Approval is the step in which someone from the business decides whether a post goes live. Two models have proven themselves: click approval, where nothing goes online without an active yes, and automatic publishing with a stop deadline, where a post appears after a set time if nobody stops it. Both leave responsibility with the business; they differ in time spent and in the risk of posts being left unpublished. A practised check takes two to five minutes per post.
A blog that publishes without approval no longer belongs to the business. A blog where every approval takes an hour never appears. In between lies the process this page describes: two approval models, the question of responsibility and liability, the realistic time required per post, and a checklist that settles the approval in two minutes. It complements the detailed quality check under Checking AI blog posts, but does not replace it.
Two models that have proven themselves
| Click approval | Automatic with stop deadline | |
|---|---|---|
| Process | The post arrives by email or in the dashboard and only appears after an active yes | The post arrives in advance and appears on the planned date if nobody stops it |
| Advantage | Full control, nothing appears unseen | The rhythm holds even in busy weeks, no post is left behind |
| Risk | Posts pile up, the blog falls silent because nobody clicks | A post appears that nobody has read |
| Time required | A deadline per post that has to be kept | An email per post that should be read |
| Suited to | Regulated industries, new customers in the first few weeks, businesses with an approval culture | Established businesses, high frequencies, periods with little time |
Many businesses start with click approval and switch to a stop deadline after a quarter, once they trust the briefing. That is the normal path. The reverse switch, from automatic back to click, is a warning sign: it means the briefing isn't right, and the approval is catching mistakes that should have been prevented earlier.
Responsibility and liability
You are responsible for what appears under your company name, regardless of whether a person, an agency or a system wrote the text. This covers prices, deadlines, guarantee claims, statements about competitors and, in regulated industries, claims of healing or advice. Clarify the extent of liability in any individual case with a specialist; this page cannot do that.
From Google's point of view, too, approval is the decisive point. Google rates content by its usefulness, not by whether AI was involved. However, the spam policies explicitly mention content produced in bulk without anyone ensuring its value. Approval by someone from the business is exactly that assurance. How far automation may go before that point is described in Automating your blog.
Time required per post
An example calculation from project experience, not a measurement: the first five posts each take 10 to 15 minutes, because you're getting to know the style and feeding corrections back into the briefing. From the sixth post onwards, practised users take between two and five minutes to check. For one post a week, that's around 20 minutes a month once you're settled in; for three posts a week, around an hour.
These figures apply when the briefing is right. Every post that gets sent back because of incorrect services or the wrong form of address costs a multiple of that. So the time is best invested in the briefing, not in the check.
The two-minute approval
This list answers a single question: may the post appear as it is? It is not a style check or an SEO check; the detailed checklist covers that.
- Title. Does the topic suit us? Does the title promise something we don't offer?
- First paragraph. Is the key statement factually correct? Would you say that sentence to a customer on the phone?
- Figures and prices. Every figure has a source from the business, or it's cut.
- Services. Does the text mention something we don't do? Example: a joinery whose post casually mentions parquet flooring gets enquiries for it.
- Legal matters. No guarantees, no claims of healing, no statements about competitors named by name.
- Form of address and location. Is the form of address correct, are place names and the region correct?
- Image and links. Does the image show something we can stand behind? Do internal links lead to pages that actually exist?
Decision: approve, return with a correction note, or discard. No more than these three options are needed.
Who approves and when
Set a person and a deputy. Set a fixed time slot, for example Monday at eight o'clock, in which the week's posts are checked. Approvals done 'at some point' never get done. The email with the link to the post should go to both people, so holidays don't break the rhythm.
When posts pile up
This is the most common symptom with click approval: after six weeks, five posts have piled up, and the blog falls silent again. There are three ways out: switch to the stop deadline, reduce the frequency to match what actually gets checked, or move the initial review to a second person in the business. One thing that isn't a solution is waving posts through unread; that quietly removes the very control this is about.
BlogPilot offers both models: approval by email or click, or automatic publishing with the option to stop any post beforehand. You can change which model you choose at any time. The responsibility doesn't change.
Frequently asked questions
Who in the business should approve posts?
The person who can judge professionally whether the content is correct and who is allowed to decide what appears under the company name. In small businesses, that's the management; in larger ones, a department head. A stand-in for holidays and illness is important, otherwise the blog comes to a halt.
Isn't automatic publishing risky?
The risk doesn't lie in the model, but in the stop deadline. If the post arrives by email three days before publication and anyone in the business can stop it with one click, the risk is small. It becomes risky if no one reads the emails; but then click approval doesn't help either, because nothing gets published.
What happens if I reject a post?
Depending on the system, it's corrected and resubmitted, or discarded. For every rejection, note the reason in one sentence, such as "We don't offer parquet flooring installation." These notes feed into the briefing and prevent the same mistake from recurring in the next post.
Can I hand off approval to an external person?
The language check, yes; the content check, only to a limited extent. Only someone from the business knows whether a statement about your services, prices or deadlines is correct. An external person can do an initial check, but the final yes belongs within the business.