10 Things You Should Do Before Hitting “PUBLISH”

You’ve written a fantastic blog post and think it’s ready for the inevitable future of praise and glory. But wait. Did you forget something? Have a look at the 10 Things You Should Do Before Hitting “PUBLISH” and make sure you haven’t!

1. CHECK YOUR POST TITLE

Your post title should give a rough indication as to what the post will discuss, so try to keep it relevant to the post. Misleading titles may result in a higher number of clicks but the readers will quickly notice if your post does not deliver what it promised, leaving you with a higher bounce rate and lower session time. 

The optimal post title will usually have between 6 to 10 words and include some powerful or emotional words that will peak your readers’ interest.  If your post contains a list, you should also specify how many points will be discussed (like I did in the title of this post). To check the quality and effectiveness of your blog post title, type it into the Headline Analyser. Then, tweak it word by word until you’re happy with the score. Just remember that a better title is one that flows and reads naturally; not one with the highest score. So use with caution.

2. ADD LABELS

Much like your post title, the post labels will act to describe what your post is about. By crafting relevant labels you will be able to sort your posts into categories, link to related content and your content will be more easily located through Google search.

3. ADD LINKS TO PREVIOUS POSTS

Whether your post mentions something you’d previously discussed or if it is simply written on the same/similar topic, it wouldn’t hurt to link a few of your previous posts. This can either be done throughout the text (if the information is truly relevant and either adds to or explains your point), or at the beginning/end of post to direct your readers to previous posts within the series or other relevant content.

Not only will you increase your SEO by building links to your posts, but you will also reduce your site bounce rate as readers will be far more likely to click on a suggested post rather than go searching for it through your archives. Win.

4. CHECK YOUR LINKS OPEN IN A NEW TAB

Any links you decide to include in your post should open in a new tab so as to not redirect your readers to a different page halfway through your post. Not only is that annoying for you and your readers, but there’s also a good chance that your reader will not come back to finish reading the rest of your post.

If you blogging platform does not offer you the choice of opening the link in a new tab, simply add target=”_blank” to your link code. 

Example: <a href=”webiste link” target=”_blank”>Phrase/Image that will send readers to the website</a>

5. ADD IMAGE PROPERTIES

I won’t pretend to know much about SEO because quite frankly, it scares me. What I do know is that describing the image or using the post title within the ALT text field of the image properties is a quick little thing that will go a long way. Firstly, keywords will push your image up through Google Images; secondly, users who cannot see images (whether due to a slow Internet connection or their own browser preferences) will be able to see the ALT tag and know what the image space should contain.

6. SHORTEN PERMALINK

Unless you decide to do it yourself, your blogging platform will generate your blog post links for you using as many words from the post title as it can fit. All too often this will result in a very long link that doesn’t really indicate what the post is about as the last few words of the post title did not fit into the link. Generating your own link will allow you to be more concise and descriptive, keeping the link slightly tidier.

It is strongly advisable to do this before publishing your post. While it is completely possible to change your permalink after publishing, you should keep in mind that all links shared on social media to promote this post will break and no longer lead to the post-in-question.

7. ADD A CUSTOM SEARCH DESCRIPTION

Unless you write a custom search description, Google will simply use the beginning of your post to appear as a blurb within the Google search. While this may work perfectly well for you and your blog, results will depend strongly on your writing style. 

Your search description should ideally be one of two things: a captivating sentence that intrigues the reader into clicking the link to learn more, or a very brief description of the post letting the reader know what they will get out of clicking your link.

8. PREVIEW POST

You should always, always, always preview your post before publishing to make sure that your post layout has no awkward spaces or unwanted text formatting. Bad formatting will hurt your views.

9. PROOF READ

With a million ideas running though your head followed by the countless different ways you want to phrase your sentence, it’s all too easy to forget to check whether the rest of your sentence/paragraph still makes sense. So when you think you’re ready to publish your post, give it a quick read over and make sure it flows nicely.

10. BACK UP

We’re the generation that is very much accustomed to the digital life and feel relatively safe with all our content and data being stored online. But do you ever worry that all those photos you’ve been meaning to print off will just disappear with a little glitch or a virus? How about your blog posts that exist only on your blogging platform? Website shut-down, disabled account, or a simple anger or sadness driven “delete all” can result in the loss of all that hard work. Back it up into a Word Document and store it on an external hard drive to be safe!

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