The Ultimate Blog Checklist

Here is a fantastic checklist that Neil Patel from Quicksprout put together. If you can hit the majority of these points your blog will be a success. Here we go. 

Ask yourself the following questions when crafting a headline:
1. Would someone type my headline into Google? You should do keyword research to make sure that you have a headline that will rank well in Google. 2. Does your headline evoke curiosity? You need people to get curious so that they click. Your post can be brilliant be if no one click they will never know. 3. Is your headline short and to the point? Hit them hard and hit them quick, the whole world is in a hurry. 4. Is it clear? People want to know exactly what they are clicking on, or they will leave. 5. Are you using emotion? If you can stir up some or other emotion with your headline you are on the right track. 6. Does my headline contain good keywords or phrases? If not, you are not going to rank in Google.

Introduction: 

7. Are you hooking your readers? You can do this by asking a question. 8. Is it concise? You don’t want to waffle on here, get into the body as soon as possible. 9. Does it provide a detailed overview? After reading your introduction people must know if it is a good fit for them. 10. Do you have a picture or video? Start your post with some sort of media that will entice the reader to click through.

Body:

11. Did you use subheadings? They make it easier to read the post and readers can skim through quickly. 12. Are your paragraphs fewer than 5 lines? Anything more will seem overwhelming to your readers. 13. Are you creating conversation? You can use words like “you” and “I” so that it comes over like a conversation. 14. Did you italicize questions? Italicize the questions in your post, it gives it a more personal touch. 15. Are you telling a story? Readers get bored if you don’t keep them engaged, nothing does this better than telling a story. 16. Are you using media to enhance your post. This can be video, pictures, info graphics etc. 17. Is it concise? If you are just waffling on no one will read it. 18. Are you trying to be too smart? Don’t use big words just for the sake of it. Write for your readers, it isn’t an university paper. 19. Did you tie in current events? Bring in current news stories and trending topics to keep your blog fresh and current. 20. Which emotion are you appealing to? Pick one or two and use it throughout your post, it must be like a roller coaster ride of emotion! 21. Is the formatting correct? Use bullet points and numbers to break it up and make it more digestible. 22. Did you link to other sites? You can link to other sites where appropriate for your post and ask them via e-mail to share and publish your post on their sites or pages. 23. Did you mention any experts in your post? This will give your post more credibility and you can also ask them to share the piece via their social platforms. It won’t hurt trying. 24. Did you back up your claims? Use statistics and expert quotes to do this. This way you will look like you know what you are talking about.

Conclusion:

25. Did you end the post with a question? This is a great way to get more comments, remember to italicize the question as well. 26. Did you summarize your post in three paragraphs or less? Keep it short and to the point , readers just need the gist from your conclusion. 27. Is my conclusion less than 200 words? If it is longer than that you are just rambling. 28. Did I leave the topic open? Remember that it is your opinion, you should leave it open for discussion. 29. Does it encourage people to read my content? Some readers scroll down to read the conclusion first. If they like what they see, they will read the whole post.

Before publishing ask yourself the following: 

30. Are you publishing during the right time of day? This is a bit of a science, but it’s worth looking into it. 31. Should I publish on my site or someone else? according to Neil , someone Else site is better, check out Quick-sprout to see why. 32. Are you collecting e-mails? You should always be collecting e-mails! 33. Do you have a lead magnet? This is the free gift you give in exchange for their e-mails. It must be quality! 34. Do you have social sharing buttons on your post? Encourage sharing anyway you can. 35. Did you create a list of social profiles? Always ask people to share your content, you can never have enough shares. 36. Are you using social media meta tags? This will work wonders for your organic search results. 37. Did you mention your expert sources? Mention them in your tweets, they might just re-tweet. 38. Did you direct message influences on LinkedIn? This is also a good way to get more free traffic. 39. Did you re-purpose your post? Put it into slides and make a video of it, this will give you loads more traffic for the same amount of work. 40. Did you share the content more than once? You should share it two or three times on social media, not all your followers or fans will see it the first time.

Conclusion: 
You don’t have to hit everything on the list, but the more you do the better. After a while it will get second nature and your posts will attract thousands of readers. Sounds good, doesn’t it?