As a small but growing local area travel blog, we’re open to content submissions under the following guidelines.

Topics we’re currently seeking:

  • “Listicles” reviewing top locations under specific categories in Redmond like:
    • Best Breakfast in Redmond
    • pizza in Remond,
    • breweries,
    • hikes,
    • museums,
    • nearby camping/campgrounds,
    • neighborhoods,
    • bike routes,
    • outdoor activities,
    • events,
    • or other business categories
  • Suggested itinerary ideas for Redmond or Central Oregon
  • A Guide to Tumalo Oregon (for visitors)
  • Best day trips from Redmond
  • Why visit Redmond vs. Bend?
  • Walking and biking routes in Eagle Crest
  • Walking and biking routes in Redmond
  • Walking and biking routes in Sisters
  • Hikes near Sunriver
  • State Parks near Redmond
  • Waterfalls in Central Oregon
  • Comprehensive information/reviews about individual restaurants, hotels, events, or activities in Redmond

To claim a topic, or pitch your own, please email the title and a few bullet points of what you would cover to michelle [at] intentionaltravelers.com. Please wait for approval on the topic before submitting an article.

General Guidelines:

    • Original Content Only: All content must be your own and not published anywhere else.
    • Content Minimums: You may be given a minimum word count as a general guide based on the type of article you are writing. Most articles will be a minimum of 800 words. Light content, uninformative, and fluff articles will not be considered. You may also be given a handful of keywords to include within the text. Specific headings or questions to answer may be provided, depending on the article topic.
    • Deadlines: A deadline is required so we know when to expect your submission, but authors may suggest their own deadlines when pitching an article. Generally, we would like to receive your submission within 1 month of a pitch being approved.
    • Content Style: You can review other articles on Roam Redmond to get a sense of the writing style we use. Generally, it’s informative but not too formal. It’s fine to include personal recommendations and short anecdotes that would be helpful to readers.
    • Editing: Please proofread articles before submitting. Correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are expected. We reserve the right to edit submissions for grammar, style, flow, and SEO before publishing. Occasionally articles may be monetized later with affiliate links.
    • Photos- The author has the option to include photos for each article, but it’s not required. At least one original photo (that you own the rights to) is preferred.
      • In order to be used, submitted photos must be:
        • At least 1000px wide or long
        • Clear, well lit and of good quality
        • Owned by you (Can be previously published)
    • Backlinks: One do-follow backlink within the article to a related article on your blog, and/or within the Author Bio to your homepage, is allowed.
      • Backlinks within the writing cannot be to commercial websites or product pages.
      • Please include relevant links to official websites or facebook pages of the locations you are covering if information on their site could be helpful to the reader.
    • Only One Review/Article Per Location: Once an article is received for a location, event, or landmark, no other submissions will be considered.
    • Author Bio: Authors will need to write a 2-3 sentence bio to be included at the end of the article, unless you prefer to ghostwrite anonymously. You may include any social media links and one homepage link if you want to.

Submissions

    • Articles need to be proofread and checked for errors before submitting.
    • Articles should be submitted in the text of an email. Headings can be bolded with any relevant links hyperlinked in the text.
    • Please add photos as an attachment instead of embedding them in the email to maintain their quality or use a sharing service such as Dropbox.

Tips for writing a great blog post

(From Grammarly and other sources)

1. Keep it informal

A blog post is a relatively informal, often fun piece of writing. Although there are plenty of technical blogs on the web, you’ll notice that even these tend to maintain a fairly conversational tone when explaining niche and complex topics.

Notice how most blog posts use the second person and speak directly to the reader. You would never do that in a piece of academic or professional writing. Also notice how plenty of blog posts, on topics ranging from how to finish highly technical projects to completely subjective movie character hairstyle rankings, give you a sense of the author’s personality by including short asides, personal opinions, and sometimes even broken grammar rules to mimic speech patterns.

Keep in mind that breaking grammar rules to achieve specific effects and working your personal voice into your blog post is not the same thing as writing and publishing an unedited post that simply ignores grammar rules. If you’re going to break the rules, you need to do it carefully and with a clear stylistic reason for doing so. For example, you might opt for sentence fragments, rather than whole paragraphs, in certain sections of your blog post because this magnifies your words’ impact. Take a look at this to see what we mean:

I’d applied to 10 colleges in total. Five of them, I knew I was a shoo-in. Four of them, I thought I had somewhere between an OK and a pretty good shot at getting in. And the last one, my holy grail of higher ed, I was all-but-certain they’d never accept me. 

Then the envelopes started coming in. Thick ones, thin ones, glossy colorful ones, and nondescript white ones that could easily be mistaken for junk mail. 

And then it arrived. 

The letter I’d been waiting for since seventh grade. 

My acceptance letter from my dream university.

See how this blog post emphasizes key sentences by making them stand-alone paragraphs? That’s one way bloggers make their posts sound and feel like in-person conversations. Also notice how this excerpt includes informal language like “shoo-in”.

2. Cut down walls of text

Nobody wants to read a wall of text, but sometimes they’re necessary in academic pieces like research papers.

They’re never necessary in blog posts.

A wall of text is generally defined as a paragraph that takes up several lines. They’re intimidating to readers and when they see them, a lot of people scroll past or even stop reading the blog post completely.

When you find a wall of text in your writing, break it down into two or more paragraphs. By doing this, you’re improving your blog post’s readability score, which doesn’t just make it more appealing to readers; it increases your SEO ranking.

Basically, a good blog post is scannable. As you read your first draft, take note of any spots where you feel slowed down or otherwise like you can’t easily scan the information. Those are the spots to break into smaller sections.

3. Structure your blog post

Every blog post should have an introduction and some sort of conclusion. In between you’ll want to separate your content with subheadings to make it easier for the reader to read.

4. Write for the reader

A travel blog is not a diary of your adventures. It’s not a journal for your parents to read back home. Remember you’re writing for the reader.

Internet users find a blog because they’re searching for something in Google. Perhaps they type in “Madagascar travel guide” or “things to do in Williamsburg Brooklyn”. They come to the website looking for information. Bottom line, provide information. Be entertaining.

 

We are currently paying $10 per approved article that meets the above guidelines. Payment via Paypal is preferred, but we can also pay through Zelle or mailed check.