Editorial Standards
These rules apply to every new guide, benchmark page, and tool we publish. They exist so you spend less time correcting thin or generic content.
- Guides
- Choose a length band from the job of the page, not a site-wide floor. Primary decision guides usually need ~1,000+ words. Standard guides ~700+. Focused siblings under a hub can be shorter (~450+) if they fully answer one search. Prefer parent hubs + useful children over padding one mega-page. Never invent filler to hit a number. Bands: primary decision ~1000+; standard ~700+; focused sibling ~450+. At least one data table per guide when the topic involves comparison, cost, or decision criteria.
- Tools, hubs & news
- Tool hubs 600+ words; detail pages 450+; news briefs 350+; franchise hubs 400+. Include one 'why it matters for diaspora families' block—not generic SEO filler. Name the anxiety (in-laws, visa, shame, comparison). Ship fewer pages per batch when thickening is needed. Prefer expanding an existing URL when it still has one clear job. Prefer a parent hub + child URLs when one page is doing several distinct searchable jobs. Never pad.
- Tools
- Tool hub pages should include at least one interactive calculator or worksheet where users enter their situation and get a sourced range or total. Static tables alone are reference, not a calculator.
- Punctuation
- Do not use em dashes (—). Prefer parentheses, commas, periods, or rewriting. Reserve hyphens (-) for compound modifiers only.
- Research
- Include 1–2 research callouts or editorialInsight boxes with real citations and sourceUrl links. Never fabricate statistics. Tables and
editorialInsightboxes carry linked sources. - Voice
- Direct, specific, warm. Elaborate in paragraphs. Avoid staccato AI cadence (stacked one-line 'wisdom' sentences). Avoid em dashes (—); use periods, parentheses, commas, or separate sentences instead. Research hospitality: introduce people/orgs with role and context, translate jargon and numbers in the same beat, and add GCC commentary after fact clusters instead of stacking surnames and studies.
- Images
- Hero and section images must match the topic (contextual relevance). Prefer brand/org press kits, then high-quality licensed sources (e.g. Getty when available), then CC (credit per license; do not say Wikimedia Commons in captions). Avoid Unsplash when better options exist. No site-wide image reuse. No demographic mismatch. Max ~10% AI-generated site-wide.
- Cross-linking
- relatedSlugs should form franchise clusters; mention sibling guides in prose where natural. When one guide is doing several searchable jobs, prefer a franchise hub parent plus child URLs over one endless page. Put each leaf under the hub whose reader job it shares (same life stage and anxiety), not only a loose topic keyword.
Legal and medical disclaimer: Editorial disclaimer · Not medical advice