How to Write, Format and Publish Your First Blog Post (The Complete Checklist)

TL;DR — the publishing workflow at a glance

I’ve published hundreds of blog posts across multiple sites and I wish I worked through a checklist before I hit publish. Not because I’d forget the big things — the title, the actual content — but because the small things are easy to skip when you’re tired or in a hurry, and the small things are often what separates a post that ranks from one that doesn’t.

This is the checklist I wish I’d had when I started. It covers everything from the first thing to set up before you write a word to what to do in the hour after you publish. Follow it in order the first few times. Once it’s a habit, you might move through it without thinking.

To be honest, I am TERRIBLE at remembering to do all of these things. Once I hear ‘meta descriptions don’t matter’ I’m like ‘cool, let’s never add one!’ Do they matter? Probably not. Maybe though. I’m trying to get better though.

I actually batch the articles so I have the title, featured image etc in there before I write the article – it really helps with sprints.

This walkthrough assumes you’re using WordPress with the block editor and RankMath. If you’re on a different setup, the logic is the same — the specific buttons will be in different places.

Stage 1: Before you write — set up the post first

Most people open a new post and start writing. A better habit is to do the stuff below first. It takes about 5-15 minutes and means you never publish a post and realise the meta description is still blank.

Set your title

Your working title goes in the title field at the top of the post. It doesn’t have to be final — you can adjust it before publishing — but having it there keeps you focused on what the post is actually for while you write.

Your primary keyword should appear in the title, close to the front if possible. “How to Water a Pothos” is better than “Pothos Watering: A Complete Guide to How Often and How Much” — not because it’s longer, but because the keyword appears immediately.

Add your focus keyword in RankMath

Open the RankMath panel on the right-hand side of the editor and add your primary keyword in the Focus Keyword field. This tells RankMath what to check your post against.

A note on the RankMath score: it’s a useful sanity check, not a target to optimise toward. RankMath rewards exact keyword matches, which Google’s algorithm no longer relies on the way it used to. A score of 65 with natural, well-written content will outperform a score of 95 achieved by forcing your keyword into every other sentence. Use it to catch genuine gaps — missing alt text, an empty meta description — and ignore it when it’s asking you to do something that makes the writing worse.

Write your meta description

The meta description is the short paragraph that appears under your title in search results. Google doesn’t always use it — sometimes it pulls a different snippet from the page — but it takes thirty seconds to write and there’s no downside to having a good one. Keep it under 160 characters, make it clear what the post covers, and include your primary keyword naturally.

Write it before you draft the article, not after, because it forces you to be clear about what the post is actually promising the reader.

Add your featured image

If you’re creating featured images in Canva, a template you can update quickly is worth setting up once and reusing. It also makes your images recognisably yours across the site, which builds visual brand consistency without much effort.

A note on sizing: the standard recommended size for a featured image is 1200 x 628px. That’s the Open Graph ratio, which is what gets pulled when your post is shared on social media or appears in a link preview. It’s wide enough to display well in most WordPress themes and recognisable across platforms.

If you also want a Pinterest-friendly image, that’s a separate size — 1000 x 1500px, portrait orientation. Pinterest heavily favours the taller format. Most bloggers who take Pinterest seriously have two images per post: one landscape featured image for the blog and social sharing, and one portrait image for Pinterest. Having a Canva template for each means the extra image takes about two minutes once the design is set up.

One thing worth knowing: for Google Discover (the content feed on Android and Chrome), large natural photos tend to perform better than text-heavy graphics. If you ever want to optimise for that, a version of your featured image with a real photo rather than a dark branded background is worth testing – it doesn’t really work for this niche, but it’s something I’ll bear in mind for the Pothos site.

Stage 2: Writing — structure as you go

Use H2s and H3s from the start

Don’t write a wall of text and add headings afterwards. Structure as you write. In the WordPress block editor, every paragraph is its own block — click the block type icon on the left of any block to switch it between paragraph, H2, and H3. You can also use the toolbar that appears at the top of a selected block.

H2s are your main section headings. H3s are subpoints within a section. Your primary keyword should appear in at least one H2. Your People Also Ask questions from the keyword research phase map directly to H2 and H3 headings — use them.

Write the content

Write naturally. Your keyword cluster sits in a document somewhere — glance at it after you’ve drafted a section, not while you’re writing it. The goal is prose that reads well and answers the question thoroughly. You can check keyword placement in the edit pass, not the first draft.

Short paragraphs. One idea per paragraph. Your readers are on mobile more often than not, and a five-line paragraph that looks manageable on a desktop looks like a wall on a phone screen.

Add an FAQ section near the end

An FAQ section serves two purposes. It catches the People Also Ask questions you haven’t fully answered in the body of the post, and it’s where RankMath’s FAQ schema lives — which can earn you expanded search result listings with the questions visible directly in Google. Google say they don’t use it any more, but they say a lot of things.

If using RankMath, add the FAQ block from the block inserter (the + icon), type your questions and answers directly into the block, and RankMath handles the schema markup automatically. Aim for four to six questions. Write the answers in full sentences, as if someone asked you the question directly, because that’s exactly what AI Overviews and voice search pull from.

Stage 3: Formatting — before you preview

Add images with alt text

Images break up the text, give readers something to look at, and — with good alt text — send additional relevance signals to Google.

For every image: upload it, click on it to open the block settings on the right, and fill in the Alt Text field. Describe what’s actually in the image. Include your keyword if it fits naturally — don’t force it if it doesn’t. “A golden pothos in a terracotta pot on a white windowsill” is good alt text. “Pothos pothos care pothos plant” is not.

If you’re making images specifically for Pinterest sharing, size them at 1000 x 1500px (2:3 ratio) so they work on both your blog and as Pinterest pins without cropping. Not every image needs to be Pinterest-sized, but having at least one per post makes sharing easier.

Add internal links

Internal links connect your articles to each other, help Google understand your site structure, and keep readers on your site longer. Add them as you write or in a dedicated pass after you’ve drafted the post — whichever works better for you.

The fastest workflow in WordPress: select the anchor text (the words you want to turn into a link), press Cmd+K on Mac or Ctrl+K on Windows, and start typing the title of the article you want to link to. WordPress will search your existing posts and pages. Select the right one and press Enter. The link is done (if the anchor text is pretty relevant to the article I’m linking, I do Cmd+C, Cmd+K, then Cmd+V. It’s very satisfying, don’t know why).

Link to articles that are relevant to what you’re saying at that point — not just whatever is in the internal links field of your content matrix. The matrix tells you which links are planned; the prose tells you where they fit naturally. Those aren’t always the same sentence.

Add a closing call to action

End the post with somewhere to go next. That’s usually either the article that logically follows this one, a link back to the relevant pillar post, or an opt-in for your email list. Pick one. A post that ends abruptly sends the reader back to Google — a post with a clear next step keeps them on your site.

Stage 4: Pre-publish checks

Preview the post

Click Preview in the top right and look at the post as a reader would see it on both desktop and mobile. Check:

• Headings are the right size and in the right order
• Images are loading and positioned correctly
• No formatting has gone strange (a common block editor quirk)
• The featured image appears correctly at the top
• The FAQ section is rendering as expected

Mobile is especially worth checking. A formatting issue that’s barely noticeable on desktop can make a post unreadable on a phone.

Check categories and tags

Assign the post to the right category before publishing (I aim to do this at the beginning, but always forget). Categories are how your site is organised — they should map to the silos in your content matrix. Tags are optional and widely misused; if you’re not sure what to do with them, leave them blank for now. I have never used tags in my life.

Final RankMath check

Open the RankMath panel and run through the suggestions. Fix anything that’s an actual gap — missing meta description, no keyword in the first paragraph, images without alt text. Ignore suggestions that would require making the writing worse. Close the panel and publish.

Stage 5: After you publish

Update your content matrix

Open your content matrix and mark the article as published with the date. This takes thirty seconds and keeps your planning document accurate. You want to be able to look at the matrix at any point and know exactly what’s live, what’s drafted, and what hasn’t been started.

Add links from existing articles

This is the step most people skip and it’s one of the most valuable. Go to the articles in your content matrix that are flagged as linking to this new post. Open each one, find a natural place to add a link, and add it using the same Cmd+K workflow.

If you’ve built your internal link map as part of the content matrix (see the content planning article), you’ll know exactly which existing posts should link here. If you haven’t, spend five minutes thinking about which published articles a reader of this new post might have arrived from, and add links from those.

One or two incoming links from existing articles is far more useful than no incoming links at all, which is what most new posts get because the step was skipped.

Publishing is not the finish line

One thing worth saying clearly: a published post is not a finished post. It’s a live draft.

The information will need updating as your niche evolves. The affiliate links will change as you find better products. The FAQ section should grow as you learn what questions your readers actually ask. The internal links will multiply as you publish more articles.

The biggest regret I have about Planet Houseplant is that I kept publishing new articles instead of going back to improve what was already there. A leaner site with well-maintained articles outperforms a sprawling one with outdated information and broken links. Once your content matrix is built, schedule time to revisit old posts — not just to write new ones.

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Frequently asked questions

What to read next

If you haven’t planned which posts to write and in what order yet, How to Build a Blog Content Plan (And Actually Stick to It) is the step before this one.

Once your first few posts are live, Article 27: How to Write a Blog Post That Ranks on Google goes deeper on the writing and structure decisions that affect whether your posts get found.