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Ever wondered What To Do Before Publishing A Blog Post? As bloggers or content creators, we are always publishing a new blog post. It’s never an easy task, especially if you want to share something that will benefit others. Many hours are spent to complete a single blog post. You got to search for ideas, write out the content, add images and a few more other steps before you could finally hit publish.
If your blog is your source of income, you would definitely want your article to rank higher on search engines and bring in the much-needed pageviews and potential clients or customers. Even though if its just a ‘hobby’ blog you would still want people to read and give feedback to your articles? Am I right?
What Are The Steps To Do Before Publishing A Blog Post
I have lost count of the number of blog posts that I have published since the first day I started blogging. At first, I had zero knowledge of how to optimize a post. I didn’t use any editing tool and to be honest I didn’t do much research either. However along the way, as I got more and more addicted to blogging I managed to gain some knowledge and that’s when I started to see an increase in my google analytics graph. The constant increase on my site’s page views was the sign that I am actually doing it right.
And in this article today, I want to share with all of you a few things that you need to do to before you publish your blog post. I am not asking you to copy my style completely (you definitely can if you want to). But its just my way of sharing every knowledge that I have picked up along the way.
What To Do Before Publishing A Blog Post
Think Of A Topic
The preparation of a post begins with a search of Topic. What do you plan to share with your audience for today? Will that topic benefit them? What are the topics that your audience usually search for in your blog? Usually what I do is, I will think of a keyword for example ‘Increase Pageviews’. Then I will search the keyword in either Pinterest or Google and get a list of ideas that are related to my keyword. I would then list down a few ideas about that particular keyword and choose the idea that I am most familiar with. It is so much easier to write about something that you have extra knowledge about it.
Research About The Topic
Once I have chosen a topic, I would then do some research about that particular topic. I would write down important points that I would want to share with my audience. I usually think of a topic and do a research much earlier before publishing a blog post
Write The Content
There are actually two ways to write a post or the content.
- Draft It Out – This is where you just type out whatever is in your mind before constructing proper sentences.
- Write It Out – This is where you write the content while constructing proper sentences and correcting spelling errors.
I know a lot of bloggers that prefer the first way. They say that their ideas flow out smoothly that way. After they have drafted out all their ideas then only they would construct proper sentences and separate paragraphs. Me, on the other hand, loves to write it out will correcting spelling errors and rereading every sentence that I have made. How do you write your post? Do you write a draft first or are you on the same boat as me?
Check For Keywords
After you have completed writing, make sure to check if you have added the much-needed keywords. One thing to note is to not add too many keywords to a single post. We don’t want Google to think that our post is spammy, do we? So add in the appropriate amount of keywords according to the length of your post. If you have a self-hosted website and are using the Yoast plugin, it will guide you on the numbers of keywords that you need. For more information about plugins, check out The Best 10 Free Plugins For WordPress
[bctt tweet=”Checklist: The steps to take before hitting the PUBLISH button. ” username=”karenmonica25″]
Add Images
Your post would look dull without any images attached to it. Choose images that your audience can relate to your article. Remember to include one or two pinnable images as well. Having a pinnable image for every post makes it easier for your audience to share it on Pinterest. You can easily create beautiful Pinnable images from Canva. If you don’t have any suitable images for your post, you can get some high-quality images for free stock photos. I usually get mine from Pexels or Unsplash. Remember to name your images correctly and don’t forget to add an alt text and description for every image.
Optimize Your Post
Before publishing a blog post you must optimize it. If you are using the Yoast SEO plugin, it will guide you to optimize your post correctly. Your post title must contain your keyword. Try not to make your title too short or too long. Remember to include some internal links (one or two links from your site) It would be better if those posts are related to the topic you are discussing. Adding an outbound link (post from another site) from a higher rank post that is related to your topic is also an added advantage. Try to write longer content. Don’t forget to set a meta description for your post. A search engine usually displays the meta description under the post title.
Read Your Post Again
I know you can’t wait to hit the publish button but it’s best to read your post once again and check for errors. I have installed Grammarly. It makes my work easier by checking my spelling and grammar errors for me. Once you are completely satisfied with your post, then hit the publish button.
Must Read: What To Do After Publishing A Blog Post
If you are asking me, What To Do Before Publishing A Blog Post? Well, these are all the steps I take each time I publish a new post. Your steps might be different from mine. Do share it with me in the comments section below. Or if you have any questions related to this post or any of my previous post don’t hesitate to ask.
This post came in handy for me. I’m not new to blogging, but only just discovered post optimization /seo and now I’m implementing it on my site.
Yay glad to hear that. Good luck in SEO optimization. You will do great 🙂
Yes! I love Yoast. It helps guide me in optimizing my post and is teaching me how to write good posts from the start.
yes Yoast is one of my most favourite plugin 🙂
Great check list and I love grammerly , it makes life so much easier!
Yes, Grammarly is great 🙂
I write and prepare my posts weeks back. And all these points are equally important.
yes it’s good to have your post prepared much earlier before publishing it
These are great tips girl! I also analyze the header of the post 🙂
Thank you, Gena 🙂
These are great tips. It’s always so helpful to go through a checklist before clicking “publish”!
Yes it does, sometimes we are rushing to publish a post and might miss out a thing or two
I think many bloggers could benefit from putting more time into the research step. A lot of people just seem to spout off their own ideas instead of consulting more reliable resources!
yes researching is very important
Yes and when you know that google check your orthography, it’s really important to read again.
3 links outside is also really important.
yes its always important to double check
These are great tips! I use Grammarly as well. I think that you covered most of what you should do before publishing a blog post. As you start blogging more than once a day, or blogging on other people’s sites, it starts to get very time consuming doing these steps though, that’s for sure! Well worth the time investing though, 100%!
yes publishing more than one post a day is time-consuming. As long as you are following the basic than that’s more than enough.
Good checklist. This is great especially for beginner bloggers.
yes especially for bloggers that want to rank high on search engines
I actually always start with a keyword and then right a post around it. I have a gigantic list of keywords to use, so I never run out of content. Great post!
wow, that’s great. I am sure you won’t run out of ideas to post.
I agree with all these steps. Following these steps would ensure your blog posts does well in the search engines.
yes, that’s a bonus place to gain extra pageviews 🙂
I am just starting to optimize my money saving blog now. I was just doing it for fun but think now it’s time to really make a go of it. Thanks for the tips
good luck to you. I am sure you will do well
These are some excellent tips. There’s a lot of steps to remember before your post goes live. It’s good to double check everything.
Thank you, Brandi. Yes it is important to double check before hitting the publish button
Wow, such a nice blog article to read, very informative and you give a lot of helpful tips to those who are new in this field.
Thank you for the kind words Elizabeth 🙂
Love this checklist? This is a really great resource for bloogers! I’m the person who reads and goes over my post at least 10 times before I hit that publish button…lol!
I usually keep re-reading my post too until finally I decide to hit publish 😀
Wow, nice post and this is such a great guide to all who are new in this field and I am sure you help them a lot by sharing this information.
I do hope it benefits others 🙂
Keywords – yes, so important, but it took me such a long time, to actually understand how to utilize them properly. I am glad I got over that know. You have some truly great tips there – blessings!
Keywords are the heart of every post. It took me some time too at the beginning.
Really great guideline for new bloggers especially. I think it’s really important to double check before publishing, as well as optimizing it for the search engines.
Yes, it is very important. It does take a lot of time to publish one post so it’s better to do it correctly and get the much-needed pageviews 🙂
That’s a very informative and helpful post for all bloggers. I will follow your tips for my next blog post. Thanks for sharing this information
Yay… happy to hear that. I am sure your future post will do well in search engine 🙂
Love Grammarly! I use it all the time! Great tips for new bloggers!
Yes, Grammarly is a perfect typing error tool 😀
Hello! I think I landed on your page from boss girl bloggers. I’m a few blogger facebook groups and I totally forgot! However, I’m so glad I decided to click your link because I’m saving this for later. This is really informative. While I’ve been blogging for a while, I’m only recently attempting to blog for business and slowly learning a million things at once!
Hi Honey. Thank you for stopping by. I hope it benefits you to optimize your future posts 🙂
Hahaha! I am the 2nd type of publisher. I write it out! 😂 then again I am new to this. For sure, I will learn a lot of things from now!
We all learn along the way 😀
Love this post! So informative and helpful. To be fair, I’m learning and tweaking the way I post as I go along but since starting I have LOVED Grammarly it’s been so helpful in making my posts make sense. In terms of Canva, I am learning that. I did want to try to keep everything to my colour scheme but I guess it’s not that easy but I’ll keep trying and one day I’ll smash that. In terms of SEO optimization, I’m using YOAST SEO to help me with making it readable and SEO friendly. Thank you!
Happy for you. It seems that you are on track. Best of luck with your blog 🙂
Over the course of three months that I have been blogging, I learned a lot about optimization through SEO. It’s nice to see your list knowing that I am doing most of them.
Happy for you Nina. You are doing great 🙂
A very handy checklist post for those who are just starting out. Optimizing your blog is so important when it comes to all the little bits like alt text and seo bits x
Yes SEO and optimization are two very important things to look at in blogging 🙂
These are some great tips. I’m currently figuring out how to use keywords. Thanks for sharing our post on The Best 10 Free Plugins For WordPress. I saw a couple of new ones I haven’t heard of.
Hope you try those plugins out. Keywords are very important in every published post. I am sure along the way you will learn a lot about keywords. I will try to share a post about it too 🙂
This guide is so resourceful to help guide new bloggers into the world of blogging. You listed some great tips, especially how important optimization is, namely SEO, as well as the use and importance of imagery and research.
Yes, SEO and research are very important for each post to get a higher search ranking 🙂
Ah SEO! I know there are so many different things to think through before posting. And this is just the writing end. Then comes promotion and everything else. Good things to think through though.
Yes, it does take a lot of hard work to complete one single blog post and that continues even after hitting the publish button.