BACKGROUND
This project was an internal operations tool for a content team. The goal was to give editors a structured, prioritized checklist for reviewing drafts before publication that distinguished between items that should block publication and items that could be fixed after going live.
I organized the checklist across five sections in order of importance, from keyword placement through heading structure, meta copy, internal linking, and technical elements, with each of the 32 items rated as block, fix, or note and accompanied by a specific instruction for what to do when it fails. The five non-negotiables were pulled out into a quick reference section at the end for editors under time pressure.
The result was a checklist where the priority ratings did the work of ensuring the most SEO-critical issues were resolved before publication, while lower-priority items were captured for the next optimization round rather than used to delay going live.
