the “Weekly Round-Up Submission” option on the contact us page and we’ll add your link to our round-up pool.

Due to the volume of links received, we can’t acknowledge receipt of these and would appreciate it if you didn’t chase us up as it just wastes everyone’s time. There is usually a 12 week lead time for link inclusion in a round-up and we’ll drop you an email if/when your link is used.

We Need You To Remove Existing Content Before We’ll Work With You

Surprisingly, we get some people asking us to remove links from articles or even entire pages like this one from our website – the cheek of it!

We vet all content carefully and weigh up its usefulness to our readers. Occasionally an article may have a link to something we now won’t publish but as it was allowed at the time we have kept it on the site – it’s an organic process, after all NFTs weren’t even in existence when we started publishing back in 2004, and Bitcoin was merely a fun fad until recently so of course there may be older content relating to these now rejected subjects.

I am afraid though that we can’t allow people who wish to publish content on our platform to dictate what we do with our existing content – someone wanted us to remove the contact page for goodness sake!

So no. We will not remove content under any circumstances unless it’s a legal requirement, out-of-date or a link leads to a 404/error page.

We Need To See Your Google Analytics Data

Sorry, we do not provide this under any circumstance. There are plenty of third party tools that can give you insights into a website’s reach, domain authority and more

If I Pay You Lots Of Money Will You Publish My Link Even Though It’s On Your Not Allowed List?

No we won’t please don’t waste our time and yours by contacting us.

Note: once an article is published, we reserve the right to add, amend or remove links, content and images etc. in order to keep the article up-to-date and provide additional information.

Editorial Calendar

Standard guest posts are published on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Fridays are reserved for our Weekly Round-Ups. We do not publish Standard Guest Posts outside of the Monday, Tuesday Wednesday schedule.

The following schedule should give you a guide on current guest post spot availability. If you require your content publishing before the next free space then please consider contacting us with a priority posting request.

Please note that this schedule is subject to change

Featured Image: Vintage Typewrite by Just2shutter from FreeDigitalPhotos.net