Before You Hit Publish
6 checks for publishing your blogged content.
1. Is my copy free of spelling, grammatical, and punctuation errors?
Publish copy that is full of writing mistakes and people take you less seriously. Many content management systems (CMS) have spell-check in them, but you will still want to give your copy a read for grammar and punctuation.
2. Does it sound good?
Proofread for flow, clarity, and style. Don’t ramble or write tersely. Instead, make sure that your copy is engaging, relevant, and in line with your established identity.
3. Is the formatting okay?
Does it look right? Are you being consistent in fonts, sizes, and layouts across each post? This is where knowing just enough HTML and CSS comes in handy�to understand how websites make structures like bullet point lists, links, and headlines.
4. Do the links work?
It’s so disappointing as a user to click on a link only to find it’s broken. Spare your audience and test beforehand!
5. Are my file sizes light?
Slow load speeds can cause users to bounce right off your site. Be sure that any media you embed is optimized for the Web.
6. Am I ready to promote?
If you don’t have promotion tactics in place for your content upon publication, how will you plan on people finding it?
Here are a few tools for doing just this:
Grammar Tips:
http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
HTML for Blogging Resources:
http://weblogs.about.com/od/bloggingtools/tp/ResourcestoLearnHTML.htm
File Size Optimizer:
http://www.smushit.com/ysmush.it/
Online Image Resizing:
http://www.resizr.com/