After my second rejection, I got genuinely obsessive about this. I made an actual physical checklist, printed it out, taped it above my desk, and refused to let myself click “apply” until every single line was checked off. Felt a little ridiculous at the time, sitting there with a highlighter going through my own website like it was a school assignment.
It worked though. That was the attempt that got approved, in about eight days.
I’ve refined that same checklist since then, using it on two more sites (a photography portfolio-slash-blog and a friend’s outdoor gear review site), and it’s held up both times. So instead of a story this time, I wanted to just lay out the actual checklist, organized the way I actually use it, with notes on why each item matters based on what I’ve seen go wrong when it’s skipped.
Content Checklist
☐ At least 6-8 published articles, each 800+ words
Not a hard rule carved in stone, but consistently what I’ve seen work. My photography site launched with 7 posts, each covering a specific topic in real depth — camera settings breakdowns, editing walkthroughs, gear comparisons based on stuff I actually own and use.
☐ Every article fully answers the question in its own title
I check this by literally rereading the title, then reading the article as if I were a stranger who typed that exact question into Google. If it doesn’t fully deliver on what the title promises, it gets rewritten or the title gets adjusted.
☐ No copied or lightly reworded content from other sites
Even content that’s technically been reworded but closely follows another article’s structure and points tends to feel hollow. Everything should reflect your own actual knowledge or experience, not a rehash of what’s already out there.
☐ No filler or repeated points just to hit a word count
I made this mistake on the outdoor gear site early on — padding a hiking boots post with the same point restated three different ways. Cut it down once I noticed, and the article read better even though it got shorter.
☐ At least a few articles include personal experience, not just generic advice
For the gear review site, this meant specific trail conditions we’d actually tested boots in, not just spec sheets copied from manufacturer sites.
Site Structure Checklist
☐ Own domain, not a free subdomain
Bought through Namecheap for both my recent sites, costs less than a coffee subscription for the year. I’ve noticed sites on their own domain consistently come across as more established.
☐ Clean, simple navigation menu
Home, Blog, About, Contact — that’s genuinely enough to start. I made the mistake early on of adding six category pages before I had content to fill half of them, which just left empty-looking pages in the menu.
☐ Lightweight, mobile-friendly theme
I use GeneratePress on most of my sites now — free, loads quickly, doesn’t need custom code to look decent. Whatever theme you use, actually test it.
☐ Site checked on an actual phone, not just a resized browser window
This has caught real problems for me every single time I’ve bothered to check. My photography site had a broken image gallery on mobile that looked completely fine on desktop.
☐ No leftover placeholder text
Sounds obvious, but “Lorem ipsum” or default “Sample Post” titles slipping through happens more than you’d think, especially if you’re using a theme demo as a starting point.
Required Pages Checklist
☐ About page with real, specific content
Not just “Welcome to my blog!” Actually explain who you are, why the site exists, what someone can expect to find there.
☐ Contact page with a working form or email
Test it yourself. I’ve set up contact forms before that looked fine but silently failed to actually send anything, and I only found out by testing.
☐ Privacy Policy, customized to your actual site
I use a free generator from PrivacyPolicies.com for the base template, then edit the wording so it reflects what my specific site actually does instead of leaving generic boilerplate in place.
☐ Terms or Disclaimer page, especially if using affiliate links
Both my recent sites include affiliate links to gear and equipment, so this page spells out that relationship clearly.
Technical Checklist
☐ Page speed checked with Google PageSpeed Insights
My photography site had some genuinely huge, uncompressed images early on — one was over 5MB. Ran everything through TinyPNG, and load time improved noticeably.
☐ Images compressed before uploading
Same tool, same process, worth doing as a habit rather than a one-time fix.
☐ No broken links or dead pages
I click through my own navigation menu and a handful of internal links before applying, just to catch anything obviously broken.
☐ HTTPS enabled (the little padlock in the browser bar)
Most hosting providers set this up automatically now, but worth actually checking rather than assuming.
Indexing and Traffic Checklist
☐ Sitemap submitted through Google Search Console
This is the step I skipped on my first two rejected attempts, genuinely not knowing it mattered. Now it’s one of the first things I do once content is finalized.
☐ At least two weeks passed since your last major content change
Gives Google time to actually crawl and index the updated site before you apply, rather than applying to something that’s essentially invisible in search still.
☐ Some organic search traffic, even a small amount
Doesn’t need to be big. My photography site had maybe 80-100 visits from actual search queries before I applied, not big numbers, but real ones, not just shared links.
☐ Traffic isn’t relying entirely on social shares or direct links
If most of your visits are coming from you personally sharing links, that’s worth balancing out with genuine search traffic before applying.
Final Pre-Application Checklist
☐ Reread your three weakest articles one more time, honestly
This step alone has caught real problems for me on every site I’ve built since starting this checklist.
☐ Confirm the site is fully live and publicly accessible
No maintenance mode, no password protection left on from testing, no staging URL instead of your real domain.
☐ Double-check your application details match your actual site
Simple thing, but worth confirming the URL you’re submitting is correct and complete.
☐ Apply once, and step away from refreshing the status page
Easier said than done, I know. But checking constantly changes nothing about the timeline.
A Quick Story on Why the Checklist Format Actually Helps
The reason I started doing this as an actual physical checklist, rather than just a mental list of things to remember, is that I kept “fixing” things partially without realizing it. I’d think I’d added a Privacy Policy, then go check and realize I’d only added a link to one in the footer that led to a 404 page.
Having something to physically tick off forced me to actually verify each item rather than just assume I’d handled it somewhere along the way.
Common Mistakes Even With a Checklist in Hand
- Ticking off an item without actually verifying it — like assuming a contact form works without testing it yourself.
- Treating the content items as less important than the technical ones, when content depth tends to matter the most.
- Rushing through the list to apply faster, defeating the purpose of having a checklist in the first place.
- Skipping the indexing wait time, even after doing everything else correctly.
Final Thoughts
I know a checklist isn’t the most exciting format, but after going through two vague rejections with no real explanation, having something concrete to work through made a real difference for me. It turned a fuzzy, frustrating process into something I could actually verify step by step.
If you’re getting ready to apply, or reapply, running through this list honestly — actually checking each item instead of assuming it’s handled — is probably the most useful thing you can do before hitting submit.
