Become A Contributor for Forbes (And 8 Other Authority Sites)

At some point in your professional life, you've probably wondered how to become a contributor for Forbes Magazine.

Or maybe Inc, Fast Company, or even Entrepreneur.

It's powerful exposure and authority positioning. Every time I write for Entrepreneur, I get 100+ new Twitter followers.

It also gives you other places to share your message. I can rank in Google for almost any 3-5 word term with my account at Huffington Post.

You also get free traffic and valuable backlinks from these very, very powerful authority sites that your competitors can't get.

Unfortunately, contributing to highly respected publications isn’t always easy.

Each publication has their own requirements and preferences with regards to the content they promote. It can seem almost like a maze you have to navigate with no map.

Any entrepreneur that wants to get their work published needs to learn the necessary steps.

Read below to learn how to get featured on 9 different sites (you can also download my whole list of over 100 places here).

1. Become a Contributor For Forbes

The content found on Forbes most often includes lifestyle, personal finance, stock market, technology and business pieces.

Yet, they will allow guest posts within their opinion section on any topic related to culture, arts, politics or public policy.

Once you become a contributor, you too can write about any type of business topics. One trick to get more shares is to give it a celebrity spin.

To Contribute:

Option 1: Check out their “Submitting an Article to Forbes Opinion” page.

Submit your completed article of any length to [email protected]

The content must be original and exclusive to Forbes. They will reject any content already published on other sites or in print.

They typically take around five business days to review articles. If five business days have passed without word from Forbes, you can safely assume they aren’t interested and publish your piece elsewhere. They discourage follow-up emails.

Option 2: If you want to become a regular contributor to Forbes, fill out this Google Form.

This form will ask for links to your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, a few story ideas and your concept page for Forbes, links to work samples and why you believe you are qualified to write on the subject in question.

2. Write For Entrepreneur

This site is mostly geared towards new business owners just starting out or those who are growing an established business. The idea is to create “actionable information and practical inspiration for business owners.”

This article of mine was shared by Brian Tracy and 9700 other people. It still gets retweets and shares every single week.

To Contribute:

Read their “Become an Entrepreneur Contributor” page, and then fill out the form.

This form will ask for basic information along with request links to your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, ask about story ideas or themes you would like to write about and why you consider yourself an expert in the topic, along with links to work samples.

If videos are more your thing, you can become part of Entrepreneur’s expanding video network. Learn more here.

3. Contribute to Inc

The online publication Inc.com publishes mostly information pertaining to small business growth. These topics include pieces on small business services, tools and advice.

Jack's first article for Inc spoke directly to one of our target audiences...speakers. We are able to leverage this to bring in more high quality leads.

The online publication Inc.com publishes mostly information pertaining to small business growth. These topics include pieces on small business services, tools and advice.

To contribute to Inc.com, pitch your story idea first (link below). Also, it’s advisable to keep email pitches as pitchy as possible. Make them straightforward and simple.

To Contribute:

Pitch your story idea at [email protected]