Before upload
Confirm the article title, title tag, meta description, slug, headings, excerpt, source links, and internal link targets before the draft enters WordPress.
This prevents the editor from making SEO decisions while also trying to format the page.
Inside WordPress
Check formatting, table of contents if used, categories, tags, featured image, alt text, schema plugin fields, canonical settings, and plugin-specific SEO fields.
Make sure the visible H1, SEO title, and URL slug work together without repeating the same phrase unnaturally.
Internal links
Add links from the article to relevant service pages, guides, comparisons, or product pages. Then identify existing posts or pages that should link back after publication.
This second step is easy to miss, but it is often what helps a new article become discoverable inside the site.
Source and approval checks
Before publishing, confirm that important claims have sources, source links work, and any client-sensitive statements are approved.
If the article uses AI-assisted drafting, review factual claims and examples before editing only for tone.
Preview before publishing
Preview the page on desktop and mobile, test links, check image rendering, scan headings, and confirm the meta description in the SEO plugin.
Also check that the article has the right author, publish date, category, and no accidental noindex setting.
After publishing
Open the live URL, confirm the canonical, test key links again, and add the planned links from existing related pages.
Then add the page to any relevant resource hub or topic cluster page so it is not only reachable from the blog feed.