How a Guide Gets Checked

A guide is only useful if you can trust it. This page sets out the habits we follow when writing for Out & About Marketing, so you know what to expect from any article and what to do if one falls short.

Choosing what to write

Most of our subjects begin as a practical question: how do I write a press release, how do I get more reviews, what should a marketing plan contain. We favour questions that small businesses actually face, and we try to answer them in the order a reader would need, with the main point near the top.

Checking the facts

• Platform rules, such as review policies or listing requirements, are checked against the platform's own help pages before publishing.
• We do not invent statistics, studies or quotations. If a number appears, it comes from a source we can name, or it is clearly marked as an example.
• Examples of businesses and messages are made up to illustrate a point and are written so that they read as examples.
• Where rules differ by country, we say so rather than assume one set applies everywhere.

Where advice stops

We explain how things generally work. We do not know your business, your contracts or your finances, so we cannot tell you what to do with them. Pages about investing, tax or legal duties carry a reminder to speak to a qualified professional, and we keep the tone cautious on any subject where a wrong step costs real money.

Methods we will not recommend

Some tactics promise fast results by cutting corners. We leave them out, including:

• buying reviews, followers or engagement;
• rewarding customers only for positive feedback;
• disguising advertising as independent news;
• anything that depends on misleading a platform, a journalist or a customer.

If a method would make you uncomfortable when a customer found out about it, it does not appear here. Our guide to getting more Google reviews the honest way shows what we mean in practice.

Language and tone

We write in plain English, explain terms the first time they appear and keep paragraphs short. When jargon cannot be avoided, the plain-English glossary has a definition.

Corrections and updates

Errors get repaired, not argued over. Small errors such as a typo or a broken step are corrected quietly. Changes that affect the meaning of an article update its modified date so you can see the page has been revised. Readers who point out a problem through the contact page hear back once it is dealt with.

Platforms and tools change often, so we also revisit older articles and refresh any that have drifted out of date. To see who does this work, visit the small team behind it.