Blogger Frequently Asked Questions

How long should my blog be? 300 to 800 words is ideal – that’s short enough to keep the reader’s attention and long enough to cover most topics. Some topics can’t be covered in 800 words, and they can either be submitted as one long post or broken into two or more posts.

How often should I post a blog? Our hope is that you’ll post at least twice per month.

What topics should I blog about? Anything related to the rural lifestyle – farming, gardening, raising livestock, do-it-yourself projects, country crafts, cooking, canning and preserving, pets, family, neighbors and community, homesteading, baking, county fairs, beekeeping, nostalgia, etc.

Can I repost blogs originally published on my personal blog site? No, your submissions for Mother Earth Gardener must be original content. Duplicate content across multiple webpages results in both sites being penalized in search engine rankings, meaning less traffic to each page overall. You can certainly re-purpose a topic from a post you’ve previously written, but you must rewrite it into an original form before republishing.

Will my blogs be edited by the Mother Earth Gardener staff? Not substantively, but your submissions may be adjusted grammatically for the sake of clarity. Before submitting your blog, though, please be sure to check it over for proper punctuation, spelling, grammar and clarity. Once a blog goes live on the website, it can no longer be edited. (NOTE: We also have the right to reject a blog if it contains anything we deem inappropriate for our website.)

What’s the best writing style for a blog? Blogs are meant to initiate conversation, so we suggest a conversational style of writing, meaning write your blog as though you were talking to someone in person. Asking questions in your blog is also a great way to strike up a conversation with other bloggers and Mother Earth Gardener website visitors. For instance, if you’re blogging about building a chicken coop using re-purposed materials, and you wound up with lots of leftover materials, ask the question “Does anybody have any ideas for what I can do with leftover pallets?”

Can I include links in my blog? Yes. In fact, if you’re quoting anything from another blog, website or publication, be sure to include a web link to the original material, and also use quotation marks so the reader knows it’s a quote. If you can’t link to the source, include the author’s name, the title of the article, the name of the publication, etc. (NOTE: On a similar note, if you’re using a photograph that you don’t own, be sure you have permission from the photographer, and list the photographer’s name under the photo in the post. If you cannot obtain permission, do not use the photo.)

How soon after I submit a blog will it be posted? Once you submit a blog, an email is generated to the Mother Earth Gardener staff, so we can publish it. We publish blogs twice daily Monday through Friday – between 8 and 9 in the morning, and again between 4 and 4:30 in the afternoon, therefore blogs will usually be published within 24 hours of being submitted.

Return to Mother Earth Gardener Blogger Guidelines.

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