Do you struggle with being a super organized blogger? I was also like you some time ago, till the time I created my very own blog post checklist that I could run through before I hit that publish button to make absolutely sure I wasn’t overlooking any details.

To change something first we have to accept, that there could be a better way to do it. When it comes to blogging we all struggle with different ways to do things perfectly. I still remember when I started to blog I use to do so many revisions in my posts. Sometimes I use to miss adding an important image or a link or to proofread….. phewww it’s a long error list.

My mind use to tell me comeee onnnnn it’s human errors we all make!!

But providing readers quality content that makes them return to your website is a big responsibility. That’s why I recommend you to check my free resources library for blog post checklist and other resources that will help you with your blog.

Of course, if there are things on my blog post checklist that are new to you or you want a full explanation of why each one is important to writing blog posts, here is a detailed guide for you to write a blog post that brings more traffic and makes your blog google friendly. So lets begin!

1. MARK THE OUTLINES FOR CONSTRUCTING THE POST

It is an old experience of mine when I use to go for my exams, I always use to write the outlines first. So that when I am in the middle of writing something my thoughts don’t completely make me lose track of where I was?

Creating an outline streamlines the writing process so you don’t run out of points or forget what you’re talking about. Plus, it’s helps you keeping the word count and splitting your paragraphs, headings and subheadings which are separated by bullet points. This makes up the body of the posts ready and you are good to go from here.

2. USE A KEYWORD PLANNER TOOL

When I decide what I want to post about, I begin my research for a blog post topic. First thing I do in this process is to head over to Google’s Keyword Planner Tool

No one wants to be a part of the crowd by choosing a common phrase as your target keyword, when your goal is to rank on the first page on Google, that’s a battle against huge authoritative sites.

Keyword Planner can tell you which phrases have the lowest competition and also give you a rough idea of how many queries are performed each month for each phrase. This information will help you choose the right keyword for writing a good blog post .

3. CHECK YOUR PARAGRAPH LENGTH

As we all know, people have low patience when they are curious to know something. Not only that, but when most people “read” online, they are actually just scanning different options till they find the good stuff.

Short paragraphs will keep people entertained and give them a reason to keep scrolling through the post. So always remember short paragraphs with lots of line breaks are essential for writing a good blog post.

4. USE HEADING DISTRIBUTION H1, H2, AND H3

You want your post to be easy to follow, especially since a majority of people are likely reading from their phones.

Headings and subheadings break up your post so it’s easier to read. Having headings placed in relevant places throughout your post helps add structure, gives people’s eyes a break, and can increase your chances of ranking for your keyword. Most people read a couple of sentences before they decide if they want to finish reading the entire post.

Headings are the first thing that catch reader’s attention. By using headings, you’re making it easier for people to know what your post is about and encouraging them to read until the end.

5. WRITE EASY TO READ LANGUAGE

No one is reading your blog to judge your high-level caliber in English, Readers come to your blog to find information. So, Keep it simple and conversational for them.

What do I mean by that, exactly?  Basically, I want you to talk to me like I’m an old friend and don’t use difficult to understand words. While some readers out there will appreciate fancy jargons, Google doesn’t seem to agree.

Furthermore, with your conversational style and simple English, you’re more likely to appeal to the masses.

6. MAKE SURE TO HAVE INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL LINKS IN YOUR POST

Internal links

Interlinking is adding a link of your previous posts in your current post. So, anytime you create a new post that is relevant to a topic you’ve written about before, you can link back to that previous post.

It is a good way to keep people on your site longer and go through your previous posts. Another benefit of an internal link is that you’re telling Google which post you want to rank for a particular keyword.

If you are totally newbie to blogging check my article on HOW TO START YOUR BLOG IN 5 STEP PROCESS?

External link

A great way to exchange traffic on your website is through using external links. Linking to spammy or low authority sites can cause problems, so be careful while sharing any external links. Google cares about who you associate your site with.

I make a point to include at least one external link to a site with much more authority than my own. In this post check out a link to Grammarly to create a post that has zero typos.

7. MAKE SURE THE LENGTH OF THE POST IS 1000+ WORDS

Your content has to be relevant and must really digs into the meat of a subject. So size of the post matters! High ranking posts on Google searches have an average length of around 1200 10 1500 words.

A longer post will also keep visitors on your site longer, and time on site is another ranking factor because it indicates that readers are well engaged in the high-quality content provided by you.

8. USE HIGH QUALITY IMAGES

Images are a great way of virtual story telling. It’s important for your images to be “on-brand,” meaning they reflect your blogs overall color scheme, fonts and overall design.

They keep readers engaged and interested, and as you might expect, they are also great for SEO. The longer your post, the more images you should include.  

Tip: A good way for image distribution is to insert one image for every 200 words. 1024 pixels by 768 pixels is a decent image size and large enough to look good on most screens.

I recommend creating a few templates for your blog graphics and pin images using a program like Canva. That way, they’ll be more consistent and faster to create ☺

9. ADD KEYWORDS IN IMAGE ALT TEXT WHILE UPLOADING

Images make any article more engaging and virtually pleasing to the readers. Any images added in the article has to be linked with the post. Next, you’ll want to make sure they’re ready for SEO, which basically means that you’ve changed the image title to include keywords. So instead of “image-6439.jpg,” your title could be “Travel-advice.”

So, don’t forget to edit your images’ alt text to include your keyword.  You’ll be reminded of this again when you’re going through your SEO checklist.

10. INSERT PINNABLE IMAGES & PIN IT TO PINTEREST BOARDS

Pinterest is a huge traffic source for bloggers. Make sure to have a Pinterest-ready image already in the post. Pinterest graphics make it easy for people to pin your content.

Make sure to pin these graphics to all of your relevant pinterest boards. This will keep them circulating throughout your boards.

Similarly, if you’re a part of any group boards, you’ll want to share your pin there as well. You could either do this manually or via a Pinterest scheduling tool – my favorite is Tailwind!

11. DON’T MISS TO ADD AN AFFILIATE LINK

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money from your blog. If you are using any affiliate links make sure that no post goes by that doesn’t contain at least one affiliate link.

These links always have to be relevant to the post and useful to the reader. Otherwise, there’s just no point.

12. INSERT AN AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE IN YOUR ARTICLE

Affiliate disclosure is must for any post containing an affiliate link. I feel it is the right of your readers to know that you are affiliated with the brand and promoting it.They should be aware that  you may earn a commission from purchases they make.

13. MAKE SURE TO PROOF READ THAT THERE ARE NO TYPOS

I know here you must be thinking – Naina, do you really need to mention this? we already know that we should proofread. Nothing grinds my gears more than a blog post with a million typos and grammatical errors.

But it’s so easy to miss the small things – like a comma, or a spelling mistake. Not everyone is such a stickler, but I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t hold my blog to high standards when I’m doing the same to everyone else’s.Report this ad

A wrong grammar not only just looks sloppy but also turns off the readers. To avoid publishing a post with embarrassing mistakes, use a free browser plugin called Grammarly which catches spelling and grammatical errors without you going through a post several times.

It may sound monotonous, but it’s important to look over your entire post before you hit publish. Not only for grammar but for any weirdness hadn’t been detected while typing.

14. A GOOD HEADING DOES HALF OF THE JOB

Sometimes the title I think of when I first start writing the post just doesn’t fit by the time I’m done. Your headline is at the heart of marketing your blog post. With all of the content that’s out there in the world, you want to capture your reader’s attention and stop them in their tracks. or it’s not spicy enough to entice people to click. Your title is extremely important because this essentially determines whether people read your post or not.  Harsh, but true!  If your title sucks, no one’s going to read your content.

So, what makes a show-stopping headline? It must have at least 3 things:

• It has keywords: The title of your post is very important for its SEO, which is why you want to include a keyword in your headline.
• It’s specific: Readers want to know exactly what they can expect if they click on a headline. This is why some of the best headlines take a topic and break it down even further. For example, “15 Tips for budget travel” is much better than just “Budget travel”
• It offers value: Usually, people read your blog posts because they’re looking for answers to their problems or they want to learn something new. This is why your headline needs to reflect the idea that going through your blog post is useful to them.

15. CREATE CURIOSITY

Use your title to create curiosity and leave them wanting more. Think of a title that prompts the readers to click your post. If your content is engaging it’s totally fair to do so.

And remember, your post title is different from your SEO title. The post title shows up on the actual blog post, and the SEO title is what shows up in Google. Both the titles should be catchy.

16. CHECK FOR SEO TITLE AND PROVIDE META DESCRIPTION

Your SEO title (or meta title) and meta description are what show up in Google searches, and these are two more very important places to make sure your keyword from the post appears here.

I edit mine quickly and easily using the Yoast SEO Plugin.

17. LOOK FOR A GREEN LIGHT ON THE SEO PLUGIN

Once you scroll to the last section on your dashboard after crafting your post, you can see that there is a LOT to consider when it comes to your blog’s SEO, and the Yoast SEO Plugin really only scratches the surface.

That said, I still use the plugin regularly and make sure it gives me the green light for any post I’m optimizing. It reminds me of a few things I tend to forget about, like choosing a short slug.

18. CHOOSE AN ATTRACTIVE FEATURED IMAGE

We live in a time where pictures hold a lot of weight in the online world – just look at Pinterest. That’s because images appeal to our senses and tell us a lot about a blog post before we’ve even read it.  This is one of the reasons why using a featured image is so important.

If you went onto someone else’s blog, and all you see is a snippet of text with no featured image, would you be compelled to read their post? Even as kids we all love books with colorful images as they are more pleasing to the eyes. Images make your blog look more polished and prompter for people to actually read your post.

My blog’s theme looks best with a featured image, so I always include one.

19. MAKE SURE NOT TO MISS THE RIGHT CATEGORIES & TAGS

This one totally has to do with common sense, but don’t forget to add your post to the appropriate category (or multiple, if applicable).

These help readers navigate your site more easily and help Google to know which posts are related (which is, naturally, good for SEO).

And of course, tagging your post really helps it to reach out the readers. We all type different keywords for doing our search and tags play a big role in displaying out content when searched.

20. ASK A QUESTION AT THE END OF THE POST

Asking a question is an effective way to end a post for several reasons, but the main one is that it encourages people to participate in the discussion, making them feel like their opinions are heard and valued.

And when people feel like you truly care about what they have to say, they’ll keep coming back to your blog. Just make sure that the questions you ask are well thought out and that you’re doing it because you are genuinely interested in hearing other people’s perspectives.

In a few months, update your blog post

Things change. People change. It’s a part of life. How you ran your blog a few months ago may be completely different from today, and that’s okay. But, it’s important to consistently update your blog to reflect these changes.

Once every 2 months or so, I go back through all of my posts to make sure that they are optimized for SEO, the content is up-to-date and that the images/graphics are current. This takes a lot of time and is tedious work, but it’s so worth it.

Now tell me:  What’s YOUR blog post checklist? Did I leave something out? Let’s discuss!

Remembering everything that goes into a blog post is a tall order; hopefully, this comprehensive blog post checklist has given you a clearer understanding of why I blog the way I do, and why each of these things is important.

Blogging for money is a different ballgame than simply blogging for fun; it requires meticulous planning, attention to detail, and above all, consistency.