Have you wondered what steps you need to take each time you publish a blog post? It can be easy to forget what needs to be checked off. Also, did you know there’s a strategy behind each post you publish? I’ve got 5 things to do before you publish a blog post. If you do these 5 things each time you go to hit publish, you’ll see the blog growth you are working for. And after you hit publish, there are a few things you need to do, too. Don’t just post and pray!

Before You Publish a Blog Post:

SEO

What is SEO? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, what this means, is that you are setting your blog posts up for success in the online world. By utilizing specific keywords, phrases, and topics that you want to your blog to become an expert on, you tell Google and the other search engines to send traffic your way. 

Want more traffic? Work on your SEO. I love using Yoast to help me with my SEO on my blog posts. This WordPress plugin checks each post for me and helps me to optimize my posts so I’m found more easily on search engines. Before you publish a blog post, you need to make sure your posts have good SEO! 

Some things to take note of when working on your SEO:

-Keywords: Be careful to not re-use keywords. Each new blog post should have new keywords. Also, make sure they are spread throughout your blog post as evenly as possible, and that they are included in your headings.

-Be mindful that all of  your images/graphics have keywords in the alt text. This enables them to help drive traffic to your blog post.

-When uploading images, don’t upload images that are really big. This will slow down your site and can make it hard to load your post.There are plugins that you can use to help with this, too.

-Is your site fast? Check your site speed regularly. Having a good host for your website helps with this a lot. This is one of the reasons I love using Bluehost for my website. 

Proofread

We all remember those high school essays in English class. You know the ones, they’d be returned to you filled with red pen, marking your mistakes because you forgot to proofread, right? Ouch. Let’s learn from those mistakes of the past, and take advantage of the free spellcheck and grammar tools on most writing programs. Now, nobody is perfect, and occasionally we all miss something. But, the more you proofread your work before you publish a blog post, the more professional you will look. Hate to proofread? Outsource this! Find a friend, Virtual Assistant, or even your spouse or teenager, and ask them for help to make sure your blog posts have proper grammar and they are set up to be easy to read. 

Pinterest Ready Images

If you are blogging for Pinterest, then you need to have pinnable images in your blog posts. This means that you have images that can be uploaded to Pinterest and drive traffic to your website from there. There are a lot of tutorials out there for creating Pinterest pins. I love to use the templates on Canva to start building my Pinterest Pins. This helps me to get them the right size, and it gives me fresh ideas for layouts. For more on Pinterest, check out my Pinterest Jump Start Course here. Before you publish a blog post, always make sure you have pinnable images!

Affiliate Links

I’ve gone over how much I recommend using affiliate links to grow your business here. I try to mix my affiliate links into my posts. This way it is more natural. If I’m talking about websites and then I share that I’m an affiliate for a clothing company, that doesn’t make much sense to my reader. If you want to capitalize on your ability to make money off your blog posts, use your affiliate links wisely.

Call To Action

At the end of each blog post, you need to have something that you want your audience to do. We call this a Call To Action. What action do you want your reader to take after reading your post? Do you want them to subscribe to your email list to be notified of new posts? Or do you want to make sure they know about your newest offering? Whatever your goal is, make sure you have a clear Call To Action at the end of your posts.

After You Publish a Blog Post:

Now that we’ve covered what to do before you publish a blog post, it’s time to go over what happens after you hit publish. Once you publish your blog posts, what do you do? Do you just sit and wait for the blog traffic to come rolling in? If you are doing this, you are probably wondering why you don’t have as much traffic as you would like. There are a few things that you need to do after you publish each blog post. These steps will help your blog post be seen by more of your audience, they will help drive traffic to your website, and they will increase the amount of money you can earn from blogging. 

Share Your Post on Social Media

First, make sure you are sharing your posts on your social media channels. Is your audience on Instagram, Facebook, and/or TikTok? Be sure to let them know that you have a new blog post ready for them to read. Don’t just announce it, but talk about it on your social media and show your audience why this blog post will help solve their problems. This is all a part of my content creation strategy that I’ve talked before about here. 

Keep Your Email Subscribers in the Loop

Along with keeping your social media audience aware of your newest blog posts, be sure to let your email subscribers know that you’ve published a new blog post. Be sure to tell them why you wrote the post and why it will help them in their lives. What problem are you solving with this post? Let them know, and they’ll be more likely to check it out. 

Don’t forget to Pin It!

Last, but not least, don’t forget to share your post on Pinterest. This is where you’ll share those pinnable images you created in the steps above. To help my blog posts perform better on Pinterest, I utilize a Pinterest Business Account and a program called Tailwind. Tailwind lets me schedule my pins to be shown periodically in the feeds of my followers and those that I want to become followers. Find out more about why I love Tailwind here.

 

Whew! You’ve done it. You’ve had an idea for a blog post, you’ve written it, checked off everything you need to do before you publish a blog post, published it, and now you’ve shared it across the internet. Now you can take a deep breath and get ready to do it all again next week! 

I love using my Content Creation method to batch create my blog posts each month. I’m able to create more easily this way and it lightens my stress load. If you want more business coaching from me, check out my Money Makers coaching group here. It’s an amazing group of women who are working hard to build their businesses. Join us!