Blogging: What to do before publishing your post.

For some weird reasons, blogging gets me in my feelings; most times, the first few seconds after publishing a post, my heart sinks, then beats so fast, and finally, I scream (sometimes in my head), “we’ve gone live!!”.

All this drama is not due to fear but because I am a drama queen 👑.

On a lighter note, let me share a short story with you. Back in 2017, when I was actively vlogging, I interviewed a friend on a not-so-good day. During the interview, I kept apologising to her for being tired, and of course, she understood. Two days later, I edited the video and published it on my YouTube channel, only for her to message me about the error I made in the video.

Guess what, guys, one of the times I said, “omg, I’m so tired”, was in the published video! Ladies and gents, when I saw what had happened, I became Elsa- the ice queen; I felt a sudden kind of cold I could not explain. However, I took the video down and uploaded a better version the next day! That story still gives me the chills!!

Since that awkward experience, I have always critically analysed my posts before hitting the publish button. That isn’t to say there won’t be times that some unfortunate things may happen but to plan again such; it’s advisable to go through the tips below before hitting publish.

What to do before publishing your post for a better blogging experience.

1. Check your SEO score on Yoast SEO: You may be wondering what Yoast SEO is? I believe every blogger should install this plugin to improve their SEO score. According to wordpress.org, since 2008, Yoast SEO has helped millions of websites worldwide to rank higher in search engines.
2. Use Grammarly to edit your article: No matter how excellent your writing skills are, there might be times that some paragraphs will sound correct to you till you go through your article weeks later. The purpose of Grammarly is to highlight errors in your writing, check plagiarism and reconstruct your sentences.
3. Fact-checking: I always advise people to be sure about the information they post. Before you publish factual content, be sure to do your assignment. Check the dates, actual events that occurred, and the people involved so you won’t post the wrong information.
4. Blog title accuracy: Just in case it occurs to you to change your blog title. Make sure you do so before publishing so that your readers won’t be confused about the difference in the title and content.
5. Blog pictures: There was a time I didn’t remember to add some recent photos to a blog post. Although it didn’t affect the article, I just regretted not doing it earlier. You must check the pictures you upload on your blog post.
6. Links: One of the benefits of the Yoast SEO plugin is that it reminds you to add an internal link, external links, affiliate links to your post.
7. Writing expressions: This is mainly for storytellers and lifestyle bloggers. Use subject-specific vocabulary, “punctuation marks”, idiomatic expressions, fancy fonts and so on to emphasize exciting paragraphs. Blogging is fun when you are unapologetic about your writing style.
8. Sponsored post: If you are publishing a sponsored post, be sure to follow your client’s specifications —for instance, word count, keyword density, links and so on.

Summary

Once you are satisfied with your content and you publish it, you can always amend/update it later if need be. If you’re new to blogging, these are simple steps to make your journey relatively easy.

If you love this blog, kindly share the posts with your friends and loved ones. It will mean a lot to me to know your thoughts in the comments. Love, Grace