Content Marketing Checklist

Tie the brief to a named persona from the messaging house — not a generic 'B2B buyer.' Confirm funnel stage (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU) so the SEO and CTA work downstream lines up. Mismatched persona is the most common reason a published piece underperforms despite ranking.

Pull volume, KD, and SERP composition from Ahrefs or Semrush. Match intent (informational, commercial, transactional) to the SERP — don't write a how-to when the SERP is dominated by product pages. Note 2-3 related queries to weave into H2s.

Confirm the piece fits an existing pillar or warrants a new cluster. Check Search Console for cannibalization risk against pages already ranking for the target keyword — if a current page ranks 5-15, refresh it instead of publishing a new one.

Reserve the slot in Notion / Airtable / Asana with writer, editor, SEO reviewer, and brand reviewer named. Set publish date so distribution channels (email send window, social cadence) don't collide with other launches.

Define what success looks like before publish — organic sessions at 30/90 days, target keyword position, MQLs from gated CTA, scroll depth. Vague 'drive engagement' goals make the post-publish review meaningless.

Writer flags any unverified claims, statistics, or quoted sources inline for fact-check. Match brand tone of voice from the messaging house — not the writer's personal style. Hit the target word count band from the SEO brief.

Check H2/H3 hierarchy, intro hook, CTA placement (top-half, mid-content, bottom), and brand voice. Flag anything that reads like another brand could have written it — those passages are the ones that get skipped.

Every statistic links to a primary source — not a third-party blog citing the source. Quoted experts approve their quote in writing. For health, finance, or legal claims, capture a substantiation file in case of FTC or Lanham Act scrutiny.

Grammar, punctuation, oxford-comma policy per house style. Verify accessibility basics: heading levels nested correctly, link text is descriptive (no 'click here'), no color-only emphasis.

Trigger legal review for: comparative claims naming a competitor, regulated-industry content (health, finance, pharma), customer testimonials with material outcomes, or anything that could be read as an endorsement under FTC Endorsement Guides.

Get timestamped approval from the legal reviewer — Slack DMs don't count as documentation. Attach the signed-off draft and any redlines so the substantiation file is reproducible later.

Target keyword in title, H1, meta description, slug, and first 100 words. 2-3 internal links to related cluster pages. 1-2 outbound links to authoritative primary sources. Meta description under 155 characters and written for CTR, not just keyword stuffing.

Test Article, FAQPage, or HowTo schema in Google's Rich Results Test. Schema errors don't fail the publish but they kill rich-result eligibility — fix them now, not after launch.

Confirm license for every image (stock, original, AI-generated — note AI per evolving FTC guidance). Compress for web (LCP impact under Core Web Vitals). Featured image sized 1200×630 for OG / Twitter cards. Alt text describes content, not 'image of...'.

Use the team's UTM convention document (source / medium / campaign). Drift between writers is the #1 reason GA4 reports become uncomparable. Build via a shared link-builder tool, not by hand.

Stage in WordPress / HubSpot / Webflow / Contentful. Preview on desktop and mobile. Check redirect chain if the slug changed from a prior version. Confirm the canonical URL is correct.

Publish to live, then request indexing in Google Search Console for the URL. Confirm the page appears in the sitemap.xml. Verify the GA4 pageview event fires on load.

Match segment to content topic; don't blast the whole list. Confirm CAN-SPAM physical address in footer and working unsubscribe. For EU recipients, confirm separate GDPR consent — US opt-out and EU opt-in are not interchangeable.

Queue LinkedIn, X, and Facebook posts in Hootsuite / Sprout / Buffer with platform-native copy — not the same blurb cross-posted. UTM tag every link. If a paid boost is planned, set frequency cap and budget pacing before launch.

#ad or 'Paid partnership with [brand]' must appear at the top of the post, not buried in a hashtag stack. Use the platform's native paid-partnership tag where available. Capture the briefing in writing in Aspire / Grin / Tagger so the program ToS is enforceable.

Post in the #content Slack channel with talking points, target persona, and which deal stages it supports. Add to the sales-enablement library (Highspot, Seismic, or shared Drive folder) with proper tagging.

Pull GA4 sessions, time on page, scroll depth, and conversion events. Verify the conversion event is firing on the actual submit, not on an email-blur or page-load — mis-mapped events distort budget allocation.

Confirm indexing in Search Console. Check target keyword position, impressions, and CTR. Pull MQLs sourced to the piece via UTM and CRM source tracking. Note any backlinks earned.

For underperformers ranking 5-15, plan an on-page refresh — strengthen the SERP-intent match, add internal links from higher-traffic pages, and resubmit to Search Console. For pieces that exceeded KPIs, plan repurpose into webinar, sales one-pager, or a short-form video cut.