Danie’s Corner – 9 Things To Check Before You Hit Publish On Your Blog Post

Before you hit that publish button and unleash that amazing post you have just put together to the entire world wide web, you might want to go through these 9 things to make sure that that post is as perfect as can be and good to go.

1. Check for any spelling and grammar errors – Because your brain thinks faster than your hands move, it’s possible to miss a word, a letter, a punctuation mark, spell a word wrongly, leave too much or no spacing at all and these can be bad for you and your blog. Because it’s difficult to find these errors yourself, you can use the proofread tool in your editor and make the necessary corrections or I recently started using a google chrome extension, Grammarly, you can install it and it makes any typing you are doing anywhere online with your browser much easier as it highlights your mistakes and gives you correct suggestions.
2. Check the layout of the post – That’s the reason there is a preview button. The post can look good in the editor but not so good on the actual screen. Always preview the post and align the text and images properly.
3. SEO Checklist – There are basic SEO requirements that have to be put in place before you publish your post so that it is visible to search engines and you generate search traffic. Check for the right keywords in your post title, use these keywords in your meta description, create your own custom permalink with these keywords, check that your images are captioned and have alt texts that contain these keywords as well. You can use Google Keyword Planner to research keywords on your topic.
4. The Post should be mobile friendly –  Also preview the post in mobile view to see that the layout adjusts nicely on mobile devices. If not, make necessary adjustments and alignments.
5. Internal Backlinks – Linking to other posts from within a post, is a good practice. Check if you have linked to another post. And if there are no related posts, you can add some recommended ( or you may also like ) post links at the end of the post.
6. Picture placements – Check that your images are placed in the relevant areas of the post. It doesn’t make sense if you are describing a product at the beginning of a post and the picture of that product is the last thing within the body of the post. Also caption correctly. And resize if necessary.
7. Check that the categories, tags, labels etc are done correctly.
8. Make sure your links work – you may have placed links to a website, a product, an online store that you feel may be helpful to your readers. Always check and ensure that such links work.
9. Read Through Finally – You might just see a point that you missed or remember a valuable information that you wanted to add but didn’t.

What other things do you check before you hit publish? Share them in the comments below. Thanks for reading and happy blogging!