Content Review Checklist

Trace each numeric claim back to the originating report — not a secondary article that quotes it. Industry-survey numbers older than 24 months should either be refreshed or flagged in the draft as dated.

For original interviews, get email confirmation of the quote as it will appear. For pulled quotes from public sources, link to the source and confirm the speaker, role, and date are correct.

Pricing, plan tiers, feature availability, and integration lists drift between drafting and publish. Cross-check with PMM or the latest release notes before approving.

Any superlative or comparative claim ("the fastest", "#1 in category", "reduces cost by 40%") needs a substantiation file under the Lanham Act. Either back it with cited evidence or rewrite to a non-comparative statement.

Send the draft plus substantiation file to the legal reviewer with the specific claims highlighted. Do not proceed to publish staging until legal returns a documented sign-off.

Apply AP style or your documented house style — capitalization of product names, serial commas, numerals vs. spelled-out, em dash spacing. Drift between writers is the most common cause of inconsistent-feeling content.

Read the intro and one mid-section aloud. If the cadence drifts toward generic SaaS-marketing register ("unlock", "empower", "in today's landscape"), rewrite. The voice rubric in Frontify or your brand book is the reference.

TOFU posts shouldn't push a demo CTA; MOFU shouldn't gate behind "talk to sales." Match the CTA to the persona's likely intent at this stage. Confirm CTA placement: top-half, mid-content, end.

WCAG 2.1 AA basics: heading levels in order (no H2 jumping to H4), link text descriptive (not "click here"), no color-only meaning. Run the page through axe DevTools or WAVE before approving.

Target keyword from the SEO brief should appear in the title tag, H1, URL slug, meta description, and within the first 100 words. Avoid keyword stuffing — natural placement only.

Title under 60 characters, meta description 140-160. Both should reflect search intent — informational, navigational, or transactional. Preview in the SERP simulator (Ahrefs or Mangools) before approving.

Two to three internal links to topically related pages — pillar pages or adjacent cluster posts. Anchor text should be descriptive, not "learn more." Check that destination pages return 200, not redirects.

Every image needs descriptive alt text (not "image1.jpg"). Compress to under 200KB where possible — Core Web Vitals (LCP) suffer with heavy hero images. Featured image sized 1200×630 for social preview.

Run the staging URL through Google's Rich Results Test. Article schema, author, datePublished, and image fields should validate without errors. Fix warnings before publish.

Every image traces to a license — Getty, Unsplash+, in-house DAM, or original creation. Note any AI-generated visuals; the FTC's evolving guidance on AI imagery may require disclosure depending on context.

Headers, body, callouts, and CTA buttons should match the brand book HEX values. Webfont fallbacks render correctly. Pull any one-off inline styles back into the global stylesheet.

Real-device check via BrowserStack or a physical phone — not just the Chrome devtools toggle. Verify CTAs are tappable, images don't overflow, embedded videos play, and tables are scrollable rather than truncated.

Run PageSpeed Insights against the staging URL. LCP under 2.5s, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1. Heavy hero images and unoptimized embeds are the usual culprits when scores fail.

If the post mentions a partner, affiliate link, or paid endorsement, FTC Endorsement Guides require a clear, conspicuous disclosure — not buried in a footer or hashtag pile. "#ad" or "Sponsored by [brand]" near the top is the bar.

Stock licenses cover the intended use (web, social, paid). Music in embedded video has sync rights. Quoted text under fair use is short and properly attributed.

If the post has a gated download or newsletter signup, the form links to the privacy policy, the consent checkbox is unchecked by default (GDPR), and the CMP (OneTrust, Cookiebot) gates any tracking pixels until consent.

For regulated-industry content (financial services, health, pharma), capture timestamped legal approval. Slack DMs don't count as audit trail — record the reviewer name, decision, and any conditions in the data field below.

Make every edit legal flagged, then send the revised draft back for a second pass. Do not move to publish until the reviewer confirms the edits resolved their concerns.

Apply the team's UTM convention (source, medium, campaign, content) to every CTA and tracked outbound link. Drift between writers is how attribution reports become uncomparable across campaigns.

Use the GA4 DebugView or Tag Assistant to confirm page_view, scroll, and any custom conversion events fire on the correct trigger — not on page load when they should fire on submit. Mis-mapped events distort downstream attribution.

After publish, request indexing via GSC's URL inspection tool. Confirm the canonical URL matches the published one and there's no accidental noindex from the staging environment.