1. 300-500 words, usually. If an article is less than 250 words, don’t expect search engines to pay attention to it. BREAKING news can be 80 words, but it is often better to take the time to write 250 or so words on the BREAKING subject, get an image, then submit it, even though it will be likely be published around 20 minutes later. Search engines don’t always want a short snippet about a subject; they want something comprehensive. If there is not much information on the BREAKING subject, you can use backstory.
2. Illustrated by an image. Try to get a simple image that looks good when cropped into a tiny square or displayed as a 560px wide Facebook image.
3. Suggested by an intriguing title of around 50-60 characters (depending on with of characters), although sometimes the missing parts of a title can be used to effect.
4. Provided with accountability in the form of a byline (for those contributors who do not already have an account — All contributors with accounts do not need to include a byline because their name is attached to all articles automatically).
5. Provided with credibility in the form of sources (when not using a source directly). Three sources that can confirm the information in an article are a good target. You can link the relevant text to its source…
or you can provide sources below the article in the form of the title of the linked source, linked.
