Keeping your tone as whitty, lighthearted, and fun as possible is what Stun and Awe is all about. When it comes to the more technical side of things, exceptions can be made for this rule. Tell us a story that we won’t fall asleep to.

Writing in the first person is completely fine, adding a personal experience, anecdote, tip, hack, or even a relative joke are all welcome and encouraged.

We’re not interested in gimmicks. We celebrate the companies and people who are taking a stab at some of today’s toughest challenges. 

Headlines are the window to the soul of the article. Follow these tips:

1. No more than 60-80 characters or no more than 8 words
2. Never use the, a, or and (Anti-SEO words) in a headline
3. Title Case 
4. If it reads like a clickbait headline or sounds like a clickbait headline – then it is a clickbait headline. Rewrite to match the content immediately. 
5. Keep social media front of mind: would you click to read this article based on that headline?

Clear. Clean. Careful.

Clear flow, clean copy, and careful grammar. While you may proofread, fact-check and edit until you’re blue in the face, sometimes even the sharpest writers need a little help. Download the Grammarly plugin or use this helpful grammar tool and run your final draft through these checks before submitting.

To make an article delicious and readable you will need the following ingredients: 

• 1 or 2 original images, stock images can be used as a substitute 
• An infographic for depth
• Embed a video or two for a bolder flavour 
• Credit your sources for extra zest
• Blend together with fierce text and voila! 

“Treat your readers the way you want to be treated,” – Imogen Searra. There’s nothing worse than clicking on an article and wishing you hadn’t once it opens. To ensure this doesn’t happen, make use of: 

• Paragraphs 
• Subheadings
• Bulleted or numbered lists 
• Hyperlink like a pro not a pasted mess like this www.donothyperlinklikethis.co 
• Oxford commas – a comma used after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before ‘and’ or ‘or’ (a tech expert, a developer, and an entrepreneur walk into a bar)
• Punctuation on point.

SEO is key to all Stun and Awe’s articles. Relevant tags, target keywords, and target keyword phrases are all as important as securing a VC. Make sure all of the above are relevant to your content and what you think people may be searching for.