My draft-to-publish checklist (nothing ships without it)

I shipped a post with a broken H1 once. Never again. Now every draft clears these gates:

1. One H1, matches the target query.
2. Title tag under 60 chars, query near the front.
3. Meta description written by hand, not auto-pulled.
4. 3+ internal links out, 2+ pointing in.
5. Every image has alt text and is compressed.
6. First 100 words answer the query directly. No 300-word windup.

Six checks, 5 minutes. Catches the dumb stuff that tanks pages.

Pin this. Run it on your next post.