I appreciate your interest in blogging for The Happiness Bucket and DLMorales.com. Please take a minute to read through the information and guidelines below prior to submitting your application to ensure you understand and agree with the submission guidelines.

UNDERSTANDING THE THB CUSTOMER

The Happiness Bucket Client and DLMorales.com (THB/DLM) reader is typically a side-hustling entrepreneur  between the ages of 35 - 45 years old. She typically works outside the home having a full-time or part-time job.  She is also married, divorced or widowed with children.  She is looking to achieve her goal of owning her own business and wants to do it without going into debt by taking out a number of loans.  She is also a member of team DIY meaning that she prefers to know how to do something and do it herself instead of blindly paying others to do something for her.  As her business grows and she can justify the expense and understands her internal processes, she will be happy to invest in her business further, but not at the onset.  Additionally, she is really needing to balance work, entrepreneurship and life all while trying to live her best life and take care of her family.  

On the personal side, she doesn’t take the best care of herself because she is so focused on everyone and everything else. She responds well to motivation and inspiration because internally she knows she needs to make both physical and mental changes, but just needs a little push to do so.  Externally, others may not know she struggles with all of this because she wears a good outside cover and that is a fear she is working to overcome, that someone will discover her truth and judge her for it.

ENSURE ALL SUBMITTED GUEST CONTENT IS:

• In alignment with the THB/DLM reader’s needs and overall mindset.  

• Related in some way to the topic of organization and process in the areas of life, soul, space and/or business.  

• Unique and original to the guest author and is not regurgitated content that was previously posted elsewhere.

• Thought provoking and detail oriented, providing guidance and/or teaching the reader.

• Properly attributed to the original author or referenced material if said material or author is quoted or data is used in the article.

• Owned by THB/DLM.  The guest author may link to the content from his/her blog or website.  THB/DLM will provide proper attribution to the guest author, however THB/DLM will officially own the content and will have the rights to tweak, edit and share as necessary.

• Link to at least 1 internal THB/DLM piece of content to include blog posts, podcast, membership site, 1:1 Services, etc.

• Linked to no more than one guest author link in the body of the post.   

• Provided a guest author bio which links to no more than 2 external guest author links (website, email address and/or social handle is acceptable).

• Optionally linked to non-owned external links to provide additional reference/guidance/assistance without limitation, however each link is reviewed on a link by link basis and is subject to removal if they don’t meet the needs of the THB/DLM reader. 

ENSURE ALL SUBMITTED CONTENT IS NOT/DOES NOT:

• Republished in full anywhere else since this will cause SEO problems.  You however can link to the content from a post on your site sharing that you guest posted about topic xyz and you encourage them to check out your post in full on the XYZ website which helps side-hustling entrepreneurs….this way you technically have a blog post but are linking out to the actual content.  You can also share the final content link via social media and email as much as you want to help drive traffic to it and ultimately to you.

• Duplicate content that is already present on the THB/DLM website. It however can be supplemented and if that is done it makes sense to link to that original content somewhere in your piece, which would qualify as the 1 internal link requirement.

• Require a lot of editing.  My goal in accepting guest writers is to supplement my original content and not to add to my already busy workflow.  See formatting section below.

• Overly promote your business, products or services. Again this is a business website, so aside from teaching my readers I choose to promote THB products and services.  That being said I want to make sure you get the credit you deserve for your content and will lead people to your site who want to read more content and/or learn more about you and your services.

• Contain affiliate links. Affiliate links should only be applied on your personal site.  Any and all affiliate links will be removed.

• A highly opinionated or political piece.  That’s just not our ball of wax.

• Contain curse words - I’m sure you can figure a way to say what you need to say without using these words.

• Full of Fluff.  The THB/DLM reader is busy and doesn’t have time to wade through unnecessary information.  You can have personality in the piece, but keep it concise, to the point and full of value. 

FORMATTING

It is important that you adhere to these formatting guidelines as closely as possible for SEO purposes:

• Plan for your post to be 750 words or more. The goal, however, is to have a value rich post.
• Paragraphs should be limited to three - five sentences (not a hard and fast rule but shoot for this as a guideline)
• Each sentence should have no more than 20 words. (not a hard and fast rule but shoot for this as a guideline)
• Images or screenshots should be royalty free and should cite the image source.  It should also include the attached file. If it is an image you captured yourself you will need to state that and source yourself.
• It is highly recommended that you run your content through a grammar and spelling check tool.  Grammerly is what we use.

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