9 things you should always do before publishing a blog post

Once you have spent minutes, hours, even days on a post your probably just want to hit that publish button. It is very temping I must admit. But wait a minute. Are you really making this post as amazing as it can be? To make sure you are I have made a list of 9 things you should do before publishing a post.

ADD SOME IMAGES

No one wants to read just text after text after text. It can get boring! So to spice it up just add some images.  If you like taking photos then I totally recommend showing of some of your killer skills! If you do not like taking photos then that is totally fine as well. There are millions of free stock photos online that you can find. I really recommend pexels or pixabay. They both have super nice looking looking pictures. 

PUT YOUR TEXT INTO SMALLER GROUPS

As I said above no one likes to just read a humongous thing of text. So an awesome way to break it up is by putting the text in paragraphs and small groups of writing.  This is easier for the eyes and also easier to read. You can make each paragraph about a certain subject. This also makes it easier to actually write the post because then you can know what everything is specifically about. 

PROOFREAD

This should really go without saying but a lot of bloggers are really bad at proofreading (including me). When readers find mistakes in a post it makes the blog look very very unprofessional! Which is a bad thing. It can also make the post really hard to read. And when you can barely understand a post with attention spans how they are and how many others posts you can probably find on the subject they will just leave your blog for another one that is actually readable. Like without reading the whole post. And then they will not be able to see your amazingness. With would be very very sad. 

MAKE SURE YOU LIKE WHAT YOU WROTE

Really think about the post and ask yourself the question "Would I like this post? Would I actually read it?". If the answer is yes then congrats you made a post some one actually likes! But if not then don't post it. If even you don't like it then probably no one will. Same thing with jokes. If you don't laugh your own jokes no one will. Unless that person laughs at everything but that is besides the point. 

WRITE A GOOD TITLE

If you don't have a good title no one will look at your post in the first place so a title is very important.  I actually did a whole post here with a lot of tips for making an awesome title. Here is the gist of it. 

1. Have a rough draft.

2. Have numbers!

3. Make it a question.

4. Use fun adjectives.

5. Use solid nouns.

6. Don't lie!

7. Use negatives.

8. Get personal. 

PUT LINKS TO PAST POSTS

Umm free advertising??? Yes, yes, and yes! If you have something in the post that is similar to another post you wrote. Link it! Maybe you say to do something in your post and you have another post that says how to do the thing. Link it! This is very easy and a great way to make readers not only go to one post but a lot of posts on your blog. 

BOLD SOME WORDS

If you want something to stand out then I highly recommend making it bold! If you have a very long post readers are post likely going to scim at first. So if you bold some words making them stand out you are just making it so much easier for your readers to scim your post! Then once your readers finds out how amazing your post is they will go back and read the whole thing. 

ADD A CALL TO ACTION OR QUESTION AT THE END

This is an awesome way to provoke comments or discussion at the end of a post (I did some tips on commenting here). You can add some questions at the end of the post related to the topic at hand. You might have noticed I have started doing this at the end of all my posts. Since I started doing it I have had a lot more comments. 

PREVIEW THE POST

It is very helpful to preview a post in it's native environment to see how your readers will see the post. This can help immensely with proofreading. It can also help you with making sure all images are working and that everything is in it's right place.