Blog Processes

Assigning and tracking

Where to track the publication process of a blog post: 

Sources

Source credibility is paramount. Use only reliable (non-commercial, non-partisan, objective) sources. Government and military websites (.gov and .mil) and peer-reviewed publications are preferred sources for data.

VA Blog Sources

• VA disability blog resources

• Researching medical conditions for service connection

  • Intake Cheat Sheet Questions

  • Toxic exposure cases in development 

  • Toxic exposure grants from VA

  • Health resources

    • CDC

    • Medline Plus

    • Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

    • National Cancer Institute

    • National Library of Medicine

    • National Institutes of Health

    • National Center for PTSD

    • National Headache Foundation: Operation Brainstorm

    • National Institute of Mental Health

    • National Alliance on Mental Illness

• VA and veterans resources

  • VA Disability Resources

  • VA and Veterans Data

• Woods & Woods resources: 

  • Attorney quotation database

Woods & Woods YouTube videos (search for a relevant video to link to) 

SSDI Blog Sources

• SSDI blog resources

• Researching medical conditions that qualify for SSDI

  • Adult disabilities

  • Child disabilities

• Other health resources

  • CDC

  • Medline Plus

  • Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

  • National Cancer Institute

  • National Library of Medicine

  • National Institutes of Health

  • National Center for PTSD

  • National Headache Foundation: Operation Brainstorm

  • National Institute of Mental Health

  • National Alliance on Mental Illness

• Social Security resources

  • SSA Program Operations Manual System

    • These are the guidelines that SSA employees use

• Woods & Woods SSDI resources

Writing Posts

Google Docs

• Change the Share setting to “anyone with the link can edit” 

• Headlines

  • Use the built-in headings (H1s, H2s and H3s) in Google Docs. 

  • Do not bold or otherwise customize headings.

• Paragraphs 

  • Do not indent

  • Use frequent paragraph breaks — one idea per paragraph (usually two to four sentences)

  • Set the paragraph settings to single space and choose “add space after paragraphs”

Style Guide

Refer to these internal guides for our rules about:

• spelling, capitalization, hyphenation, punctuation, acronyms, and usage

• quoting and paraphrasing sources 

• using the most frequently used VA and legal terms

• eliminating medical jargon

SEO in the writing process

• Primary keyphrase vs. secondary keyphrases

  • Primary keyphrase  

    • The keyword you have identified as the center of your article

  • Secondary keyphrase

    • One of two keywords you identify as less important but still possible to include and rank for

• SEO title vs. H1

  • SEO title

    • Must include the primary keyphrase

    • The SEO title will be used in multiple places during the publishing phase

  • H1

    • This headline will appear on the home page and as the title of the article wherever it is shared

    • We choose to make the H1 different from the SEO title

    • Try to use a secondary keyphrase, if applicable

• Where to use primary and secondary keyphrases in the writing process

  • Use the primary keyphrase

    • in the first sentence or paragraph

    • in one or two (preferably two) H2s/H3s

      • may include the H2 for the table of contents (TOC) during the publishing phases

    • several times throughout the text of the article as possible (but avoid keyword stuffing)

    • in one of the FAQs at the end of the article

  • Use secondary keyphrases

    • in an H2 or H3

    • in one of the FAQs at the end of the article, if not too similar to the primary keyphrase

    • one or two times each throughout the text of the article if possible

Headline style

• Write H1s in Title Case 

• Write H2s/H3s in sentence case

• Follow AP Style for headline capitalization rules 

• Avoid punctuation in headlines unless it is a question mark

If you are looking for help with headline writing, try using a free headline writing tool like CoSchedule 

Shortcodes

See this page to review the available shortcodes.

Internal linking

Here are some resources to link to internally: 

External linking

Number of external links?

• Don’t need a link if you are listing symptoms (factual information)

• Need links for statistics and studies

How to hyperlink to a specific page in an online PDF 

• If you want to link to page 72 of this report: https://www.benefits.va.gov/REPORTS/abr/docs/2021-abr.pdf

• Add #page=72 after .pdf in the URL 

  • If the URL is .pdf/ remove the slash/ before ading  #page=72

• The result is: https://www.benefits.va.gov/REPORTS/abr/docs/2021-abr.pdf#page=72

FAQs

Include two FAQs at the end of each article

• • One of them should include the primary or secondary keyphrase in the question

  • The purpose of the FAQs is for SEO (less about being helpful to the reader)

Marketing Edits Round 1

• Big Picture read through 

  • Relevance

    • Is it about what it’s supposed to be about?

      • Does it match the Asana task and the research document?

    • Does the article fulfill the promises made in the headline, SEO title, and lead paragraph?

  • Structure

  • Sense-making

  • Gaps

    • What information is missing?

• Fact-check

  • Verification

  • Source credible

• Grammar/syntax

• SEO

  • Are the primary and secondary keyphrases in all the places they should be?

• Check hyperlinks 

  • Do they work? 

  • Are they credible sources? 

  • Do the sites have ads for our competitors? (Example: don’t link to law.cornell.edu)

• Make sure we are backlinking to our own content where relevant

• Send back to writer if it’s missing sources or significant information

Writer/marketing edits

Send to attorneys for edits on Teams channel

Marketing Edits Round 2 

• Update attorney notes

  • If written in-house, that person edits/updates

    • Marketing intern edits > Content Creator edits

  • If freelancer, content creator edits

• Create/assign graphic (1200 x 675) and write alt text 

Publish in WordPress

• Open these documents:

  • The Asana task

  • Article brief

  • Article draft (after final edits)

• Open WordPress

  • If it is a new article, create a new post in WordPress, copy the entire draft from the Google doc, and paste it into a new blog post 

  • If it is replacing an existing post (see the description box in Asana):

    • Find the existing post

    • Select everything in the post (CTRL+A) and delete

    • Copy the entire draft of the new article from the Google doc and paste it in the existing post

• Write a headline (H1)

  • The H1 should be different than the SEO title

  • Use secondary keyphrase in H1, if applicable

  • If you are looking for help, try using a free headline writing tool like CoSchedule

• Change the author to Neil Woods (if it’s an existing article check to make sure the author is Neil)

• Create and upload image and add alt text (if replacing an existing article, you may or may not have a new image – see Asana task)

  • Create blog and social image (if applicable) in Canva. 

  • Use SEO title on image and insert our logo  (you can find our logo in Canva by clicking the “brand” tab)

  • Use TinyPNG to compress blog image (image should ideally be 250k or smaller)

  • Save images to Blog Graphics folder on F: drive > Marketing Department > Blog Graphics (you will need to access this folder a lot, so it may be a good idea to pin it to Quick Access)

  • Upload new images and insert Alt Text. Briefly describe the image followed by “Article title: (SEO title).”

  • Set the image as the featured image

  • Insert the image into post (it doesn’t need a caption)

• Permalink/meta URL

  • If this is a new post, customize the permalink/meta URL (simplify it by leaving keywords and omitting articles and prepositions)

  • If this is replacing an existing article (we sometimes call this new life for an old post)

  • Try to use primary keyphrase in permalink/meta URL if possible

• Insert reusable blocks

  • Yoast Table of Contents (change default Table of Content text to “In this article about ‘keyword:’”

  • Choose either VA or SSDI CTA opening (This inserts the Free Call and webform button)

  • Choose either VA or SSDI CTA closing (This inserts the Free Call text, webform button, and FAQs)

    • IMPORTANT: Convert to Regular Blocks

    • Copy and paste the FAQ text into the FAQ blocks

  • VA only: Add one review block 

• Embed a relevant video (check reusable blocks first)

  • When inserting a video, write a caption using this structure: VA disability lawyer (insert name/hyperlink to the attorney’s bio) explains (insert topic of the video).

• Optional

  • Insert other useful reusable blocks depending on the topic (disability rates, DIC, presumptives, etc.)

  • If the article mentions a monthly payment amount for disability or DIC rates, substitute with shortcodes

• Check H2s 

  • Are they showing up as H2s?

  • Make sure they are in sentence case

  • Check that all H2s appear in the table of contents (H3s will show up while editing, but will not appear in the preview or published article)

• Change external URLs to open in new tab

• Change the SEO title and write the meta description (this should be done for new life for an old post articles as well)

  • You’ll find this in the Yoast menu under Search appearance

  • Replace SEO title with the SEO title from the article brief

    • It should be the same as the image title and correspond to the URL (but it is different than the H1)

  • Write the excerpt (meta description). It should include the primary keyphrase.

• Write an excerpt/meta description, which can be same as the meta description above

  • This appears on the home page and on Bing

• Add tags

  • VA blog tags

• Publish 

  • If new life for an old post: change the publish date IF more than half of the post has been changed/rewritten

• Update Asana

Check the home page

Promote the post

• Google My Business (assign to yourself)

• Check if it’s indexed using Google Search Console (assign to yourself)

• Social media and newsletter (assign to Jada on Asana)

Post-publication Checks

• Shortly after an article is published, the writer/editor (?) should do an SEO check.

• 3 months after the article is published, look at Google Search Console to see how the article is performing overall and for the primary keyword phrase. 

  • Enter the information in the VA Blog Content Planner

Editing Quick Content

Marketing Edits 

• Big Picture read through 

  • Relevance

  • Structure

  • Sense-making

• Basic fact-check and checking of any hyperlinks

• Grammar/syntax

• Send completed mark up to in-house writer 

• Create/assign graphic (1200 x 675) and write alt text

Publish in WordPress

• Open these documents:

  • The Asana task

  • Article draft (after final edits)

• Open WordPress

• Write a headline (H1)

  • This can differ from the SEO title if the quick SEO supports it

• Change the author to Neil Woods 

• Create and upload image and add alt text

  • Create blog and social image (if applicable) in Canva.

  • Use SEO title on image and use our logo (you can find our logo in Canva by clicking the “brand” tab)

  • Use TinyPNG to compress blog image (image should ideally be 250k or smaller)

  • Save images to Blog Graphics folder on F: drive > Marketing Department > Blog Graphics (you will need to access this folder a lot, so it may be a good idea to pin it to Quick Access)

  • Upload new images and insert Alt Text. Briefly describe the image followed by “Article title: (SEO title).”

  • Set the image as the featured image

  • Insert the image into post (it doesn’t need a caption)

• Permalink/meta URL

  • Customize the permalink/meta URL (simplify it by leaving keywords and omitting articles and prepositions)

  • Try to use primary keyphrase in permalink/meta URL if possible

• Insert reusable blocks using your best judgment

  • Likely will not need both an opening and closing CTA

  • Table of contents likely not needed

  • FAQs may or may not be needed

  • Consider the subject matter when adding anything that promotes Woods & Woods or calls to action. For example, a post honoring Veterans Day should not include reviews and multiple buttons for us. Allow the rest of our website to be the advertisement if the user is interested.

• Optional

  • Embed a related video if needed, depending on length and content

  • Insert other useful reusable blocks depending on the topic (disability rates, DIC, presumptives, etc.)

  • If the article mentions a monthly payment amount for disability or DIC rates, substitute with shortcodes

• Check any H2s 

  • Make sure they are in sentence case

• Change any external URLs to open in new tab

• Change the SEO title and write the meta description

  • You’ll find this in the Yoast menu under View in Google

  • Replace SEO title with the SEO title from the article brief

  • Write the excerpt (excerpt should include primary keyphrase)

• Write an excerpt/meta description, which can be same as the meta description above

• Add tags (choose from this list of tags). When choosing tags, please use the following guidelines:

  • If the article is about a condition, use the tag for the body system involved.

  • If it is a video transcript post, there is no video tag. Use the video category, and then tag based on condition or topic.

  • If the article is about toxic exposure, tag only based on the type of toxic exposure, such as Agent Orange, burn pits, water contamination, etc.

  • If the article is about a condition that is a presumptive of Agent Orange, tag the body system involved in the condition AND Agent Orange.

  • If the article is about a condition that is a presumptive of burn pits, tag the body system involved in the condition AND burn pits.

• Publish 

• Update Asana