Free Checklist: What to do before and after each brilliant blog post.

When you’re a history blogger, writing your brilliantly captivating blog post is just one part of the process. And, my word doesn’t it sometimes feel like each week it takes forever to get from your initial blog post idea to totally finishing it with publishing, pins and posting demands.

But, to get as many eyes on your blog as possible, I’m afraid there are certain inescapable tasks to do before and after each blog.

To make life easier, and save you time, I’ve put together an easy checklist below for you to follow.

Here’s why doing these tasks before and after each blog post is worth the effort:

They all help your history blog grow
They keep the search engines happy, with Search Engine Optimisation techniques
It encourages connections and feedback (which leads to growth)
They support getting the best results on social media platforms.

Now, if when you read on you find yourself scratching your head about terms like keywords? hashtags? or SEO?, don’t worry as there’s some further reading at the bottom of this post.

Here we go…

The Brilliant Blog Post Checklist

Before you publish your blog post

Research a keyword with low competition like ‘ancient Egypt facts’ using a free tool like ‘Ubersuggest’
Create and use a few variations of your keyword to avoid stuffing like ‘mega facts about ancient Egypt’
Break that text up! Headings, sub-headings, images, lists and quotes
Add a question at the end to provoke discussion
Put an explicit sentence linking to a related blog post title. Let’s help those web spiders crawl!
Create an enticing post title using your keyword like ‘The 7 Ancient Eqypt Facts You’ll Think Are Fake”
Find/create a sparkling image for Pinterest + Social Media. Try Unsplash or Pixabay then use Canva. Include the name of your blog post
Save your image under the name of your keyword.
Set your feature image (WordPress) and use your keyword for the ‘alt-text’
Tell people where and how they can contact you
Add your blog to a relevant category. (Or, first create category pages so people can search! : )
Check your SEO (Try Yoast plugin), preview and proofread.

OK, PUNCH IT CHEWIE!

(That’s Star Wars speak for ‘hit publish’)

After you’ve published your blog post

Before your forget, jot down any ways this blog post could be repurposed. Such as, a freebie product, a YouTube video script, a deeper dive blog post using remaining research or using all the images you found in a Pinterest board?
Schedule your post to appear at ‘the best time’ on your social media accounts making best use of hashtags. (Schedulers help!)
Pin your post image onto Pinterest
Create an Instagram Story or ‘taster fact’ for Facebook Live to generate a buzz about your new post
Send the post to your email list or later as a collection of posts you may have missed
Respond to comments
After a few weeks send out your post on Twitter and after a few months Pinterest
Check your analytics over the next few months to see what engagement and search rate it had.