Write For Us

Submit An Article to The Smart Runner

Thanks for your interest in contributing to The Smart Runner. We’d be delighted to accept your submission for review, but first we need to outline what exactly we’re looking for and who our audience is, K?

There are two sections of the blog where you can choose to have your submission published – Articles or Stories.

Articles Section

The Articles section is where you’ll find detailed actionable content designed to help readers achieve a goal or perform a particular task. The content will generally be quite long, minimum 1500 words and break out how exactly to perform a workout, train for a time, how to fuel properly or how to develop the mind for running success.

There are three article categories and your submission should fall under one of these; Training, Nutrition or Mindset.

Stories Section

The Stories section of the blog contains content with a lighter feel. It’s where The Smart Runner Community members can report on their training, tell an interesting or funny story from their running escapades, write a review on a recent event or vent a frustration or share an idea.

If you intend to vent a frustration or have a bit of a rant, ensure that you backup your assertions with data and supporting material. We don’t mind an odd piece of colourful language but please remember to always be respectful. Otherwise your article may not be published.

How Your Submission Should Be Structured

The first thing you should know is that we love detailed actionable content. The more detailed and focused your article, then the better chance you have of it doing well on the site.

At the same time your piece needs to speak to ordinary people. Although it sounds great amongst professionals, it’s important to know that ordinary people switch off when they hear jargon.

Broad stroke generalisations and opinion pieces are not what we’re looking for. We want to help you create an article that our readers will enjoy and share so best to go narrow and deep on the subject.

Reasons You Should Write for The Smart Runner

  1. We love to offer readers advice from experts like you.
  2. You get to share your ideas and build authority.
  3. You have the opportunity to send traffic to your website and build your own audience.
  4. You’ll get experience writing long format articles that offer actual value to your readers.
  5. We get some company (lol)

Points to note before Submitting Your Article

  1. Your article must be your own work and be original material.
  2. Your article must not have been submitted anywhere else prior to submitting here.
  3. Your article, once submitted, can be syndicated or reproduced to other websites, but MUST have the canonical link pointing back to its original home here on The Smart Runner.
  4. The article must not be self promotional, however, you can link to your own material to show a point.
  5. Your profile links etc on The Smart Runner will be do-follow so you get backlink juice. Happy Days!

Who You Should Write For

The audience at The Smart Runner comprises beginner, intermediate and advanced marathon and half marathon runners.

They are women and men primarily aged between 25 to 46 years and vary in ability and experience from complete novice to those running sometimes dozens of marathons each year.

Most members would not be classed as elite runners as times would be over 3hrs for a full marathon. We class elite athletes as those achieving sub 3:00:00 marathon time and sub 1:20:00 half marathon.

Topics You Should Write About

We like to cover several topics on the blog, all of which are relevant and closely related to Marathon Running. Here’s some topics we like to cover.

  • Strength Training
  • Weight Training
  • Cross Training
  • Running Training
  • Diet & Nutrition
  • Mindset
  • Equipment & Gear
  • Event Reviews
  • Athletics News

What Type Of Article You Should Write

There are many types of article you could write. Generally, we like to offer readers practical articles that show them how to develop an aspect of their training. How-To type articles are a good choice.

Here’s different article we’ll accept;

  • Training How To
  • Nutrition How To
  • How To Lose Fat
  • Event Reviews
  • Gear Comparison
  • Case Study
  • Tutorials
  • Expanded List Posts
  • Resource Posts
  • Ultimate Guides

How To Structure Your Post

You should read this post about how to structure a blog post before writing, it covers it. In summary, you should have the following structure;

  1. Attention grabbing, non-spammy headline (including your keyword).
  2. Us the PAS headline formula; Problem + Agitate + Solve.
  3. Or the QBP headline formula; Quantity + Benefit + Promise
  4. Introduction and explanation of the problem you are addressing (including your keyword).
  5. Use of subheads throughout your post.
  6. Use brief paragraphs of one or two sentences.
  7. Use quotes and “Tweet This” to break up the content and highlight key points.
  8. Include a conclusion
  9. Include a Call-To-Action (we look after this bit)
  10. Include screenshots and other relevant images. Make sure they are set to no more than 500px wide and displayed center on the page. Please make sure they have the following set before and after you upload;
    1. Filename relevant to the article title
    2. Title to feature your chosen keyword
    3. Alt tag to feature your chosen keyword
    4. Description to feature your chosen keyword
  11. We will create and set the featured image

How Long Should The Post Be?

Your submission should be not less that 1000 words, 1500 or more would be ideal. There is no upper limit to the size of your contribution. The longer the better.

What About Links?

Here are some points to note regarding internal and external linking;

  1. Affiliate links are forbidden. If you include them, they’ll be removed.
  2. Links should be contextual, i.e. they should flow with the general body of writing. In other words, avoid including links in text like “check out this link”.
  3. Don’t add hyperlinks directly into your post, use anchor text.
  4. Add links to relevant content on websites with high ranking domains.
  5. Add links to your own content only where relevant.
  6. Don’t include your offers in links
  7. Link to relevant articles on The Smart Runner

How It Works

Here’s how the process goes down;

  1. You make your submission via the Google Submission Form.
  2. We review the basic outline of your submission and give you feedback.
  3. On provisional acceptance we’ll set you up as a contributor on thesmartrunner.com and you’ll receive a login.
    1. We will include your social media links and website link in your bio
    2. Your email address associated with your contributor account needs to be registered with gravatar so that your profile image appears in your bio.
    3. Your bio can contain one other link to your services page, free resource or lead magnet.
  4. We’ll enter a submission date for you in my editorial calendar, usually about 14 days from date of acceptance.
  5. You login and get to work on your article. (You’ll need to meet that submission date).
  6. Drink lots of good coffee.
  7. Two days prior to publishing, I’ll review and suggest any edits necessary.
  8. I’ll create the featured image for the post.
  9. 2 days later when edits are complete we hit publish.
  10. Drink some good coffee and celebrate!

Et Viola! your article will be live on the site. The process from the day you make your initial submission usually takes 4 weeks.

So, if you’ve made it this far down the page, chances are you’re still interested in putting in the work. That’s great! Fill out the initial submission form and let’s get cracking.

Complete The Google Form & Make Your Submission Here.