Writing a new blog post is a lot more than just typing up a couple of paragraphs and then hitting publish. Today I’m sharing the steps you should take before hitting publish in addition to what you should do after your post has been published. Continue reading for 10 things to do before and after you hit publish.
10 Things to Do Before and After You Hit Publish
Before:
Write an intriguing post title
Your post should include a keyword rich title that is intriguing and entices people to want to click through and read the post. If your title doesn’t make people want to click through, then you’re not going to bring much traffic to your website. Use a tool like Coschedule’s Headline Analyzer.
Keywords are key for optimizing your blog post for search engines. You should add keywords to your title to ensure that your post is optimized for SEO.
Include headings to break up paragraphs of text
Headings help break up big chunks of text and make them a little more manageable to read. We don’t always have a ton of time on our hands so posts that contain huge paragraphs are overwhelming to people so they probably won’t stick around for very long if you’re not using headings to break up your text.
Include backlinks to previous posts
Your blog posts should include backlinks to previous posts on your website. This helps you keep readers on your site for longer.
Proofread your blog post
Going back and taking a moment to re-read what you’ve written is essential. You will be able to catch any grammar, spelling, or other errors that you might have missed before.
Add a call to action at the end of your posts
Including a call to action in your blog post entices readers to leave a comment in response to your question or take any other action.
Add a Pinterest sized image
Adding a Pinterest friendly image gives people the option to share your post on Pinterest if it’s something that resonates with them. It also makes it easier for you to pin your own posts to Pinterest.
Add alt text to images
Alt text is a word or phrase that can be inserted as an attribute in an HTML document to tell website viewers the nature or content of an image. It is essential to add alt text to your images so make sure you’re doing this step. This is also the description that Pinterest pulls when you pin images so make sure to include alt text on all images.
After:
Pin post to Pinterest
Once your post has gone live, make sure to pin your post to Pinterest that same day. Pinterest takes a bit longer to gain traction than other social media channels so the earlier you get it on the website, the better.
Related: PinPerfect: How to Best Utilize Your Pinterest Analytics
Share on other social media sites
After you’ve shared to Pinterest, make sure to share to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and even StumbleUpon. This will let your audience know that you have a new post if they’re not checking your blog constantly.
Respond to comments
Once you’ve started getting some comments on your content, don’t forget to interact with your readers by responding to their comments. This is something I’m not always the best at but I’m working on it.
Your Turn:
Do you take all of these steps when publishing a post? Please feel free to let me know down in the comments.
