How To Schedule Blog Posts in WordPress

When running a blog, there are a lot many things that are responsible for the success of your blog, but nothing comes close to the importance of proper content on a regular basis.

It is, in fact, a very smart strategy to post new content and blog posts on your blog at a regular basis, on a given time, so that your readers can expect new posts at that particular time and look forward to it.

That said, how does one schedule blog posts in WordPress? More importantly, what are the benefits of scheduling a post? In this post, we will be discussing these points.

How To Schedule Blog Posts in WordPress

Benefits of Regular Content

First up, what is the benefit of posting content at a specific time on a regular basis? Can you not just post multiple times a week, then take a big and long break, and then post some more?

Well, regular blog posts mean your readers know when to expect new posts from you. As such, they can look forward to newer content at specific hours or specific days, and this will inculcate a sense of reader loyalty among your visitors. Therefore, regular flow of content ensures that your blog grows and your readers are not left wandering off to another blog.

Furthermore, a regularly updated blog, especially if it is done with a specific schedule in mind, does well with search engines too, as crawlers can pick up your post schedule and treat your content with the importance that it deserves.

Naturally, as can be seen, regular posting has its own benefits, and these benefits are obvious and too big to be ignored.

Now, we move on to scheduling of posts.

Benefits of Scheduling A Post

Question is, how helpful is the post scheduling feature of WordPress?

Imagine this: you build up a schedule, say at 08:00 PM of every evening. Now, you publish a new blog post at this time everyday, and your readers start expecting that you will be posting new content every evening at 08:00 PM.

What if you are required to travel due to some work? Or maybe a holiday to a far-off destination where you may or may not have access to internet?

In such cases, you can pre-compose posts in WordPress, and schedule them to publish everyday at 08:00 PM in the evening, even while you are away on your holiday or traveling without internet. WordPress will, then, push your scheduled posts live at the date and time specified.

Simple, and neat. Isn’t it?

Now that we have seen the benefits of post scheduling and how helpful it can be for us, let us go ahead and learn how to accomplish it in WordPress.

How To Schedule Posts in WordPress

Scheduling posts in WordPress for publication at a later date and time is pretty easy.

• First up, compose your post using the WordPress post editor just as you would, in the manner you prefer.
• Now, before hitting publish, you need to specify the date and time at which you wish to schedule your post. In the Publish section, look for the Publish “immediately” text, and hit “edit”:

• After hitting “edit”, you can now select the date and time for scheduling the post. You can modify the month from the drop-down menu, and type in a new date, or even enter a different year (if you have planned the future that well). Similarly, you can specify the time in hours and minutes.

Note that the time is entered in the 24-hour format, even if your blog uses the 12-hour format. Thus, 08:00 PM becomes 20:00

• Once you have entered the desired date and time, hit Ok. You will now see that “immediately” has changed to the date and time that you entered, and the Publish button is now Schedule.

• You are now good to go. If your post is ready, you can hit Schedule, and it will be scheduled for the time specified by you.

That is all, there is no further action needed on your part. Once the required time and date comes, WordPress will automatically push your post live and publish it on your blog, without you having to re-enter any of the details.

Also, if at any time you notice that the posts aren’t going live, and you are given the “Missed Schedule” status in WordPress, you can refer to this guide for tips on how to fix that.

More importantly, if you have custom actions that happen when you publish a post — say, Jetpack Publicize feature that shares your blog posts on social networks, or an email notification service that emails your readers each time you post a new blog entry — all of that will still happen when your post is actually published, not when you schedule it.

For instance, if you schedule a post tonight and enter the time as 06:00 AM of tomorrow morning, when your post is published on your blog at 06:00 AM of the next morning, Jetpack Publicize (if active) will share your post on your social media accounts at 06:00 AM and similarly, other services too will do their part by themselves, once the post goes live at 06:00 AM of the morning.

Conclusion

It is pretty obvious that the post scheduling feature of WordPress is a gift for every blogger. It helps you schedule posts in advance so that your blog can follow a practical and useful publishing schedule, and even allows you to have content ready for publishing in the future, especially on days when you might be away from your blog.

If used properly, especially in sync with a well laid-out publishing strategy or a posting calendar, the post scheduling feature of WordPress can go a long way in establishing the authority of your blog.

By following a regular posting schedule at specific times of the day, you can build a loyal readership because your readers will come to expect new content from you at specific hours, and at the same time, gain new followers and improve your search rank, because search engines such as Google show preference to blogs and websites that publish on a regular basis and can follow a proper schedule for new content.

What do you think of the post scheduling feature of WordPress? Have you ever tried it before? If not, will you be giving it a spin now that you have learned about it? How do you plan on using it? Share your views in the comments below!