TAL .007: My Exact Content Writing Checklist

In this letter, I’m going to share the exact pre-submission checklist I use with both my content writers and my clients.

1. The Problem

Too many teams view their content writers as ‘creatives’.

Creative = someone who relies on natural skill and artistry to create magic

But creativity is sporadic.

It can’t be relied upon to consistently output excellent content.

If you leave writers to their own devices, your content’s efficacy will fluctuate wildly.

So, to scale your content efforts, you need systems that standardise output.

2. The Solution

Most content quality systems I see are very high-level.

They include things like ‘show, don’t tell’ and ‘focus on benefits, not features’.

Those recommendations matter, but I’ve found hyper-tactical systems to be just as important.

These systems specify actions that do or don’t need to be taken, which makes accountability easy.

They also lighten cognitive loads, which frees up writers to focus on thinking outside the box.

One set of systems I have involves pre-writing, pre-submission, post-submission, and post-upload checklists.

Scroll down for my pre-submission checklist.

3. Implementation

Tech Needed: Project management software like Asana or Trello

Ease of Uptake: Very Easy

1. Add the checklist to your content writing tasks. If possible, use something like Asana’s sub-tasks feature for each item.
2. Brief your content writers on your new expectations. Make sure they understand completing the checklist is mandatory.
3. During editorial reviews, compare flagged errors with the checked list items. If any errors should have been caught by completing the list items, follow up with your writers.
4. Check the efficacy of the pre-submission checklist by evaluating metrics like average editing time after a couple of weeks.

Pre-submission Checklist for Content Writers

• Does my deliverable match the criteria in the brief?
  • If not, can I reasonably justify my decision to deviate from the brief?
• Does my deliverable meet style requirements?
  • If no style guide exists, does my deliverable follow the same style conventions as existing approved examples?
• Does my deliverable meet brand voice requirements?
  • If no brand voice guide exists, does my deliverable use roughly the same voice as existing approved examples?
• Does my deliverable match formatting requirements?
• Are my headings semantically correct?
• Have I checked my deliverable using Grammarly? Note: don’t follow Grammarly’s advice blindly; it’s not always correct.
• Have I checked my deliverable using Hemingway App? Note: don’t follow HA blindly; the ‘very hard to read’ classification is the most relevant.
• If I’ve referenced hard facts or statistics, have I linked to the primary source that I obtained them from?
• If I’ve written a blog longer than 1,000 words, have I added an accordion table of contents using shortcode markup?
• If my deliverable is designed to rank in organic search (SEO):
  • Have I integrated the keyword research into my writing – specifically, in the title tag, first paragraph, and headings?
  • If no keyword research document exists, have I either requested such a document or done my own research?
  • Have I included at least two relevant internal links?
  • Does my deliverable meet Google’s experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust (EEAT) guidelines?
  • Does my deliverable cover the topic comprehensively?
  • Does my deliverable add information that can’t be found elsewhere in the SERPs for my target keyword?
• If my deliverable will be published on a website, have I included a title tag, a meta-description, and a URL slug?
• If my deliverable is designed to showcase thought leadership, have I made a well-supported argument for either a new destination or a new route to an existing destination?
• If my deliverable is designed to showcase subject matter expertise, have I written in a way that sophisticated readers (people with a high degree of subject knowledge) will find credible and helpful?