Here is your 24-point checklist for bloggers. Use this quick reference to make sure you’re doing everything you can to optimize your blog posts.
Organization and appearance
1. Subheads are H2. Sub-subheads are H3.
2. You have at least one image in the post.
3. No spelling or punctuation errors.
Links
4. At least 2 internal links.
5. Links made to all sources, experts.
6. Internal links open in the same tab.
7. External links open in a new tab.
Keyword is in at least…
8. Title
9. Introduction
10. Meta-title
11. Meta-description
12. Body of the article
13. Alt tag of at least one image
NOTE: You may not be able to get your keyword (key phrase) into all of these areas. Three or four may suffice. If you can’t put it into the title or URL, you need to put it in the alt-tag of at least one image. Use the Yoast WordPress SEO plugin to verify you’ve optimized well. (Green is good; orange needs more work.)
Images
14. Have an alt-tag (ideally)
15. Have a caption or introduce the image in the body of the article
16. Have been set to width=”100%” (if your website doesn’t do it automatically)
NOTE: If your image is wider than 1200 pixels, you should resize it. In most cases, a width of 800-1000 pixels renders well without affecting the page speed.
Miscellaneous details
17. Make the headline more clickable. Best tool for that: http://coschedule.com/headline-analyzer
18. Assign 1 or 2 categories (preferably, just one).
19. Assign tags that make it easier to find. You may use as many tags as you like.
20. Add a feature image.
21. Shorten the URL. Add keyword if possible.
22. Set the publish date and time.
23. Set guest author bio links to: rel=”nofollow”
24. Preview to make sure the article looks good.
- Images rendered correctly.
- Paragraphs aren’t longer than 6 lines.
- The layout is neat and clean.
- You don’t have extra line breaks where they don’t belong.
