GuruFocus Contributor Guidelines
Thank you for writing for GuruFocus. We strive for good relationships with all of our contributors. Paramount to this is being able to trust your work will be free of plagiarism, of high quality and accurate.
Being a GuruFocus contributor comes with a number of benefits, including the opportunity for syndication with partner publications like Yahoo Finance, TradingView, MarketWatch, CNN Money, Forbes, etc. Further, if you have more than four articles published on GuruFocus in one month, you will receive a complimentary Premium Membership for your research.
Editors will review each article before publication, but we also need our writers to follow a few simple guidelines to avoid repetitive corrections. Further, GuruFocus receives a high volume of submissions each day. As such, we may not publish the article immediately, but the author will receive feedback within two business days.
Focus on quality: GuruFocus aims to publish exclusive, quality content that our readers find valuable and engaging, such as hot topics, deep dive analysis and value ideas.
For in-depth fundamental stock analysis articles, address things like the company’s core fundamentals, competitive environment, management, products, corporate strategy, earnings outlook, valuation and/or balance sheet. We prioritize well-presented and informed views based on rigorous fundamental analysis.
Non-stock-related articles need to be on relevant educational topics, like investing strategies or market and economic conditions/projections.
Further, the article needs to be organized and flow well between points. It has a clear structure consisting of an introduction, body and conclusion. Make your work engaging in order to keep readers’ interest.
Originality: If you write on a popular or currently trending topic, bring a new perspective that others might have overlooked. This needs to be your own perspective as opposed to public opinion.
Frequency: In order to give writers more time to create quality work, we will only accept two submissions per week per author.
Word count: Please ensure your word count meets the minimum word count of at least 800 words. This does not include any words included in tables or summary points.
Headline: Capitalize titles according to the AP style guide. Write engaging headlines that grab readers’ attention.
SEO: Your article should be search engine friendly. Search engine optimization (or SEO) is about more than just writing. However, you cannot have SEO without writing. It is a crucial aspect that helps your work show up in search results. Find out more here.
Naming companies and stock symbols: Use the full, correct name and stock symbol on first reference. For example: Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL). (With the exception of foreign stocks, you do not need to write the exchange before the symbol; GuruFocus’ system will automatically fill in NYSE, NASDQ, etc.) The stock symbol and “Inc.” or “Corp.” are unnecessary after that. Do NOT refer to a company as its stock symbol unless it is more commonly known in its abbreviated form.
Visuals: Charts that are included need to be relevant to what is discussed and not randomly inserted without explanation (provide source for those not from GuruFocus). Avoid including a lot of bulleted or numbered lists. When necessary, keep them short and to the point.
Plagiarism and AI: Never copy and paste from a website or press release to describe a company. Use your own words. We do not tolerate plagiarism or any AI-generated content. Violating this will result in immediate dismissal from the freelance team.
Citations: Provide in-text citations of where the data is from (i.e., Statista, MarketsandMarkets, the CDC).
First and third person: Either write from a first-person point of view to tell a personal story or a personal perspective, or write in third person for an informative or analytical article. Avoid writing an informative, analytical article and suddenly saying “I” occasionally.
Politics: While politics does play a major role in the stock market, please remain neutral on the topic and only present the facts.
Stock recommendations: Please refrain from making an outright recommendation on a stock. Rather than using the words "buy" and "sell," we suggest you use terms like "undervalued," "attractively valued" or "a potential opportunity." This includes in the headline, summary and main body text. You may still explain why you like/dislike a stock and disclose if you own it.
Forbidden topics: While some of these stocks may be popular currently, we do not typically publish articles on marijuana/cannabis stocks, penny stocks (anything below $2) and for-profit correctional facilities. (Note: Due to potential changes in federal laws, we may update our policy regarding marijuana/cannabis stocks in the future).
Due to historically poor page view performance, we also prohibit articles on non-U.S.-listed stocks. However, it is acceptable to write about a foreign stock that has a U.S. listing unless it trades over the counter. Further, for these same reasons, we discourage you from writing about small and micro-cap stocks.
Payment Structure
We issue a fixed rate of $120 per article as long as it meets our basic requirements, is relevant and of interest and is of good quality. If your rate is already above $120, it will remain at that rate. Articles that are not up to standard will be rejected. This is in line with or better than our competitors’ rates as for 800 to 1,000 words, the rate ranges from 12.5 to 10 cents per word.
For articles that exceed 1,000 page views, the rate will increase by $20. For 2,000, it will increase another $20.
Page view bonuses are only applicable if the page views are organic. Suspiciously high traffic will be monitored and analyzed for any potential fraud. Those authors found to be dishonest will no longer have their work accepted.
Further, bonuses will be awarded to those articles with high engagement in the form of comments. If five different GuruFocus users comment on the article, you will be awarded an additional $10.
The fixed payment applies if the articles are published on GuruFocus only.
With regard to the complementary Premium Membership, writers will be able to keep their membership if they continue to submit two or more qualified articles per month.
Writers will be paid at the beginning of each month for the previous month’s work via PayPal. They will also need to fill out and return a W-9 tax form and our freelance agreement, which will be sent to them upon hiring.
If you have any additional questions about becoming a contributor or our policies, please contact us via a support ticket. You can set up your GuruFocus contributor account here and submit your first article here.
Examples of Quality Work
Stock Research Articles
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/667836/why-i-bought-kraft-heinz
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/336974/the-cocacola-company-a-short-swot-analysis
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1886164/a-lifeboat-called-cocacola
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/2005141/alibabas-business-value-keeps-rising
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/325905/nike-analysis-of-strengths-weaknesses-opportunities-threats
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1579228/tmobile-a-5g-monopoly-in-the-making
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1963686/general-electrics-splitup-is-working-wonders
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1272498/facebook-a-return-to-20-growth
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1849970/alibabas-delisting-risk-proves-too-much-for-ray- dalio
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1613627/hidden-in-plain-sight-paypal-the-next-big-fintech-opportunity
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/627524/is-berkshire-hathaway-a-buy
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/2092357/alibaba-a-sinking-ship
Educational Articles
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/1864098/charlie-munger-and-li-lu-on-how-to-invest
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/176639/is-negative-book-value-bad
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/633121/how-to-find-safe-fcf-yields-go-where-the-competition-isnt
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/628928/how-to-identify-mispriced-stocks
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/485297/how-i-research-stocks
https://www.gurufocus.com/news/169950/how-warren-buffett-made-his-first-100000
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