Better blogging: a checklist-based workflow
There are many ways to write and publish a blog but if you’re looking to nail down your workflow so it can be replicated as you grow your content marketing team, establishing a checklist-based workflow can improve your process immensely.
Having a templated checklist can make sure every post follows your brand’s content marketing standards, can ensure the right people have given their approval, and get it done in a timely manner instead of having a mad scramble right before it’s time for the blog to go live.
A checklist should be brought in before anyone starts typing a word of the blog so they know what to expect from creating the blog and what outside resources they may need to bring in.
So, what should go in your checklist?
- Topics + categories: What topic are you writing about or what category does it fall into? Knowing this can help you focus your writing and know who you might need to bring in as an SME and schedule time with them to get their input.
- Keywords: You should have a list of targeted terms to work into your post and what to structure some of your content around.
- Outline: Share an outline with your wider team to ensure your blog post will hit the right points and you’re including the right information for the category and type of blog post you’re working on.
- First draft: Write up your first draft, whether this is directly on the site or in an online collaboration tool like Word or Google Docs is up to you and your team. I recommend working out of a shared document so you can track changes or immediately see the most recent version of the blog post.
- Editing: Pull in your editor or content manager to check the blog for all the main components and general flow of the blog.
- Graphics: Pull in your graphic designer or work on pulling stock photos or use a tool like Canva to make graphics for your post.
- Web review: Have a second set of eyes check the blog once it’s on your blog platform to make sure it still looks good online and is formatted correctly.
- SEO review: Your blog should be checked for SEO opportunities, like having keywords in the right places, an optimized and clickable title, internal and external links, alt text on your images or graphics, and strong metadata. An SEO check can help your blog get indexed correctly and make sure there are no technical SEO errors before it goes live.
- Publish: Once all the checks have been done, it’s time to hit publish or schedule your post for a future publish date.
- Sharing: Now it’s time to share your blog! Get it to your social media manager so they can run it through a debugger or check that it’ll show up in Twitter cards correctly, and get it shared with your social media followers!
Congratulations! You’re done and ready to start working on your next blog post!
Is there any other step you include in your blog checklist? Share your ideas in the comments below!
