Below you’ll find our guidelines and instructions on how to become a contributor but please note that we decline roughly 97% of submissions.

Note: we are not accepting new contributors at this time.

Our audience

Startup Bonsai provides business owners with the insights they need to build and grow a business.

Our audience primarily consists of business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers that need with various stages of business growth.

Understanding this is key if your pitch is to be accepted.

We are primarily looking for content focused on starting a business, social media marketing, content marketing, SEO, lead generation, marketing automation, email marketing, and ecommerce.

Specifically – case studies that showcase results you’ve gotten for a client (or yourself) and exactly how you got those results.

Contributor guidelines

  • You must be the writer – we do not allow ghost written content.
  • Your post must be at least 2,000 words.
  • Your post must be unique and written specifically for our audience.
  • Your post must not be published elsewhere, and you agree never to republish it on another site.
  • Your post should be well written, proof-read and ready to publish.
  • Your post must provide actionable advice – for example, if you’re sharing a tip for growing an email list, readers should be able to put that tip into action based on your post (or via links for further reading).
  • You should avoid any basic advice – for example, a post on content promotion should go beyond “share your content on social media.”
  • You’re welcome to include external links that are relevant, but they must not be self-promotional or include affiliate links.
  • Only relevant images should be included, such as screenshots and charts – each image should include a link to its source or the site where the screenshot was taken. Any images in breach of copyright will not be accepted.
  • Your post should be written in short, easily digestible paragraphs.
  • Your post should be well formatted, and use H2, H3 tags where relevant.

By submitting your article to us, you agree that:

  • You are the writer of the content. It is not written by a ghost writer or published under someone else’s name.
  • You give us permission to make any changes to your post that will bring it in-line with our publishing standards – usually we will decline a post outright or request that you make changes, but this is necessary in certain situations.
  • You give us permission to repurpose your post whenever necessary – we may convert your post into other content types as a way to promote it. This means more visibility for you and your post.
  • You will promote your post via social media and other promotional channels – not just one tweet and that’s it.
  • You’re happy for us to update the post when required – if it’s preferable, you can update it or we can. But, ultimately we have a duty to ensure that our content is as up to date as possible. We’ll re-promote the post to our audience, and Google will reward your post with more traffic. So, it’s a win-win.

What to include in your pitch

  • An introduction – tell us who you are, what you do and your experience.
  • Your 2 biggest marketing wins – we need to know that you’ve got what it takes to deliver an insightful post for our audience. And it’d be nice to get to know you better.
  • Samples – include links to at least 3 posts you’ve written from sites that aren’t your own.
  • Who you work for – who will you be linking to in your author bio?
  • Topic ideas – include at least 3 topic ideas with suggested headlines.
  • Confirmation to follow all of our guidelines – you must confirm that you agree to follow all of our contributor guidelines (listed above).

The points listed above aren’t optional – they are all required. We’re ultra-specific about what to include because it will separate your pitch from other guest post pitches.

You know the ones… those horrible spammy pitches that have been emailed out in batches of 200 or so.

If you miss out any of the above, it’ll tell us that you haven’t read this page. And if you can’t follow our guidelines on pitching, it stands to reason that you probably won’t follow the rest of our contributor guidelines either.

Where to send your pitch

Send an email to… [Omitted… we are not accepting new contributors right now] with “I want to write for Startup Bonsai” in the subject line.

If you’ve followed our list of what to include in your pitch, we’ll get back to you soon.