Contributor guidelines
WHY WRITE FOR URBAN?
Urban is on a mission to radically improve the quality of urban communities being developed across Australia.
We want to champion excellent design and quality builds across Australia, but also bring light to the scenarios where standards aren’t being upheld. This balanced view will ensure we are providing transparency to our readers.
Urban’s editorial team need your help in telling the stories of our evolving cities and offering property seekers a reliable source of information to make informed property purchases.
You'll have the opportunity to reach a database of over 26,000 monthly readers, including high-profile property industry representatives, with scope to capture our website traffic of 160,000 monthly visits.
Have your opinion heard and drive meaningful change within Australia's built environment.
WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR
Articles could include:
- Opinion pieces
- Leads on new developments/site acquisition
- Advice and guides
- Industry trends and data
Word count
Aim for your article to range from 500 – 1500 words. Keep your wording clear and concise and avoid superfluous language.
Intent
What is the purpose of your article? Urban guest articles should inform, engage and promote discussion/thought.
Unique content
Any articles you write for Urban should be unique and not reproduced on other sites/media outlets/blogs without a link to the original article. If you’d like to share your content, feel free to use our article embed function to display your article on any personal websites.
TONE
Urban’s tone is a balance between formal, neutral and friendly. We have a combined readership of both industry professionals and property seekers, so our articles need to appeal to both audiences. Our readers love data-driven content, with unique quotes and an insightful point of view.
Check that your writing remains professional
Avoid slang, colloquialisms and abbreviations. Ensure case studies and descriptions are professional and relatable to all audience members.
Get to the point
Ensure that every sentence has a purpose of informing, engaging or promoting discussion. Remove any filler sentences which don’t add any significant value to your article.
Always back up your statements with facts
Reference (and link to) reputable websites with factual data, and always cross-reference to ensure the information is accurate. No generalisations, assumptions or misleading statements.
Provide a balanced article
All articles (including opinion pieces) should feature two sides of a story, including any supporting data. Writers should refrain from using any language which could be deemed derogatory, offensive or aggressive.
ARTICLE CATEGORIES
News content is predominantly targeted towards our industry audience, but also a place for property seekers to go for their developer research and due diligence. News articles cover the following:
- Project updates
- Development
- Sustainability
- Transport
- Planning
- Design
- Opinion pieces
- Podcasts
- Policy
Guides are specifically for our home buyer audience. These guides will cover everything from ‘How to place an offer on a property’ to ‘The ultimate guide to first home buyer grants’.
Lifestyle is light-hearted, magazine-style content. Lifestyle covers design inspiration, new trends, buyer case studies and more.
STYLE
Basics
- Write percentages as %
- Spell out acronyms for initial mentions within the article. Eg. Good Environmental Choice Australia (GECA)
- No double spacing
- Australian English spelling
- Vary your sentence lengths to create a more engaging article
- Write in an active voice rather than passive
- Expand your vocabulary and avoid repetition of words
- Use hyphens eg. “one-bedroom” or “mixed-use”
- Avoid qualifying words where possible (such as “very”, “rather”, “little”...)
- Use “such as” or “for example” rather than “like”
- Make sure it’s clear who you’re talking about at the beginning of every sentence. Instead of “They recently…” use phrases such as “The construction firm recently…” or “Multiplex recently…”
- Avoid old transition words such as furthermore, moreover, etc.
- Opinion pieces should begin with an h2 heading in bold: OPINION:
- Limit the use of exclamation marks
- Bold and underline links eg. this research shows...
- Article headings should use sentence case - eg. Melbourne's 5 future tallest buildings (not: Melbourne's 5 Future Tallest Buildings)
Sub-headings
Break up your paragraphs with an engaging title. Rhetorical questions work well, or an outline of what you will teach the reader in that paragraph.
Quote attribution
Example 1
“QUOTE”
Name, Company, Job title
Example 2
[Name] Principal Architect at [Company] explains….
“QUOTE”
No attribution required.
Linking
Internally link to 3+ Urban articles
Externally link to 3+ reputable websites when referencing data
Referencing in-article images
Description goes here. Image credit: [Name]
Copyright
All content submitted to Urban must have permission for publication across Urban’s media channels. If you are unsure about who to accredit any content to, please raise this with the editorial team.
Sub-editing
Urban’s editor will revise your copy to ensure it aligns with the Urban tone and is grammatically correct. For any changes to opinion pieces, we will request that the author edits their own work to ensure it reflects the author’s intent.
TIPS
- Brainstorming is a vital step in the article writing process. Use this time to gather all your research and formulate a logical article structure.
- Write your articles in a Word or Google doc prior to uploading to the CMS to avoid losing your work.
- Delete unnecessary words with every revision to ensure your text is clear and concise.
- Never make assumptions about your audience. First home buyers can be all ages, and Next Home Buyers may be first-time off-the-plan buyers. Remembering this will help you to write guides which appeal to all property seekers.
- Read your work out loud! This can help you pick up any issues with the flow of your sentences.
- Write what you’re passionate about as it will shine through in your work.