Blogs Process
Learn more about the process for contributing to our ZAP-Hosting.com blogs on this page. The process is written in chronological order throughout this page, thus we recommend beginning from here.
Step 1: Suggesting Content
The first part of the process involves creating and submitting a suggestion for a blog post that you wish to write about. This is done through our Blog Suggestion Form. You must provide us with key information about your idea.
Within the form, we ask you a couple of questions regarding the details of your blog post suggestion. This includes the topic, the rough structure you plan to use, a summary of the contents you plan to write about as well as your contact details.
We recommend reviewing our Guidelines Page to understand the content and documentation style that we are pursuing.
Please fill in the form with as much detail as possible to increase the chances of your blog idea being accepted.
What topics are we looking for?
On our blog, we look for a wide range of informative and practical posts that cover a wide range of topics such as gaming, server scripting, tips, passion articles and much more. We aim to diversify our Blog posts to include a wide selection of different topics and themes, aiming to make our Blog informative, interesting and exciting to read.
As mentioned in the introduction, all content that is produced must be original to comply with copyright laws. Any unauthorized use of AI/generative tools and/or other pieces of intellectual property is strictly disallowed.
Wanted Blogs Post List
We have a useful list of great suggestions below, for new blog posts that you may be interested in writing. Certain blog topics and suggestions may even have an extra reward bonus. You can access the list manually here.
Keep in mind, these are only useful ideas, you do not have to strictly write about these, your blog suggestions can be creative as mentioned previously.
Submitting suggestion
Now that you understand all of the information, please head over to our Blog Suggestion Form. Fill out the form with as much detail as possible and submit it. You will also be requested to confirm that you accept our Terms & Conditions for the Contribution Program, which can be accessed here.
Please ensure that you fill in your ZAP ID correctly as this is how we will contact you regarding your blog suggestion!
Now that you have submitted your blog suggestion, we will aim to get back to you within 3-5 days. You will receive a reply through a ticket on our website to the provided ZAP ID if your suggestion is approved and we are interested. Please note that we will not contact you back if your blog idea isn't accepted.
Facing any troubles? Feel free to join our ZAP-Hosting Discord Server where we and the ZAP Community will be more than happy to assist and help you out with any queries. Alternatively, contact us via a Ticket on our website and reference "Contribution Program - Blogs" within your message to be relayed to the ZAP Contributions Team.
Within our ticket response, we will provide you with any additional feedback or details that we wish to adjust in regard to your blog suggestion. Once we both agree on specific details, you will be able to proceed in writing your blog based on the agreed upon information and you can move on to the next step in this guide.
Step 2: Writing the Blog Post
During this step, you will be writing a new blog post based on the agreed-upon information with the ZAP Contributions Team. You can use any application or system you wish to write your blog content as this is flexible.
Currently, we accept content using both Markdown and HTML5 styling options.
We can highly recommend using the Markdown tool StackEdit to write your content whilst maintaining all the awesome functionality of Markdown. Alternatively, we can also recommend HTML5 Editor if you prefer to style using HTML5. You could then directly export this to your Google Drive or any file-sharing application and receive a link that you can share with us. You can learn more about Markdown styling via our Blog Guidelines guide.
Ensure that you have created a blog post suggestion using our Blog Suggestion Form and that you have received a reply from our ZAP Contributions Team through a ticket on our website with further information. We will not be able to guarantee any reward payments if you haven't followed our process as it has not been approved.
Whilst you write your blog content, ensure that you are closely following the structure and content that was agreed upon within your blog suggestion and potential discussions with the ZAP Contributions Team. We do not have a strict deadline for when you must finish your blog post, however, if this takes significantly longer we may contact you about this to ensure everything is right.
Please do not hesitate to contact us by replying directly to the ticket on the website if you have any additional questions or require some help. We are more than happy to support you during this stage. :D
Step 3: Submitting Draft
Before submitting your draft, double check everything is correct using this quick checklist:
- You followed a clear structure.
- Your content relates to what was agreed upon within your blog suggestion and discussions with the ZAP Contributions Team.
- You have followed our Blogs Guidelines closely.
Once you believe that you have finished writing your blog and have a draft ready, please send us your draft copy by replying to the ticket. Please note, you will not be able to upload files to the ticket directly, thus be prepared to upload it to a cloud storage site, such as Google Drive, and share a link if needed. We thus recommend using Google Docs or Microsoft Word to write your content as sharing your file is very simple and quick by generating a link instantly.
We will aim to reply to your ticket response within 2-3 days. Upon review, we may decide that additional tweaks or changes are needed which we will let you know in our reply. Where needed, you would repeat this step and submit another draft with the requested changes, until we reach a final acceptable state.
Step 4: Publish blog & reward payment
Once your final draft is accepted, we will reply to your ticket and let you know about key details regarding this. This includes providing information about when we plan to schedule your blog post, as well as your reward payment for completing your blog post successfully.
The reward for this type of contribution will depend on a couple of factors, most notably the quality and scale of content written, alongside other criteria that are evaluated by the ZAP Contributions Team. Read more about our criteria in our Contribution Rewards guide.
Congratulations on contributing to our ZAP-Hosting Guides! We appreciate all your contributions! 💚