Don’t Publish Your Blog Post Without This Quick & Powerful Checklist

Note: Some links in this post contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you make a purchase. That’s actually one of the ways you make money blogging! Thanks for supporting my blogging dreams! 🙂

When you’re blogging, it can be hard to remember all the things you should be doing to make sure your blog post is the best it can be. Here’s an easy and super effective checklist on how to make sure every piece of content is super maximized for sharing and also for converting visitors to subscribers.

Have an irresistible title that’s 40-60 words long complete with powerful action words 

Having an enticing title can be the difference between 5 people clicking on your blog’s link or 150 people clicking on your blog’s link! Know that the power of copy is real!

One of the many tricks to writing a juicy headline is to provoke either pleasure or pain because those are the two most powerful sensations known to man! You have to figure out what causes your audience the most pain and the most pleasure, come up with a solution, and craft your title (and post) after that.

A sample title could be: Top 10 Amazingly Fast Recipes for Exhausted Moms or 10 Revolutionary Dieting Tips That’ll Finally Help You Lose Weight

In those two titles, I’m speaking to the emotion of the reader.

If you don’t use emotional words, use powerful words. BufferSocial has an amazing blog post with a long list of power words that you can include in your blog titles to make them super effective.

Have an interesting introductory paragraph

You definitely want to capture your audience’s attention with an interesting intro. Read James Clear’s blog–it’s super addictive. What makes his blog so popular is the fact that he tells a story in each blog post. You can tell a story about you or someone else. You can tell a person how you’re going to solve their problem or you can use language that will make your reader anticipate what’s coming next!

Make your post scannable with H1, H2, H3, or H4 size headings

Headings make your blog posts scannable. In 2016 readers have the attention span of a five-year-old (me included) and no one wants to have to read through 1000 words to get your message. Putting different size headers not only makes your content more appealing to readers, it helps Google to scan your article too!

Include at least one really nice picture (Preferably a Pinterest friendly one too)

Images are super important to blog posts. You have to create attractive images for your blog posts. Do not use ugly or random stock photos–that is such an old and antiquated blogging technique!

Instead, use Canva, PicMonkey, or Pablo by Buffer to make appealing images for your blog. I love using Canva because you can really create just about any image your mind can imagine and they have custom picture sizes that are perfectly optimized forevery social media site. How convenient is that?

I also highly suggest that you include at least one ‘pin worthy’ image in your blog post because Pinterest can be a really great source of traffic for your blog. When you have great images, people will automatically want to pin your stuff! You can also install the plugin Pinterest PinIt Button to make it uber easy for people to pin any image on your website.

Put the description of the blog post in the alt-text of your images

This is something I had to learn the hard way! Many social media managers like Hootsuite have extensions that you can download on your Google Chrome browser that allows you to pretty much share anything you see online on your social media accounts. If someone chooses to share your blog post and they use your picture, whatever is in the alt text will be in the description of your picture.

Like for example, let’s say you pinned the picture above. In the title and alt text box says “Canva Custom Picture Sizes”. If you were to pin that picture right now that is the description that will populate right beneath the picture.

Have a Call-to-Action at the end of post

You’d be surprised at how many more comments you would get if you just asked readers to share their opinions. Putting a call-to-action at the end of your blog posts helps you to interact with your audience. You can also use this opportunity to ask people to sign up for your freebie or join your newsletter. Like they always say, closed mouths don’t get fed!

Have a focused keyword or phrase

Even though I totally believe that focusing on people is way more effective than focusing on SEO, SEO is a necessary evil. You don’t want to miss out on free traffic because you were too stubborn to implement basic SEO tactics on your blog. An easy way to stay on top of your SEO is to install the Yoast SEO plugin. It has a little traffic light that evaluates your blog post for good or bad SEO tactics. All you have to do is enter a keyword or phrase and it goes to work! It’ll give you a green light, orange light, or a red light.

You should also be using Google Keyword Planner to find keywords that have a high number of monthly searches and low competition.

Include Categories & Tags

On the right-hand side of your blog posts are two boxes called Categories and Tags. Take a couple of seconds to correctly categorize your blog post and put relevant tags. This helps your audience find information that they are looking for and it will become especially useful when readers have 50,60, or 100 blog posts to sort through!

Edit your permalink to something short and sweet

Your permalink is the URL of your blog post and is located right beneath your title. When you’re editing your blog post, you can change it something short and sweet like this:

Now Google can know exactly what my blog post is about and it makes it easier for readers to remember how to get directly to this blog post should they ever want to find it again.

Include a way for people to comment and share your blog post

Please, please, please have a comment section and social media sharing tool on each blog post. You want people to interact with you and with one another on your blog. Plus you’re totally missing free traffic by not having a social media sharing tool on your blog.

Link 2-3 other pages on your blog

Make sure to link to 2-3 other pages on your blog. Also, make sure that the links are natural and relevant to what you are writing. This is going to help people navigate your blog a bit easier, and of course, stay on your blog for a longer period of time. Plus, linking to pages on your website is another quick and easy SEO tactic.

Link to reputable websites in your niche and let them know you featured them in your article

I naturally link to other high-ranking websites because I love to give credit for things that I have learned, plus I want you to know about whatever amazing blogger I’m into at the moment. Apparently, linking to high-ranking websites helps with YOUR ranking. It’s called external linking. I’m not exactly sure how but that’s what the experts at MOZ say!

Anyhow, you’re definitely contributing to the bloggers you write about in a selfless way and that’s always encouraged among the blogging community. That blogger may mention you on their website or on their social media. And that could mean huge waves of traffic for you!

I’ve read a really easy way to connect with influencers in your niche is to tweet or message the person you blogged about and say, “Hey! I think your blog is amazing so I featured some of your ideas in my latest blog post. Check it out!”. Leave the link and don’t ask for anything. They will probably be so flattered that they share your blog post with their online community. 🙂

Longer is better –> Go In-depth with your blog posts

Search engines love long blog posts so don’t be afraid to go all out! People love long blog posts too (as long as they’re interesting, detailed, and scannable!) because they give more great information than a short blog post. Also, long blog posts come across as more valuable and as a result, your blog becomes more valuable too!

Focus on SEO but focus on people more

SEO and other the other techie stuff is important but the most important aspect of your blog is your people! Always focus on the people, your readers, your blogging friends, and how you can contribute to their lives. To me, that’s what blogging is all about!

Offer a freebie

Offer customized freebies on every post. This is something I’m admittedly not doing, but I do plan on offering customized freebies with every blog post. I don’t personally use Convert Kit but I recently found out that they have a tool that allows you to create multiple freebies and offer them on any blog post you want. I’ve seen them on a couple of other blogs–it’s just like a box at the end of the blog post asking if you want a PDF copy or the blog post, a special checklist, or something similar to what you just read.

It’s usually not something big like an ebook but it is something that is relevant to that particular reader. If they got all the way to the bottom of the blog post, chances are they’re interested in what they’re reading. I think it’s pretty cool and may make the investment in Convert Kit soon just to use this feature!

Share, share, share your blog post on social media

I cannot say this enough guys, share your stuff on social media! As soon as you write something you should schedule it to go out on social media. Also, you should be on several social media sites. Figure out which one brings in the most traffic and go gun ho on that site but still stay a little active on 2-3 other social media sites. Right now Facebook brings in the most traffic but they are so fickle that I never know when I’ll be cut off. I was already blocked out of my account once this month and I lost nearly ALL of my traffic. Let’s me know right there that I need to diversify quickly!

So what do you think about my checklist? Do you have anything that I’ve missed? Tell me in the comments below!

Thank you for reading day 17 of my blogging challenge! Make sure to post your article in the Facebook group and if you haven’t joined my blogging challenge yet and would like to be a part of it, check this out!

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My name is Amanda and I'm a biz coach for creative entrepreneurs who want to build an authentic business that they love. I'll help you get clear on your purpose, values, mindset, and business strategies that'll help you create a business that offers you true freedom not a "I work 12 hours a day" freedom! Schedule your 30 minute strategy session with me today.