Every WordPress site has a draft that sits for weeks. It may be a news story waiting on one confirmation, a guide with outdated screenshots, or a post that was written before the facts changed. The problem is rarely the writing. It is the missing process between the last edit and the publish button. This checklist is built for writers and editors who need a repeatable way to move an editorial draft to live without skipping the checks that cause corrections later.
Make the lead pass the five-W test
The first paragraph decides whether a reader stays. Confirm it answers who, what, when, where and why in plain language. Then test the headline against the lead: if the headline promises a number, a deadline or a specific result, that detail must appear in the first two paragraphs. In practice this means rewriting vague openers. A lead that says “the company recently made changes” forces the reader to hunt for the date; fix it by naming the date and the exact change. The same rule applies to any summary block in the post. If you cannot state the main point in one spoken sentence, the reader will not be able to state it either.
Verify names, dates and figures before formatting
Formatting is the last step, not the first. Before you touch headings, build a fact list: every person, organization, amount, and date in the post, and mark which original source you verified it against. If a draft contains only one named entity, that is a warning signal. Strengthen the fact packet until at least three independent details are confirmed, such as the person’s full name and title, the exact date of the event, and the published page where the information appears. For time-sensitive news, add an “updated as of” line in the post metadata so readers know when you last checked the facts. A correction that happens after publication always costs more than a check that happens before it.
Connect the page title to the SEO title
The page title readers see in search results is not always the headline. Nearly every WordPress site uses an SEO plugin such as Yoast or Rank Math, so the SEO title and description need separate attention. Keep the SEO title under 60 characters and the meta description under 155 characters. Put the most important phrase early in the SEO title, and avoid stacking two similar titles in the same category. A practical habit is to write the SEO description after the content is finished, not before, because the first paragraph often changes while you rewrite. If the SEO panel shows a green rating but the title is truncated in a preview, trust the preview, not the indicator.
Pre-publish checks in a table
| Check | What passes | Fix if it fails |
| Lead | First paragraph names who, what, when, where | Rewrite the lead and recheck the headline |
| Facts | Names, dates and numbers traced to a source | Add the source or remove the claim |
| SEO fields | SEO title under 60 chars, description under 155 chars | Trim and recheck in the SEO panel |
| Media | Every image has alt text and a descriptive file name | Add alt text and rename the file |
| Links | No broken URLs and every source opens correctly | Replace or remove the link |
Use this table as the final gate before you click publish. If more than one row fails, the draft is not ready, and no formatting polish will fix it.
Media, captions and display quality
Images get more attention than most drafts expect. Check three things: the file name, the alt text, and the loading size. A file named IMG_2041.jpg tells the reader nothing and the search engine nothing; rename it before upload, for example wordpress-draft-checklist.jpg. Alt text should describe what is visible in the image, not the keyword phrase. A screenshot needs a caption explaining what the reader should notice in it. Also check the display on a phone: large tables and wide images break the layout on narrow screens, so preview the post in a mobile view before publishing. A useful limitation to remember is that alt text does not help if the surrounding paragraph already says the same thing.
Manual link check versus plugin link check
A source trail is what separates a report from a rumor. Internal links should point to your own older, related posts, and external links should point to primary sources rather than to a page that simply repeats the claim. A link checker plugin can flag broken URLs after publishing, but manual verification is still faster and more accurate on the day of publication. Open each external link in a new tab, confirm that it reaches the expected page, and check that it loads without a warning screen. If a source page is already dead at the time of drafting, find a working alternative or remove the claim that depended on it. A comparison that surprises many editors is that a premium link checker is still no substitute for reading the target page once.
The legal and permissions gate
Even short quotes require attribution, and images found on the open web are rarely free to reuse. For a news post, confirm three things: the quote is short and matches the recording or written statement, the image license covers commercial use, and no private information appears in the text. If the draft includes a quote from a named person, send the exact quote for approval at least one day before publishing. This is not bureaucracy; it prevents the most common correction requests after publication. If the draft contains an uncited claim, mark it now and decide whether to remove it. The safest default is to cut any detail you would not be comfortable defending in an email to a source.
Publish, then verify the live post
Clicking publish is not the end of the workflow. Open the live URL in a private browsing window and check the full page again: the headline, the meta description, the first heading, the image alt text, and the table on a small screen. Confirm that the slug is clean, with no random numbers or duplicate words. Then update internal navigation: find two older posts that can link to the new one, and add those links. For any post that includes dates, deadlines or prices, set a reminder to revisit it in three months and update the stale details. A published draft is not final; it is simply the version you are willing to stand behind today.
Your next step after this checklist
The checklist works only when you run it on a real draft. Open the post that has been sitting in your editor, work through the table one row at a time, and schedule a specific publish time today. A draft is not an asset until it is live, and the highest-value editorial habit is not faster writing; it is a reliable pre-publish routine that catches the small slips before the reader does.