Publishing guide

A WordPress Pre-Publish Checklist for Teams That Move Fast

Fast publishing teams do not need more meetings. They need a checklist that catches the preventable mistakes before a post goes live.

The core checks

• Featured image is set.
• Image alt text is present where needed.
• Excerpt or meta description is filled in.
• Category and tags match the site structure.
• Outbound source links are present when the article depends on external reporting.
• Affiliate or sponsored disclosures are present when relevant.
• Word count meets the site's minimum standard.

Make the checklist part of the editor

A checklist in a separate document gets ignored. The best place for publishing checks is inside the WordPress editing workflow, close to the publish button.

Allow overrides, but make them intentional

Sometimes a post should publish without every field. Breaking news, urgent corrections, and special formats can be exceptions. The key is that overrides should be visible and intentional.