61-Point Content Writing Checklist for Optimizing Blog Posts

Before you publish your next blog post, use this content writing checklist to make sure that you optimize your content both for readers and search engines.

Writing a great blog post that gets shared and linked to is both an art and a science.

This complete content writing checklist will ensure that you don’t miss out on the little things that make  whole lot difference:

• Content writing checklist
• SEO writing checklist
• Content Marketing Checklist

Checklist for Writing Blog Posts

1. Deep Keyword and Topic Research
2. Create a Starter Headline to guide you
3. Define your post-specific audience
4. Define your post-specific purpose
5. Come up with your primary keyword
6. Use a few Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords
7. Minimum of 1000 words
8. Use of Short and Sweet Sentences
9. Use of active voice in your writing
10. Action-ability of Your Content
11. Primary Keyword used in the headline
12. Primary keyword in image files names
13. Primary Keyword in Images Alternate Tags
14. Primary keyword in at least one subheading
15. Use secondary keywords in the body
16. All keywords are naturally used (not forced)
17. Posts Illustrations e.g. analogies, examples
18. Visual Content: Add Supporting graphics
19. Proper sourcing and citations
20. Compress images before uploading
21. Avoid image copyright infringement
22. Write an inviting meta description
23. Include primary keyword in meta description
24. Primary keyword in the first 100 words
25. Link to relevant and authoritative sites
26. Internally link to your best related content
27. Use clean simple URLs in all your posts
28. Primary keyword in your post URLs
29. Restrict meta description to 320 characters
30. Use power words in your post headline
31. Restrict your blog title to 60 characters
32. Aim for 0.5 to 1.5% keyword density
33. Monitor using Rankmath SEO plugin
34. Have a strong Call to Action at the end
35. Proofread your post for errors
36. Write additional 10 or more blog titles
37. Select the most efficient title
38. Break your post with subheadings H2 & H3
39. Optimize for social sharing
40. Benefits-focused writing
41. Visually appealing: layout & white space
42. Right category and right tagging
43. Set Featured Image
44. At least one pinnable image
45. Content upgrade where applicable
46. Proper blog post marketing plan
47. Simple and clear language
48. Optimized for readability
49. Preview your post before publishing
50. Click to tweet quotable blocks
51. Captivating Excerpts if your layout uses them
52. Offers complete solution to a single problem
53. Is it Evergreen?
54. Introduction has a hooking effect
55. Every word has earned its place
56. No fluff and bluff. Ensure your content has substance
57. Benefits-focused writing
58. Blog post monetization: affiliate links etc.
59. Affiliate disclosures where applicable
60. Do a final edit
61. Schedule for publication and marketing

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