If you are interested in publishing a guest post on Health Ahoy, please read this page in its entirety to improve your chances of being accepted.
Health Ahoy strives to be a factual, informative, and authoritative voice on all things health and fitness. Our target audience consists of adults of any age who wish to improve their health or educate themselves on topics related to health and fitness.
As an affiliate website, most of our revenue comes from various affiliate programs, such as the Amazon Associates Program. However, we don’t sacrifice informational accuracy for the sake of profit.
Most of our content is written in a tone that’s both academic and engaging. Our product-focused content (such as descriptions of different supplement brands) is, of course, a little more flavorful.
Author Requirements
- The author must have an excellent grasp of English, using proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
- The author must have experience relevant to the field of health and fitness.
- Credentials and certifications are helpful but not necessary. Professional experience and/or authorship of content demonstrating relevant knowledge will be enough for most cases.
Content Requirements
- Content must be original.
- Content must not have been previously published elsewhere, nor can be published elsewhere in the future except by Health Ahoy.
- Content must not be plagiarized and must not otherwise infringe on any party’s intellectual rights.
- Topic must be interesting and engaging.
- For example, “10 Great Places for Running” wouldn’t be very interesting. However, something like, “How Long-Distance Running Increases Injury Risk” is an attention-catching topic that would be much more likely to be accepted (if it were accurate, of course).
- Content must be roughly 500 to 3,000 words in length.
- Engaging depth and detail is more important than length. A focused and well-written 500-word article is much more useful to readers than a fluffy and distracted 1,000-word article.
- Content must be factual, not opinion-based.
- Health Ahoy strives to host only factual information and not opinion pieces.
- Certain claims must be backed by at least one academic source.
- As a general rule, the following kinds of statements don’t need a citation:
- Information that is generally undisputed (e.g., “Protein powder can be a useful supplement for many health and fitness goals.”)
- Information that is fairly common knowledge (e.g., “Because of soy’s purported effects on hormonal balance, many health and fitness enthusiast only take soy-free protein powder.”)
- Information that may not be common knowledge, but would take someone only a few seconds of searching online to verify (e.g., “Soybeans contain phytoestrogens,” or “Certain phytoestrogens can bind to estrogen receptors in the body.”)
- So, the statement, “Phytoestrogens don’t actually decrease testosterone levels” would not be acceptable, as that claim is highly disputed and is not resolvable with a few seconds of searching online. However, the statement, “One meta-analysis of many studies found no correlation between phytoestrogens and feminization,” followed by its source, would be acceptable.
- We don’t adhere to any strict citation format. The title of the cited content and a link to it is enough.
- As a general rule, the following kinds of statements don’t need a citation:
Writing Guidelines
- Content must use proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation.
- Use simple language as is appropriate.
- Avoid industry-specific jargon that may turn off readers. Also, don’t shy away from briefly defining concepts that may be unfamiliar to many readers.
- For example, take this sentence: “Flavokavains found in kava’s organic material have been shown to be hepatotoxic in high concentrations.” Most readers would likely be confused. A better approach would be as follows: “Flavokavains, which are naturally-occuring chemicals found in kava’s roots and stems, have been shown to damage liver cells in high concentrations.”
- Make sure sentences aren’t too long.
- Information is easier to process in smaller chunks. If your content reads a little cumbersome, try breaking clauses off into their own sentences. For the sake of readability, we prefer sentences no longer than roughly 30 words.
- Paragraphs can’t be too long either.
- We generally like paragraphs to take up no more than five lines on the desktop version of the website. That works out to roughly 70 words or 400 characters.
- Images are welcome if you own the rights to them.
- You must provide a short caption and credit. We reserve the right not to use any submitted images.
Link Policy
- Each article is allowed one dofollow link.
- In your content, simply indicate which link you would like to be set to dofollow. Every other link will be set to nofollow.
- Every other link is subject to removal.
- For example, links will be removed if they are deemed to be unhelpful or unnecessary. If you aren’t sure about a link, please ask.
- Up to three of your social media channels will be linked near your bio.
- Links to products will be replaced with a Health Ahoy affiliate link.
Terms and Conditions
The agreement below ensures that the author acknowledges that they are responsible for the originality, accuracy, and liability of all content in their article as it is originally submitted.
It also gives notice that Health Ahoy will be able to alter the article in any way (for example, formatting the article for posting online) at any time without notifying the author.
In submitting the finalized guest post, including all text and visual media (hereby referred to as “The Submitted Content”), the original author (hereby referred to as “Original Author”) acknowledges and agrees to the following:
- The Submitted Content must be original and unique to Health Ahoy. The Submitted Content must not have been published anywhere else and will not be published anywhere else by Original Author.
- Original Author relinquishes all intellectual property rights of The Submitted Content to Health Ahoy, which will own all rights to The Submitted Content.
- Original Author acknowledges that he or she alone is responsible for the accuracy of the claims and information contained in The Submitted Content.
- Original Author acknowledges that he or she alone is responsible for damages that may result from or relate to The Submitted Content, including, but not limited to, the infringement of any party’s intellectual property rights.
- Health Ahoy will keep an unaltered copy of The Submitted Content that accurately represents the information as it was originally submitted (hereby referred to as “The Record of The Original Content”).
- Excluding The Record of The Original Content, Health Ahoy reserves the right to modify, alter, add to, subtract from, reproduce, print, remove, or use copies of The Submitted Content in any manner and in any sense of any or all of the preceding terms, without notifying the original author. Any product of any such alteration of any copy of The Submitted Content will be known as Adapted Content, which will be legally distinct from The Submitted Content as documented in The Record of The Original Content.