Writing for TechForAging Guidelines – Help the Elderly
Thanks for your interest in writing for us and our mission to help the elderly age in place longer, with greater healthspan, and with a better quality of life all by employing technology.
A major part of our mission is for TechForAging to be a community sharing expertise and experiences to help each other and others seeking solutions while aging in place.
We strive to provide a broad, deep, and up-to-date, information resource about aging in place technologies. Guest posts that further this goal are highly desired.
This guide is intended to help you determine if there’s potentially a good fit between what you can provide and what we seek. Of course, we have the final determination on whether a submission fits.
The guidelines below include:
- An introduction including what technologies we address, our goals for TechForAging, the target audiences, and the types of articles we seek.
- What we expect from you including describing your topic, information from and for first-timers, engaging our audience, and size requirements for the types of articles.
- SEO considerations
- Details on article content and construction.
- How to submit.
1. Introduction
About aging in place and assistive technologies
The vast majority of older adults want to stay in their home as they age, for as long as possible. Modern medical science has greatly extended the average lifespan but, so far, has not done much to address “healthspan”.
Some conditions are associated with old age but others have significant prevalence in the general population as well, for example, vision and hearing problems.
Assistive devices addressing specific conditions may also be useful to the elderly suffering from frailty.
A significant and growing worldwide problem is known as the “ caregiver gap”. The number of people entering old age is growing at a faster rate than people (professionals and others) in the caregiving age range.
The technologies and products provide benefits to the elderly and caregivers. They also can provide comfort to family members concerned with the wellbeing of older loved ones.
TechForAging currently focuses on four categories, Social Robots, Smart Home, Wearables, and Digital Health.
Our goals
Our goal is to become the go-to website for our audience seeking quality information about aging in place technologies and products. The information highlights potential benefits such as improving the quality of life and healthspan of those aging in place.
There is lots of this kind of information on the Internet but it is frequently out-of-date or superficial. We aim to keep the information current and to go deep into each technology/product area.
Our audience
We want to help our audience to understand their choices and to decide which products best suit their needs.
While more and more people are adopting these technologies and products there are still many that don’t know how to get started. Maybe your content can help us help them with this formidable challenge.
We consider that our audience has two primary segments. The first could be called “savvy seniors” and the second is typically their concerned children.
The “savvy seniors” use a computer, tablet, or smartphone and may be interested in our content for themselves.
The older loved ones of the younger segment may be savvy or not. They may be located far away, or have very busy lives (with their own children) so they cannot provide assistance even if technically proficient.
Article types
We want articles of three major types. The most important is about products, secondarily are personal experiences or stories on using smart technology or devices, and lastly regarding future technology. We may also accept informative articles about health conditions that typically affect the elderly.
Product articles can be on a category overview, for example, smartwatches, or a specific product in-depth, like the Apple Watch. Specific product articles can also be, or include a tutorial.
It is generally desired that the product is currently available for sale. In some cases, an article on an announced product from an established vendor will be acceptable.
2. Expectations
Topic
Please let us know about the topic of the guest blog article you have in mind. A short summary or an outline is desired rather than a draft.
You shouldn’t work further on the material prior to hearing back from us.
First-timers
If this is the first time contacting us, please provide information about your background and writing experience. Provide 2-3 links to your previous work and what you would like to appear in your bio (short) along with a website link, social media links or handles, and a photo or avatar.
Articles that are submitted will become our property and we may make editorial changes.
Source material
Plagiarism, of course, is disqualifying. If you have used a checker, providing us that information is helpful.
If the article is derived from elsewhere, please provide attribution information.
Engage with our audience
Our focus is U.S. based readers, so American English is required.
While some of our audience may be technically savvy, we believe most are not. So, technical jargon should be avoided if possible. We have a “tooltip” feature, so if there are some technical terms, please separately provide an extended explanation in “plain” English which we’ll turn into a “tooltip”.
Read these articles to get a sense of what TechForAging technology and product articles are about. Either pick one of the main subject areas or provide an informative article on a related subject.
If writing a story about an experience, have a look at this series of “experience” articles beginning with this one.
After publishing your article(s) please respond to comments.
Article length
As noted above, we offer different types of articles. In general, we’d like to see the minimum word length be:
- Informative, technical, articles — 2,000
- Articles about health conditions — 1,000
- Experience-based articles — 500
- Other — 1,000
3. SEO Considerations
Let us know if you intend to do any SEO when developing the article, including keywords. We will do our own SEO analysis with potential changes. The title (see #5 below) is especially important.
Headers
The use of a logical header (H1, H2, etc.) structure is encouraged to help the reader understand better.
Links
Your article should include a minimum of four links, with at least two in the bio text for website and social media.
We may remove any link in the article or bio. Any that are found to be not relevant to the subject we will likely remove unless you first let us know why they should be allowed.
A “spam” link may be grounds for non-acceptance.
4. Article Content & Construction
General
Inclusion of images, screenshots, videos, infographics, etc. are desirable. But they should all be free of any royalties or liabilities (original work or via creative commons license (with proof)) and not be any kind of advertising. Images should include an “alt” text description.
A featured image is desirable. If not supplied, we will choose one, A banner image is optional.
All links should open in a new tab.
Informative product/technical articles
Most articles should include specific wording regarding how the information is relevant to the elderly.
While these articles should be comprehensive in covering the subject they should not be generally considered information overload.
In overview articles, when a large number of vendors exist the article should be limited to a reasonable number of the most widely reviewed ones.
The content should be current when published. If you provide timely updates to the article when changes have occurred, it will be republished and appear on the home page for a time.
If a tutorial is involved, provide screenshots, or better yet, video with commentary.
Experience articles
These should be personal such as an activity you performed, a decision made to hire a professional, a problem encountered and how it was overcome, etc.
Some things to consider including are the initial goal (problem to solve, activity to automate, etc.), what choices may have been involved, and how the decision was reached. If there were challenges, what they were and how they were addressed.
Others
For articles about conditions, future predictions, etc., provide references as appropriate.
5. How to Submit
Send your submission in an email to “writing@techforaging.com” with the subject Guest Post. Include the suggested title(s) and whether there will be backlinks to the article.
For first-timers, see #2 above for the requested material to include. For the first accepted submission, a WordPress contributor account will be created. This may be changed to an author account later on.
What to expect
You should receive a response within 10 business days, via email. If you have not received a response after 15 business days you may assume that the submission has not met our internal criteria. We will try but may not be able to respond to every submission.
