Create | Submit your story

Whilst our online forms are intuitive and have advice beside each field here is a quick run down of how to become a budding journalist or story writer on Simply Belfast.

Firstly we recommend that you do all your preparation on either a word or text file, this means if the page refreshes or your submission is rejected first time you won't lose your data.

Next, please make sure that what you want to write about is not on our banned or restricted list. Unfortunately, it is necessary to ensure that subjects that invoke bitterness or create division are handled very sensitively and as such story content is reserved to our editors. However, should you submit such content it may be considered at the site's absolute discretion.

So what do I need prepare for submission:

1. Your Headline - In less than 100 characters create an eye catching headline for our readers

2. Your Story - In between 300 - 600 words create your own unique story content

3. Your Photo - Prepare your image for submission - we reserve the right to resize all images

4. Story Summary - Prepare a summary of your story in 25 - 35 words which will be the online snippet users read before clicking through

Now that you have your written product ready we need you to think SEO - Next we need:

5. Meta Keywords - This should be a collection of keywords or keyword phrases separated by a comma eg Belfast, Belfast fire, Belfast blaze etc.

6. Meta Description - This should not exceed 160 characters. Describe, using your keywords your story in plain everyday language

7 Meta Title - This should not exceed 65 characters. It should be a snappy headline but avoid stop words, see article

Stop words include our most common words such as I, me, what, to, now, when etc.

So whilst it is ok to have an on page headline such as 'The Lord Major visited the shelter today' your Meta Title cannot have 'the' and it is possible today is inadmissible as well, re-gig your meta-title eg 'Belfast Lord Mayor's Shelter Visit'. As such we avoid stop words and have also included two keywords eg Belfast and Belfast Lord Mayor

We hope this all makes sense and we look forward to receiving you content soon - happy writing!