Publishing Without Chaos
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Use the roles properly
| Role | Who |
|---|---|
| Administrator | One or two people, not everyone |
| Editor | Whoever approves and publishes |
| Author | Regular contributors |
| Contributor | Occasional writers — can write, cannot publish |
Everyone as an administrator is the most common WordPress governance failure. It is also how sites get accidentally broken.
Review before publishing
Contributors submit for review; an editor approves. That is built in and it prevents most of the embarrassing publishing mistakes.
For small teams it can be informal. It should still be a step someone takes deliberately.
A checklist beats a policy
- Title and meta description written, not defaulted
- One h1, sensible heading structure beneath
- Images sized, compressed, with alt text
- Internal links to at least two related pages
- Links checked, particularly external ones
Scheduling and consistency
Publishing steadily beats publishing in bursts. Schedule posts rather than publishing everything the day it is written.
A simple shared calendar of what is coming is usually enough; elaborate editorial plugins are rarely the bottleneck.
Review old content too
Most sites publish and never revisit. Reviewing and updating the pages that already bring traffic is usually more valuable than another new post.
Set a quarterly reminder to check your top twenty pages for anything now inaccurate.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need an editorial plugin?
Who should be an administrator?
How often should we publish?
Should we update old posts?
Publishing in bursts and then nothing?
Usually a process problem rather than a capacity one. Happy to help you set up something sustainable.