Guest Post Guidelines
& Application Process

1. Hello and welcome

Thank you for your interest in writing a guest post.

Guest posting when done right offers a fantastic opportunity for a win-win situation by providing value to my readers while enhancing your authority, creating exposure and generating business leads for you. Some of the most popular pages on this site are from guest posters who took the time to create something new and worthwhile. They are still reaping the dividends to this day.

Please ensure you read this ENTIRE page before submitting your pitch. Yes, it is thorough and will take about 5-10 minutes to read. I’m laying things out in the open and being completely transparent. A cookie-cutter, ‘fill in the blanks’, lazy, generic pitch is not going to cut it. That approach will get you reported to the spam authorities and your email will be added to our block list. I want to say YES rather than NO. So take the time, do this properly and put your best foot forward.

As a content creator myself, I like to help and develop new relationships with my professional peers and work with complementary businesses. However, I take great care to ensure that all published content maintains a tight focus on the theme of the site – maximising productivity through popular software apps to help people become ‘the’ legend in their office.

Unfortunately, many requests are rejected outright because, quite frankly, the idea is irrelevant, boring, generic or completely unrelated to the content of this site. In some cases I see word-for-word identical pitches from different ‘creators’. It’s lazy.

If you have a fresh idea, insight or perspective, share it and get some free publicity.

Read all the guidelines on this page then follow the Step 1 process below.

Step 1: Pitch your best idea (up to 3)

1Open a blank doc and prepare your BEST idea(s) for consideration. Just the idea, not the full post, but with sufficient detail for me to make an informed decision. Treat this like a stage 1 interview.

2For each article idea, craft an awesome title/headline/hook designed to stop the scroll, grab the attention of the reader and compel them to click and read. A good content writer is able to condense the central idea of a post into one sentence.

3In 1-3 sentences introduce yourself and state why your proposed article / website / product or service is a good fit for this site and how it would provide value or benefit to my readers.

4Prepare a list of page URL(s) or site URL(s) that you intend to link to from your post. I will cross-check these for suitability and ‘good fit’. 

5Please visit the Connect page, select Guest Posting from the dropdown list then populate the boxes with the information you prepared/collected in steps 1-4..

6On the form when prompted, address your request to Jason and put Awesome writer here. I have read the guidelines and here is my proposal in the subject line. Copy/paste it to avoid typos.

7If you were “reading through my site and found it interesting/intriguing”, don’t stop there – I would genuinely love to know which page or post that was, and why you found it interesting or intriguing.

I reply to every pitch that follows the above process and will answer any questions you have. You can expect to hear back within 24 hours, often sooner, but be aware that I am in Australia so I may be sleeping during your daytime!

I respect the time it takes to write a good article. I will not waste your time. I ask that you do not waste mine. Please re-read the guidelines on this page again, as a checklist, before you submit your idea.

Step 2: If approved, submit your post

If your pitched idea has merit and you meet the guidelines, you will be notified and you can then proceed with the following steps:

1Reply to my email. Submit your completed guest post in docx, markdown or html format.

2Attach a zipped folder or provide a link to a shared cloud drive containing your images. Images should use descriptive file names with lowercase alphanumeric characters, no symbols or spaces and words separated by a hyphen. Prefix each image name with a sequential image number (e.g. 01, 02 etc.) indicating its position within the article. For example, 01-dialog-box-showing-watermark-options.png. This simplifies the process at this end when uploading and inserting the images into the post. Don’t forget your two bio images (good quality pictures of you).

3Provide the text for your bio (see section 6).

4If you are linking to external URLs, please ensure that the HREFs or hyperlinks are populated correctly.

5[Optional – purely for my interest] Include your monthly audience size (blog post readership,  podcast listeners, YouTube subscribers/views etc.). The figures will have no impact on whether or not your submission is accepted. It’s the quality of your content that matters.

5I will often approve or decline your post within a day but it may take longer to respond during busy times. Your patience is appreciated.

6If I decline your post, I will outline the reasons. You are encouraged take the feedback on board and try again. If you decide not to, you may do whatever you want with your article, including publishing it elsewhere.

7If your post is accepted, I will often make some small edits so it fits seamlessly into this site. Sometimes, I will add a short introduction to your post to introduce you to my readers, like a friend introducing someone at a party or event – it’s a good thing. I will make sure that my introductory comments are set off from yours stylistically. If I make substantial changes, I will email the post back to you for your approval before posting.

2. Content Guidelines

1Above all else, the content must provide value and benefit to my readers and be interesting. Open strong.

2The subject of your article must be relevant and closely related to the theme of this site – which is maximising productivity through popular software apps – but you have some scope to be creative.

Topic ideas:

  • Microsoft 365 apps
  • Power apps
  • Google Workspace apps
  • Graphic apps like Canva and Adobe
  • Video apps like Camtasia, Screenflow, Descript, Cap Cut, Opus Clip, Riverside, Premier Pro and Final Cut
  • AI – well known tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity and Copilot but also lesser- known tools like GetPoppy and Blotato
  • Clever AI prompts (with a backstory) that have slashed hours or weeks off your research or development time
  • Scheduling tools like Buffer and Hootsuite
  • Project management tools like Monday, Trello and Asana
  • Whiteboard and mind-mapping tools
  • Productivity tools and techniques
  • CRMs and automations
  • Documentation, markup, markdown and note tools like OneNote, Evernote and Notion
  • Hot tech topics like cloud services, security or whatever is currently trending

Ideas for structures and formats:

  • ‘How I …’ is much more interesting than ‘How to …’. Share a personal experience and reveal what you’ve discovered.
  • a case study of something that blew your mind
  • useful templates you have built or found
  • insights and lessons
  • comparisons or unbiased reviews
  • how you failed or got completely stuck and how you figured it out or turned the situation around

4The blogging and SEO landscape has changed since the introduction of AI. But where does AI source it’s information? From quality articles on authoritative sites. So when you are constructing your content, think about how Google’s AI search summary or the results from any AI tool would present the information. Think about the question(s) a user would ask, and how AI would select and present the answer concisely. If you were searching for an expert response or a step-by-step process, what would you want to see? Get inside Google’s and AI’s brain. Get inside the searcher’s mind. Now, create some amazing content.

5Guest posts must not be a blatant pitch for your product or service. Please read section 7 for sponsored content and brand deals.

6However, you can include an offer link in your bio (see section 6) and a limited number of links to your product or services (see section 7).

7Your post should be between 750 and 1,500 words.

3. Use of AI

1I’m not going to attempt to stop you using AI but if it looks, sounds or feels AI-generated, it will be rejected. I’ve been around the traps for quite some time and my AI-radar is well-tuned.

2By all means, use AI intelligently but not lazily, to generate theme & structure ideas, check for grammar, repetition and flow, fill in the gaps and offer improvements, but your final offering should be yours and look cohesive and original.

4. Originality and Exclusivity

1Your post must be your own original work and for exclusive use on this site.

2You confirm that the same or similar article has not been published on your site, on other sites or in print.

3You agree you will not publish the same or similar article on your site, on other sites or in print at any time in the future.

4However, you may create a brief 1-3 paragraph summary on your own site that links to the URL for your guest post on this site. You may also link to the published post from your social channels or within emails sent to your list.

5If an image is not your own, you must have a license to use it (e.g. purchase the image from a reputable stock photo site or ensure the image has a creative commons license). It must not infringe an owner’s copyright.

5. Style Guidelines

1Use the Heading1 style for the title.

2Only use Heading2 style for major headings and Heading3 style for sub-headings. Do not use any levels lower than this.

3Use default paragraph text and single-level numbered or bullet lists for the main content.

4You may apply bold, italic and underline.

5Do not use different fonts, font sizes, font colours etc, as our global site styles will be applied.

6. Bio / Byline Guidelines

1The combined author bio and byline links must not exceed 100 words.

2Please include a 1-2 sentence author bio and 2 good quality images of yourself. 

3You may include byline links for any/all of the following:

  • your own blog or web site
  • your Bio page or About page
  • how people may contact you (include your email and as many social channels as you want)
  • one special offer for our readers, such as a product discount or useful resource. Your discount code must be ‘officelegends‘ and your special offer URLs should be in the format https://yoursite.com/officelegends/ 

7. Offers and Links

1In addition to the links in the author bio, you may provide one additional link to your own website within the body of the post and up to 3 additional links to other websites. For example if your article is a listicle, review, or comparison, you may provide outbound links to those sites.

2The FOLLOW attribute will be added to all outbound links which means it will be picked up by Google and other search engines, providing link juice to you and improving your site’s authority ranking. However, I urge you to take care when selecting which sites you wish to link to, because I may reject your entire submission if you provide a link to what I deem to be a low-quality site.   

3If you want to provide a link from your site or social channels to mine, it’s always appreciated but not a requirement. This is called reciprocal linking – link to me and I’ll link to you – and while Google frowns upon excessive and widespread use of reciprocal links, it’s perfectly fine to use them naturally. So I invite you to link to your own guest post and/or any other pages, services or products on this site that you consider useful to your own audience.

4I have no interest in link farms or any kind of spammy link building tactics. I play the long game which means publishing good content, building authority, developing a solid reputation, building connections with like-minded business owners and working together in a mutually beneficial way to enhance the value we both provide. 

I hope this isn’t shocking or ground breaking for you. It’s good business practice. If you’re good with that, then I look forward to receiving your submission.

9. Fees

There are no fees to have your guest post appear on this site. This means free exposure for you.

I will shortly be opening up slots for sponsored content and brand deals. Let me know if you would like to be notified when that is available.

10. Disclaimer

With a few exceptions, good quality posts that follow the guidelines above are nearly always published, at my sole discretion. However, writing a post and submitting it to me does not obligate me to publish it.

To set your expectations, you may not see large viewer numbers immediately. Blog posting is a slow-burn strategy. However momentum normally kicks in after 4-6 weeks and then keeps building. Some of my most read articles are guest posts.

Thank you for your interest.

Jason Morrell blog signature

Jason Morrell
Founder & Chief Decision Maker
Office Legends Academy | “Be the Legend in Your Office”