photo credit: justmakeit
Ahh, the submit button on WordPress.
It’s kind of like the finishing line of a crazed marathon sometimes, when you click on the ‘publish’ button and see your latest article heading off in to the World Wide Web.
It gives you a feeling of satisfaction to know that you’ve updated your site, published some great content, and you’re hopefully going to get some decent comments flooding in.
The normal course of action for most of us when we publish an article, is to give ourselves some kind of reward.
This could be popping out for a bit, grabbing a coffee, or heading off to accomplish something simple from our ‘To Do’ list for the day.
Jumping on to that ‘publish’ button is the last step we take before congratulating ourselves, right?
BUT WAIT!
Is there anything we should be doing before we eagerly pounce to publish?
In fact, there are a few things we can do as a matter of course that could really improve our blog posting activity.
While I know it may seem a bit frustrating to delay the gratification of going straight to ‘live’, have you considered some of the following options rather than simply doing the usual write-publish-relax routine.
Check out some of the ways we can improve our publishing process…
Proof It
Don’t groan!
I know the thought of going back over your post and reading it again fills you with dread and boredom.
But your customers expect a well-written, clear article with no errors in it.
You owe it to your client base and your business to make sure what you’re about to publish is clear of typos, makes sense, and does what it needs to be doing.
Publish It Somewhere Else
You don’t have to publish everything you produce on your own site.
Take a look around at competitors, affiliates and fellow bloggers and see if they might want to use your material as a guest blogger instead.
This gives you a great backlink to your site, and opens your business up to potentially hundreds of new readers.
Pop In Some Links
When you proof your article, remember to look out for places where you can add in links to previous posts, affiliate shouts or mentions, or other valuable links.
We all know that these enhance your site for SEO purposes, so make it a part of your pre-publishing routine to see how you can increase referrals back to other materials.
Save It
As bloggers, our business activity ebbs and flows.
Consider setting a few good posts aside for the times when you’re too busy or stressed to keep your blog up to date, and you’ll be able to maintain a strong schedule of publishing even when you’re up against the wall with other deadlines.
SEO It
Make sure you follow my free guide:
12 Steps To Boost The SEO Of Your Blog Posts
Preview It
Make sure you hit the ‘Preview’ button before the ‘Publish’ button…just to make sure every looks and works exactly as you expect.
Every time you write a new post, think about how you can improve your client communications, enhance the post itself, or get the best possible leverage from what you’ve just created.
This is your resource, and it’s a valuable asset.
Give it the consideration it deserves before you automatically rush to the ‘publish’ button and make that cup of coffee!
What pre-publish tasks do you do?
Please share your views in the comments below.
Andrew is a website builder and helps small businesses with their on-line presence…so they can grow their customer list and increase sales. That’s it! That’s what we do each and every day.
The most important task after publishing your new post is to share it on social media and in your connections. Building backlinks, Google say they don’t care for it, but I wish they could stand up on their words.
Thanks for this amazing article.
Vivek
Tasks AFTER publishing your post is a completely different list altogether. Here we are discussing what to do BEFORE!
Andrew
Hey Andrew,
Nice post and Thanks for sharing this post with us. Yes, before publishing our post we have to read it completely as it really helps to remove errors in it. Other point you mentioned above are also very important.
Proofing and previewing is something I do all the times. And being not a native English speaker there are always errors left but at least at an acceptable level. WP Seo then takes care for the rest, more or less.
Good advices as always Andrew.
Andrea
My wife has to proof read mine. I cannot see my own mistakes.
Andrew
Something I always do is to check if I have used any of my primary keywords for other pages in the latest post. If so I try to include links to them to help the internal link building.
Johan,
That’s a good approach and can help with SEO.
Andrew
Internal linking is a great way to pass Page Rank around your site.
There are a few plugins you can use to do this automatically if you use WordPress.org
I’m yet to find anything for WordPress.com though sadly.
Mark,
What plugins have you used to do this with WordPress.org?
WordPress.com should not be used if you are serious about your on-line business.
Andrew
I always check spelling and grammatical errors before publishing my each and every post. Another thing I often do is interlinking new posts with old one, as it helps us to rank better in search engines.
Lakhyajyoti
Do you ever edit old posts and interlink to new ones?
Andrew
Now i will keep these points in my mind before publishing my blog. Thnks for the great info.
Great shot Andrew, I’m very appreciate your tips, Thanks for sharing this post.
Corinne
I agree – wait a while rather than think ‘out of the way’. Must admit, I do sometimes think like that!
Andrew
Google+ is key product of Google, so share your post after publish to this social network will make Google index your article faster.
Repo
You also talk about AFTER publishing – not relevant to this post. We are talking about tasks to do BEFORE publishing.
Andrew
Thanks for the information shared…. Blogging in right fashion is very important and I will keep in mind the points you discussed…. Sharing the blog post in social media is a must these days….
As a newbie blogger like me, your advice on this article very useful for me. I also read your article about 12 Steps To Boost The SEO Of Your Blog Posts. Amazing article too.
Thank you so much
Jonny
Thanks for visiting and commenting. I’m glad you liked the “12 Steps To Boost The SEO Of Your Blog Posts” article.
Andrew
All the points described here is very useful and important also. Everyone should use these tips before a blog post. Thanks for sharing such a nice blog.
Hey Andrew
I am totally agree with your post. Blog post is only the thing which generate the king for a blog. As we already say That content is ” King ” . Right???
I always love to read those posts which gives all the needed information. and this post is of that kind. Can you please tell me that what is your next goal??? so that I can also inspire from that goal.
Take care and Keep enjoying
Chetan Gupta
Chetan
I have several next goals.
I have just launched my latest kindle book:
The A-Z of Successful Business Blogging
https://www.webuildyourblog.com/successful-business-blogging/
I have 2 more books written, all ready to publish.
Then I want to double the number of clients I have by year end.
And you?
Andrew
Thanks for the great post.
After reading your post, I realize I should start writing guest blogging now. That’s the only thing I am not doing right now. I think that will help me and my blog for sure. 🙂
Payal
Is anything stopping you from guest posting?
Andrew
Yeap, guest posting is a good suggestion, especially if you feel that the article doesn’t belong to your niche.
Malcolm
So are you saying you would write a guest post on a different subject to your blogs niche and have it published…with a link back to your site?
That sounds odd…or perhaps I’m missing something?
Thanks.
Andrew
In fact, yes. For example, if my blog is exclusively dedicated to website builders, but I’ve written a post comparing WordPress and 2 most popular website builders(cons, pros, etc.) -there’s no category on my website for this post, but I can submit it as a guest post to a blog that deals with WP. I think this should work 🙂
Ah, Malcolm – I suppose I would class that as a relevant niche rather than “doesn’t belong”.
I was thinking you would write a guest blog post about dog training and have it linked back to your site on website building.
Thanks for clarifying.
Andrew
Actually I have the opposite problem. Some of my articles stay as drafts for days before I submit the publish button! I tend to spend too much time proof reading, adding fancy bullets, previewing, changing styles subtly. I guess I am a perfectionist. the problem is I spend like 4 hours writing the article (2500 words is my average) and another four hours to do all the checking.
I really need to start writing shorter articles. 🙁
Arthur
Checking the articles before publishing is a good thing – it shows you want to share great content.
A few short ones might be worth publishing as well – see what reaction you get.
Andrew
THe problem is time, of course. If I had all the time in this world, I am such a perfectionist I would likely spend as whole month upon one article, but there’s so much to do in promoting a website: Keyword research, SEO, writing, promoting…
Managing my time efficiently is my weakest point (I think) and my bad temper too perhaps…LOL 🙂
Arthur
I understand and there is so much to do to promote your site.
I think we could all improve our time keeping. At the end of the day, sometimes I think…”What have I done today?”
Andrew
And the worst answer to that is when you find out you’ve spent 10 hours reading other blogs, watching YouTube videos and chatting on facebook! I think that making a schedule and sticking to it should be the number one commandment of any blogger.
Arthur
I got to say I am fairly disciplined. I spend 15 minutes on Facebook and Twitter in the morning and in the evening. That’s it. Outside of those times, it’s closed down. I have too much work and promotion to do!
Andrew