Before Publishing Your Blog Post What Should You Do?

Pat yourself on the back. Yes, you! You’ve just completed writing an important blog post. You can sit back and allow a tiny glimmer of pride to slip through. Is that your hand inching towards the PUBLISH button? Halt! Who Goes There! Sit back again. Print the following points keep them in front of you and do not hit that button till you have read all of them! You do want to get the most out of each post, don’t you?

1. Keyword Optimize Your Post

Great though your content may be, it’s no use if people can’t find it. That’s what keywords are for. Check your post URL, header tags, page title, anchor text and image alt text for the keywords you’re targeting. If you forget to do this, forget your dream of higher search engine rankings, more traffic, lead generation and so forth.

2. Where’s The Call-To-Action?

Even if you’re blogging for fun, you do want to achieve something through your posts. Of course, if it’s a business blog, needless to say, you want traffic, leads and the rest. You don’t want people to read till the end of your post and then leave your site, do you? Make sure you get some action out of your post – even if it is only to get your readers to subscribe to your newsletters. Make your reader stay on your blog for as long as possible.

3. Make Your Title Snazzy

Don’t be satisfied with your title on first count. Work at it till you know it will grab maximum eyeballs. Rework your title after you’ve read through your post again. Sometimes we start off with a title but as the post develops a life of its own, the title doesn’t make as much sense anymore.

4. Write a Short Meta-Description

The 150 character meta-description you write is not for search engines; they don’t have much use for it. It’s for the people who want to know what your post is all about at a glance. It’s also the description of your post as seen on social media sharing sites.

5. Check Video and Audio

Check load time,voice and image clarity and duration. You may think you’ve done a great job but it’s really hard to listen to an hour long podcast without falling asleep. Make sure your voice sounds brisk, enthusiastic and your diction is clear.

6. Check Your Formatting

No one likes to read large blocks of uninterrupted text, or see unaligned, disorganized looking text. Take the time to include headings and sub headings; bold the parts you want to highlight; use bullets, numbers and images to break up the flow.

7. Proofread Your Post

Bad grammar and spelling errors say you don’t respect your reader. Is that the impression you want to put out? Even Google’s thinking of considering grammar and spelling in their page ranking algorithm. Take this part really seriously

8. Preview the Layout

WYSIWYG editors don’t tell you exactly how your post will appear to readers. Be sure to view your post in at least two main browsers. Correct text alignment around images, align bullet points and take time to objectively review the overall presentation. Remember a great presentation has immense visual appeal; even if the content is average, a great looking post will bring you respect.

9. Make Links Open in New Window

Ensure that the links you have provided open in a new browser window. This will help retain your reader on your blog, while exploring other outbound links.

10. Link Your Post

You forgot to put in those content links, didn’t you? Links are all important if you want to generate leads, inbound links and more traffic. No one likes a link hoarder; the more links you share, whether it’s to your own content or external content, the more your credibility grows.

11. Give Credit where it’s due

Don’t forget to cite your sources when you use information or statistics that you’ve taken from another blog. Ignoring this important task will lower your credibility and your image as a thought leader.

12. Check for Keyword Stuffing

Yes, you’re probably tired of your post because you spent so much time on the research, layout and writing. But please read through it one more time. Is it stuffed with keywords? You want to aim for natural-sounding keyword phrases, not unnatural stuffing. Google hates that and so do readers. Fine-comb your content for unnatural keyword formations and weed them out.

13. Add an Image orTwo

A strategically placed image or two does great things for your post. It creates that very essential visual appeal and helps readers relate your written information to objects they recognize. Use free image sourcing such as Creative Commons if you don’t want to pay for your images, but do include them. Don’t forget to add Alt attributes to your image so that search engines know and understand what to do with them.

Summary;

The above article covers 13 things a blogger should do before hitting the publish button after writing an article. It also covers all the must do things as a blogger on publishing.