Most beginning bloggers could use a WordPress Checklist. The majority of writers use WordPress to post their blogs. But while WordPress is super popular, it isn’t always super easy. Certainly not at first.
The thing is, there’s steep learning curve to working with WordPress. And posting the most simple blog post takes a minimum of 32 steps and decisions. Having a WordPress checklist can help.
We’ll be using our recent blog post On-Page SEO: A Guide for Food Bloggers as an example.
We assume that you’re working with the Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress. Everything that we’ll be discussing here is available in the free version of Yoast. (By the way, The Food Writing School is not a Yoast SEO affiliate.)
One reason the Yoast SEO plugin is so helpful is that it’s so specific. It doesn’t just give your post a rating; it details the problem areas and even gives you suggestions as to how to improve them.
Get Your Free 32-step WordPress Checklist.
Click here to download the checklist.
Keyword / Keyword phrase
First thing is to find your keyword or keyword phrase. That’s the word or phrase that people enter into a search engine when they’re trying to find answers to a question or solutions to their problems. By using the same word or phrase, you’re more likely to come up on Google or other search engines when people search.
For our blog post On-Page SEO, our keyword phrase was On-Page SEO. That’s the exact phrase people use when searching for on-page SEO.
Blog Title
Your blog title should be 35 to 40 characters long.
Use the exact match of the keyword phrase at the beginning of the title. (This prevents the keyword from getting cut off if the title gets truncated for some reason.)
Focus Keyword
Enter your keyword in the Focus Keyword space. It should be a keyword you’ve never used before.
If you are repeating a topic, make a slight change.
Instead of reusing On-Page SEO from our example post, we would try On-Page SEO Tips or On-Page SEO Basics.
Slug
Enter your keyword in the Slug space. If you’re using a keyword phrase, try to keep it under four words.
Meta Description
Write and enter a Meta description. Use your keyword phrase in the first half of the first sentence, if possible. Don’t leave this blank. Search engines will pull a meta description from your copy. It might not be the one you want, the one that ranks best for SEO.
Text length
Write at least 300 words. That’s the absolute shortest text length.
We write blog posts that are 2,000 words or longer. We want to provide the greatest value and 300 words aren’t going to allow us to do that.
For On-Page SEO, our text was more than 3,500 words long.
Keyphrase in Introduction
Your keyphrase should appear in the first half of the first paragraph.
Keyphrase density
Aim for .5% to 1% keyword density in your body of copy. That means if you have 1,000 words, the most keyphrases allowed in your copy would be 10.
We use our keyphrase naturally. Then at the end of our writing, if we’re outside of that .5% to 1% guidelines, we make adjustments as needed. We would rather be on the low end of that range.
For On-Page SEO, our keyphrase density was 20. We could have had anywhere from 17 (.5%) to 35 (1%). We were on the lower end of that range, which is comfortable for us.
Image alt attributes
A good alternative attribute helps search engines find images. Describe the image seen in the photo accurately. Include relevant keywords in the description.
Keep it short (less than 125 characters) and accurate. “Chocolate cake sitting on a plate” is fine. You don’t have to say “The image shows …”
Each image, graph, or infographic should have an image alt attribute.
Internal links
Always link to another page or post on your own website. Link to a relevant page or post if at all possible. If there’s nothing relevant, link to a page or post that could use some attention.
Be sure to mark your internal links as no-follow links.
Outbound links
Link to other websites. Do so in a way that makes sense.
Reading ease
Make the reading level 8th or 9th grade. Think of your daily local newspaper. That’s the level you should aim for.
Sentence length
Sentences should not be too long. Twenty words or less per sentence is a good goal.
Paragraph length
Paragraphs should be no longer than four sentences long. Two or three sentences per paragraph are better.
Consecutive sentences
Make sure you vary the way that you start sentences. If you have three or more sentences in a row that start with “Think about …” or “You’ll want to ….” you may want to create a list instead.
Do’s and Don’ts lists often use the words Do or Don’t to start each sentence. It would be better to divide your list in two. One, start with Do:, followed by all of the Do suggestions. The other list start with Don’t:, followed by all of the don’t suggestions.
Make sure that you vary sentence structure. Use simple and compound structures.
Passive voice
Avoid passive voice in your writing. Use an active voice.
Active voice: The children loved the cookies.
Passive voice: The cookies were loved by the children.
Use the free Hemingway App to catch passive voice and other writing errors. (The Food Writing School is not a Hemingway App affiliate.)
Transition words
Use transition words such as first, second, after, before, then, and because. Transition words help move the reader along. They show how one paragraph or idea relates to another.
WordPress Checklist – More Optimizations
Move over to the right side of page, where you see Post and Block.
Sticky Post
Decide if you want to stick the post to the top of the blog page.
This is called making a post sticky.
We have only two sticky posts at a time, usually the two most recent. That means that when we add a new sticky post, we remove the “Stick to the top of the blog” designation for one of the older posts.
Author
If several people work on your website, make sure your name is listed as the author to your posts.
URL Slug
Double-check that your URL slug is correct.
Categories
Select your categories.
Categories help readers find the content they want and need quickly.
Tags
Add your tags.
Tags, like categories, help readers find the content they want and need.
Featured Image
Select your featured image.
We resize one of the images from the post to 600 x 600 pixels when we set it as a featured image.
Excerpt
Enter your excerpt, using your keyword / keyword phrase in the first half of the first sentence. If you don’t write and enter one, the WordPress system will select one for you. Again, it might not be the best one available.
Experiment with the legnth to find your best character limit.
Comments
Decide if you want to allow comments or not.
Allowing comments and encouraging them in your text encourages readers to engage with your post.
Pingbacks
Decide if you want to allow pingbacks or not.
Header Feature Image
Decide if you want to allow Header feature options or not.
Read more about Header Feature Image here.
Single Page/Post Image
Decide if you want to allow Single Page/Post Images or not.
Move to the Block section for the following steps. You’ll have to select a block of text or an image to check it individually.
Alt Attributions
Check that all your images have alt attributions.
Image Alignment
Check that all your images are correctly aligned.
Text Color and Size
Check that all your text is the correct color and size.
By this time you should a reading on Yoast SEO. A green smiley face means good; an orange smiley face means there’s room for improvement; and a red frowny face means your post needs lots of work.
Preview
Check the desktop preview, the table preview and the mobile preview.
It’s important to see your post in all three formats. You want to make sure no important is truncated in the mobile view.
Publish
Click Publish. Choose to publish immediately or publish later.
Conclusion
Use this WordPress checklist to make sure you’ve optimized your blog post and left nothing to chance.
Use checklists for multi-step tasks you perform often. It’s easy to forget a step or leave something on the wrong setting.
If you found this WordPress checklist useful, please visit our post On-Page SEO: A Guide for Food Bloggers for more information on how you can optimize your WordPress posts.
