Your Profile Details
How do I update my profile on The Local Brand® ?
All registered users get author credits with a custom bio on The Local Brand®. For your personal bio to appear under your articles you need to update your profile with accurate information:
- Please fill in the bio section by going to My Profile > Edit > About Me> Bio
- Add Your Contact Information and Social Links. Go to My Profile > Edit > Social Links
- Add a thumbnail image for your profile. This will appear in the bio. Go to My Profile > Change Avatar
Why do I need to write a Bio?
Well the answer to that question is really simple. It will help the readers of your post know about you.
What should I write in the Bio?
Please be brief in your bio. Make sure that it is about you and not a company or a line of business. It can be in first person or in third person depending on your preference. Kindly provide reference to your area of work, interests and aim. Don’t forget to add links to your Social profiles.
Publishing on The Local Brand®
Who can publish articles on the website?
Every user who ‘Signs up’ for the website has the right to contribute articles, infographics and videos. Your account provides you the facility to submit articles for review by our editorial team. However, the user rights are subjected to our policies and privacy policy which one must adhere to.
Is registering on the site is necessary?
Yes, we prefer contributors to sign up on the website and submit their own articles because it helps speed up the editorial process. We do receive contributions on email and those typically get delayed in publishing. Besides getting your articles published faster, the following benefits of registering on the The Local Brand® should be considered:
- Attribution is key to authenticity: all the contributions are carefully reviewed and edited before being published. Thus it is always preferred that the authors of the posts are given due credits. If you are a registered member on The Local Brand® then your bio appears as the author of the post and it is attributed to your profile.
- Builds authority: We at TLB want to acknowledge all our contributors as experts in their field and discipline. We often receive queries, comments, suggestions and remarks from readers about the articles. Author credentials makes it easy to communicate the information.
- Gives you the control: By having your own account you can submit or edit your articles, directory listings and your profile information whenever you want. This let’s you update your information without relying on our support team.
- Business Directory: You can use your account to crease a free business listing on our directory.
- Networking: There are over 20,000 users and more than 5500 businesses having directory listings on The Local Brand® you can easily connect with them through your account and get your business needs fulfilled.
How to submit article on the website?
We are making the process of contribution easier on The Local Brand®:
- Log in to TheLocalBrand.com user account
- Go to Top Menu > Submit > Submit Article
- Write Title in the title bar and write the article in the body and press submit.
- Press Submit
- To edit or delete your posts go to Top Menu > under My Profile tab > My Posts
Your articles will be reviewed and published by The Local Brand® team. Adding of images and videos is managed by the editing team. If you have any images, infographics, ebooks or videos that you would like to add with the article then kindly send them to marty@thelocalbrand.com with a reference to the title of the article that you have submitted. The editorial team will decide on the use of the suggested images and videos.
For any concern contact us by going to the contact us page
What are the basic rules for getting published?
We expect your contributions to be of high quality and of industry relevance. The following things should be kept in mind:
- Usually, articles are expected to be between 700-800 words.
- Content accompanying infographics should at least be 400-500 words.
- Please add supporting links from good sources. Try not to link back your business website directly.
- We do allow free backlinks to business websites but those are selected as per relevance and content quality. This means, the more informative the article, better chances of your article getting published with a backlink. If the editors feel that the article is blatantly self-promotional, the article is rejected.
- Please avoid mentioning any company or organization in the article body. You can mention the organization in the author bio or in case of infographic it may be featured in the footer.
- If there is a particular business mentioned or linked in the article, we always add a standard disclaimer at the end.
If you are writing on The Local Brand® then please act responsibly and try to make the best of it. Submit as many articles you like. Remember your perspective is important for the the industry and economy at large.
Why is my article not published?
- All your articles will be submitted for review and published after editing. Usually we try to publish immediately after submission but It may sometimes take up to a week before your article is published.
- The major reasons for your articles to get rejected are if they are found to be plagiarised, unoriginal, inaccurate, using falsified data, badly written, irrelevant to the topics, blatantly promotional and or in some way absolutely unsuitable for the readers of The Local Brand®.
What to avoid on The Local Brand®?
- We have a strict policy against any kind of abuse including racist remarks, pornographic content and violence. If we happen to find anything inappropriate and hurtful then your account can get suspended. So please refrain from such activity and also report if you find anything like that happening on The Local Brand®.
- If we find your account involved in some kind of unethical behaviour and or detrimental to the community of The Local Brand® and outside then we are liable to restrict you from using the site in the future without any prior notice. In most likely cases you will receive a warning notice where the parties involved in any kind of conflict will be given a week’s time to resolve the issues. Failure to do so will result in suspension indefinitely.
What are the best practices as a contributor?
- Always select the relevant categories and add appropriate tags in your articles. This way you help us file your article properly.
- If you are not going to use your contributor access then please inform us so that we can close it. If we find your account inactive for a long time then The Local Brand® has the right to put your contributor access on hold until further communication.
- In case your contributor access is put on hold due to inactivity then you can send a mail to marty@thelocalbrand.com and request for reactivation.
- It is our humble request to you that if you ever find anything broken on The Local Brand® or if you are having any problems with the site, kindly bring it to our notice and we will fix it.
What is the rationale behind Editor’s Rating on the articles?
Editor ratings are decided on a 5 star system where our editor who is reviewing the post assigns certain points to the content based on the depth of information, style and originality. The points are distributed in any primary categories the post is filed under. For instance, if you post an article about food, technology and healthcare, our editors will try to determine how it fares under each category. In case of infographics, the design, statistical information, insights and the analysis matters. Considering that 5/5 is the most perfect rating for a post in any category, our editors will then give it a rating nearest to a similar post. Some factors reduce your rating such as sourced content, lack of citation, repetitive information, self promotional, difficult to read, missing descriptions, lack of statistics or industrial utility etc.
Uploads
Why can’t I upload image to an article?
Media file uploads are restricted for all users. We have to verify image source and licensing and we can’t take chances. Our editorial team hand-picks the most relevant and eye-catching images to accompany your articles so you can trust us on that.
If you think you have a specific image that should be included then please send it as an email attachment. Also please mention the image source.
Our directory listings do allow users to upload their images and that is done keeping in mind that those images should pertain to the business for which the listing is created. Hence we trust that most likely such images are owned by the business.
What if I would like to offer Downloads to readers?
If you have any specific download file such as ebooks, whitepapers, company brochures etc. please let us know separately through an email. Attach all your download files which you need to associate with your article and we’ll set it up for download by readers. Copyrights on such content must be verified to be owned by the author submitting it.
No-Follow or Do-Follow Links
What about the URLs and Backlinks?
Generally we allow any number of URLs with your articles. However we have reservations against links which are directed to irrelevant sources. We do not allow links to personal profiles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other web profiles of a business or individual within the body of the article. Such links can be added in the Author bio as explained earlier.
Promotional links to business websites are discouraged within the article body and we suggest you keep strictly within the relevance and scope of the subject covered in the article.
While adding links to other blogs and news websites, kindly link high authority sites only. In some cases where we find an absolute lack of relevance or too blatant self promotion, we may remove the link.
We allow only ‘nofollow’ links to outside websites by default. If you want a ‘dofollow’ link then please contact us for advertising and profiling requests from our ‘contact us’ page.
If you have any further queries then please click here or tweet us @thelocalbrand and we will get back to you as soon as possible.
