Interested in writing for Benzinga? Read through the following guidelines and you’ll be on your way to becoming a BZContributor.

Who Can Contribute?

First and foremost, a BZContributor must have strong writing skills. Every article submitted to Benzinga is reviewed by one of our editors, and only stories with proper grammar and mechanics will be published.

Benzinga is looking for contributors who are:

Market Experts

• You specialize in a particular asset class or sector.
• You enjoy analyzing stock screens and earnings reports.

Economic Whizzes

• You have unique insights into the U.S. and global economies.
• You understand how political forces might weigh on the markets.
• You can explain these economic events in a way that is easy to read and actionable for investors.

Cryptocurrency Gurus

• You understand how blockchain and cryptocurrencies work at a fundamental level.
• You follow trends in the space closely and can make sense of them for the average investor.
• You can backup your predictions and ideas with real evidence.

Personal Finance Specialists

• You are an expert on personal investment strategies, retirement, saving or budgeting.
• You understand tax law, tax shelters and their impacts like no one else.
• You follow consumer trends closely and can turn insights into interesting content.

Meeting these requirements is not a guarantee that your stories will be published. Read on for reasons why we might reject a submission.

How To Contribute

If you’ve decided you want to become a BZContributor, make an account by clicking the “Join” button in the top-right corner of the page or clicking here. Note that the username you enter will be what appears above your article.

If you already have your own site and are interested in syndicating through Benzinga and Benzinga Pro, contact us at contributors@benzinga.com.

Once you’ve created your account, follow the directions below to contribute.

Step 1: Open the Content Management System (CMS) by clicking on the “Contribute” button in the top-right corner of the page or “Contribute Story” on the right side of the page.

Step 2: Enter your headline in the title field.

• The headline is your sales pitch, the hook that gets readers to click on your article.
• Make sure to capitalize the first letter of every word and use the numeral form for any numbers.

Step 3: Enter your story into body field.

• If you know how to edit text using HTML, you can go ahead and do that right in the field.
• If not, click the button that says “Switch to rich text editor” to bring up the standard word processing tools (bold, underline, italics, bullet points, etc.).
• If you are copy+pasting your story from Word or Google Docs, do so in the plain text editor and then make any formatting changes in the rich text editor.
• The first time any publicly traded company is mentioned, use the format used on Google Finance. So for example, Apple becomes Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). After the first mention, commonly used shorthand may be substituted in.

Step 4: Insert images or other multimedia.

• If you would like to embed any form of multimedia (video, tweet, etc.), you may do so by pasting the HTML embed code in the plain text editor, or by using the appropriate tool in the rich text editor.
• If you’d like to change an image or chart’s dimensions, you can do so in the rich text editor, either by using the resize tool in the image’s corner or by double clicking the image and manually entering the required size.
• When inserting an image or chart, please preview the article to make sure that the dimensions are not distorted.

Step 5: Preview the article and submit using the buttons at the bottom of the page.

Contributor Guidelines

About Our Readers

Benzinga is a financial and business news media outlet. Our mission is to empower investors with high-quality, unique content that is coveted by Wall Street's top traders. We also provide a personal finance resources, investing guides and brokerage reviews for people looking to get started.

As such, we look for stories that are written with this audience in mind. We do not publish articles geared towards businesses, recruiters or marketers.

Our Style

We take a clean, professional approach to our stories in order to maximize their clarity and usefulness for our readers. While it is acceptable and encouraged to bring your voice into your stories, avoid superfluous rhetoric, slang and colloquialisms. If you are presenting your own opinion, be sure to back it up with factual evidence. Try to avoid using the first-person.

Writing Tips

We are on the lookout for articles that are compelling, factual, colorful and concise.

Headlines should present a strong hook, but not over-promise—be sure the article contains the content that the headline implies it will. Headlines should also not be too simple or generic, for example: “Amazing Apple Trade.” We recommend using part of a quote, presenting a question or including a statistic.

The body of the article should follow the above-mentioned guidelines and be reader friendly. This means breaking up paragraphs into smaller chunks, using subheadings and avoiding overly-technical language when possible. The average article we publish is between 250-600 words long.

At the bottom, disclose any conflicts of interest you may have with the content or subjects of the article. These include, but are not limited to: stock holdings, insider status, working relationships and familial relationships. If we have reason to suspect a conflict of interest that is not disclosed, we withhold the submission from publication.

Submission Restrictions

Benzinga will reject any submission that:

• Have repeated spelling, grammar or style mistakes.
• Use profanity, with some consideration for quotations.
• Plagiarize or fail to adequately cite sources.
• Make factually incorrect or questionable statements.
• Promote a product or service, or pump a trade.
• Primarily serves SEO purposes.
• Present entirely one-sided trading ideas.
• Are, or seem, computer generated.
• Are not relevant or insightful to Benzinga’s audience.

Frequently Asked Questions

We strive to make the contributing process open and easy for all of our writers. This means making our editorial staff available for questions to BZContributors, not just our in-house team.

Due to the number of submissions we receive however, it may take a few days for us to get back to you. Here are some answers to the questions we most commonly get asked.

Q: How do I know if my article topic is a good idea?
A: If you’re not sure, feel free to shoot us an email at contributors@benzinga.com. A member of our editorial staff will get back to you as soon as possible. Note that even if we say an idea is good, any number of other factors may prevent us from accepting your submission.

Q: How do I cite sources used in a story?
A: If the information used in a story can be found online, hyperlink the relevant text to the source.
Here are two examples:

• In the sentence, “Management denied there being any wrongdoing, according to a Benzinga report,” the words Benzinga Report should be linked back to the source.
• In the sentence, “The U.S. threatened to retaliate with $50 billion in tariffs,” the phrase threatened to retaliate should be linked back to the source.

Q: How can I find out if my submission was published?
A: You can check the status of your submissions by going to the Author Queue—the page that appears right after you submit a story—while logged into your account. We recommend bookmarking it.

Q: Why hasn’t my story been published yet?
A: Due to the high number of submissions we receive each day, we are unfortunately unable to respond to every article. Benzinga does not guarantee that any given submission will be published. In general, if your article has not been published within five business days it means it has been rejected by our editors.

Q: Can I get feedback on one of my stories?
A: We strive to make the editorial process as transparent as possible for our BZContributors. If you would like feedback on why a particular submission was rejected, send us an email at contributors@benzinga.com and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Be sure to include the story’s full title and submission date in the email.

Q: My story is time-sensitive and needs to be published before a certain time/event to be effective, how can I indicate that?
A: If your article has a short shelf life or is time sensitive, send us an email at contributors@benzinga.com explaining why. Be sure to include the story’s full title and submission date in the email. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to respond and/or publish the story in time.

Q: Can I make edits to a story I already submitted?
A:If you need edit a story and are unable to access it yourself, send us an email at contributors@benzinga.com briefly detailing the edit. Be sure to include the story’s full title and submission date in the email.

Q: Can I publish my article elsewhere if it gets accepted for Benzinga?
A: Yes, you may submit your articles to other outlets for publishing.

Q: How do I edit my profile or byline after I’ve created my account?
A: You can edit your profile by clicking the “My Account” button in the top-right corner of the screen. If your byline appears incorrectly, notify us at contributors@benzinga.com and we’ll get to it as soon as we can.

Don’t see your question answered here? Feel free to shoot us a note at contributors@benzinga.com.