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Guest Blogging Guidelines

Are you a writer or blogger with keen interest or expertise in HR, people management, human resource best practices or topics related to the field and profession of HR in general? If yes, you’ve come to the right place to get your words to read and build an audience for your unique content. We’re constantly looking for writing enthusiasts who have expertise in the field of HR management and related fields. If you are the If you have what we are looking for, you are in for a surprise! Write to us and if we love your content, we will provide you with lucrative incentives for the same.

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Themes and topics we blog about

We accept posts from guest authors as long as their content is in line with the below themes or topics:

  • How important is employee retention
  • Changes in HR roles and Responsibilities during the Pandemic
  • Employee engagement during Pandemic
  • WFH (Work From Home) can be Fun
  • Virtual team building activities
  • WFH (Work From Home) pros and cons
  • Judging body language in a telephonic interview
  • Importance of Empathy for Employees Amidst COVID-19
  • HR Handles work place romances
  • Effective WFH policies and Processes you must know

If you’re thinking of blogging with us and brainstorming on ideas, here are a few questions you should ask yourself:

  • Will the sumHR audience find this subject or content relevant to their line of work?
  • Can the audience find solutions to their problems simply by reading the information in the article, without being compelled to subscribe to our product?
  • Do I have the right experience, expertise or qualifications on this topic? If not, can I do enough research and provide enough information/2nd opinions from authorised positions to substantiate my views?
  • What value does my content bring for the audience, such that they will resonate with my view or find it worth their time?
  • Is my content unique and can I vouch for its authenticity and originality?

If you have questions or doubts pertaining to this, feel free to reach out to marketing team on marketing@sumhr.com.

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Content writing tips for guest bloggers

As with most guest blogging opportunities, the goal for our guest blogging initiative is to share content that engages our audience, makes them think in an interesting manner, educates them about new technologies, best practices, theories, experiences and expert opinions that can enhance their own work-life and professional acumen. We don’t guest blog for product-promotions or sales-y topics. You can leave that bit to our team when we announce our own product updates. 🙂

It’s taken us years of efforts to build trust and confidence in our customers’ (and readers’) minds. We would never want to risk hampering this bond by pushing products or services that we don’t believe in or that which we haven’t used ourselves. Besides, it’s common knowledge that being focused on self-promotion only harms your reputation as a blog and builds distrust amongst audiences, irrespective of whether you’re an expert in the business you’re promoting.

We will encourage you to focus on showcasing your expertise/experiences/knowledge/educational information, rather than your products/services. Today, people value authentic and genuinely written content more than ‘sales pitches’. Of course, we would be happy to connect our audience with your services/products through official introductions, whenever it’s appropriate.

Here are some tips to help you be a good guest blogger. You can consider these as our prerequisites when accepting guest blogging opportunities:

  • Posts must be 1500+ words in length, at the minimum: Ideally, we prefer posts with 2000+ words on average, we find that it fits perfectly with our readership. This way, your content will also appear in-line with our existing posts. Remember, longer the better.
  • Give your content a structure, break it down for the readers: One of the best ways to make your content reader-friendly is to break it up into sections. Be generous with headings, sub-headings, bullets, and any other visual elements like ‘quoted’ sections and indentations.
  • Be conversational, use a natural tone: Write like you’d like to speak. We wish to share content that is organic and authentic, not a dump of advice and education. When writing, imagine how you’ll sound if you’re saying the same things out aloud. Pepper your content with humour, light moments and off-topic injections that can refresh the reader mid-way through a lengthy piece. Of course, no expletives, harsh words, or regrettable out lashes. Maintain balance and maturity in your words.
  • It’s either original or nothing: We, strictly, do not solicit plagiarized content or posts which are syndicated through multiple sources. If we’re publishing your post, we have to be the first ones to do so – there are no two ways about it. If required, you can quote other content within your post and link to it.
  • Validate your claims with sources: Name the sources you have used to build your opinion/views or share information. You are an expert in your domain and we appreciate this about you, but some of our audience may not think likewise. If you’re using some stats (for eg. “attrition in the IT industry rose by 20% during COVID”), please ensure you link back to your source.
  • Keep it real, talk about your personal experiences: If you’ve made mistakes, share the lessons you’ve learnt. If you have been successful at something, share the knowledge to help others follow you. Any strategies that have worked for you, may work for others too, so bring them up. Readers are constantly looking for validation through others’ personal experiences. Your authority on a topic can multiple if you can support it with real-life experiences.
  • Agree or disagree: Taking a stand takes courage and that’s what entices audiences. Don’t be afraid to voice your opinion. You may agree on something or disagree with something, but as long as you’re carrying your words with grace – it’s not a problem. If your views are busting myths or contrarian in nature, be proud of it and bring out your perspective with supporting facts, figures or fundamentals. Of course, don’t rant away without any supporting references.
  • Use statistics: Research shows that working from home increases our productivity by 56% compared to working from office and employee retention with remote-working companies is 47% higher than those that enforce office presence. (Gotcha! Those are just some random fake facts. But you get the point, right?). Include as many facts and figures (with verifiable sources) if you wish to be believed and admired for your content.
  • “Link me up, Scotty”: Do you know someone who shares your views? Is there a spot in your post that needs separate information? Well, go add a link to that bit. Needless to say, if you’re adding links to your post, it’s your responsibility to ensure it’s from a reputable website or contains authentic information that you can vouch for. Relevancy is key here.
  • Add visual references, help readers’ imagination: Add images or visual references (of any other sort, maybe an emoji or two), it can fuel the readers’ imagination and help direct them to the way you are looking at the topic at hand.
  • Everyone loves lists and bullet points: One of the fundamental ways to make your post-reader-friendly (when there’s a lot of items to talk about/showcase), is to convert things into lists or bullets. This not only adds substance to your structure but also makes it easier for readers’ eyes to read and reference back to what they find interesting. Long paragraphs can sometimes scare away readers, and lists/bullets have the exact opposite effect.
  • What’s in it for the reader? Always remember, a reader is sharing something very precious to them – time. If they’re paying you in time and attention, you’ve gotta respect that by giving them something to take-away (or actionable) from your post. If nothing specific, even a quick summary that gives a recap to what your post is all about, can be quite helpful to your audiences.


Important Note & Disclaimer
sumHR reserves the right to control, edit and modify your guest blogging submissions as may be deemed necessary for the benefit of our readers. If you follow the above guidelines to the T, we are less likely to make any major edits.

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How our guest blogging process works

Below, we have tried to outline a broad flow of activities that will come into effect if you’re interested in blogging with us.

  • Foremost, you need to send us an email with a cover note pitching yourself for the guest blogging opportunity with the inclusion of any of your writing work/portfolio/links to your posts (send it over to marketing at www.sumhr.com)
  • If you’re selected to be part of our guest blogging panel, we’ll coordinate with you over calls/zoom/slack/emails to brainstorm and agree on a topic and a title.
    • If you’ve already approached us with a readymade post (great, that’s a good approach too), we’ll still need to review its relevancy for our audience and fitment based on our guidelines listed above.
  • After the topic is finalized, you can give us an ETA on when we can receive your submission for review.
  • Once we receive your draft (over google docs), we’ll collaborate on editing it and sharing comments with you in-line using the comments feature on google docs.
    • Since we’ll be making edits to the doc you’ve shared, we’ll recommend that you keep an original copy with you (just in case)
  • If everything’s in place – we’ll be set for publishing. Before this, we’ll need two things from you
    • A short “about me” description from you for our author bio (preferably tweet size)
    • A nice profile picture of yourself
    • A link to your website/LinkedIn profile
    • Freedom to re-publish after sumHR is permitted but the content must carry the caveat ‘first published on sumHR.com.
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Disclaimer for Backlinks

Generally we do not provide link-back on guest blogs. However, if the content on the link is relevant not only to the content of the blog post but also resonates with our product/business goals, then we may provide a no-follow link.

In some cases, as an exception, we may provide a ‘do follow’ link as well, subject to content relevancy and domain authority of the link. In these cases, it’s mandatory for link-back to us on a similarly relevant page/blog-post.

Additionally we’ll allow up to a maximum of two backlinks per blog post. Approval of backlinks is subject to relevancy and guidelines mentioned above.

Submit a blog by sending us a mail at marketing@sumhr.com