How to Auto-Schedule Your WordPress Blog Posts

WordPress is the best blogging platform at the present day. It provides you with a long list of features. While blogging you must have felt the need of scheduling your posts. WordPress provides you with this feature also. You can schedule your posts, but before we move ahead let’s  have a look at some benefits of scheduling.

Why Schedule your posts?

 

• A lot of bloggers face a problem while publishing their posts. The problem is to post a blog according to the reader’s time zone. It is not always possible that the writers have the same time zone as their readers. By scheduling a post you can avoid this problem. You can write a post and just schedule it to be posted according to your desired time and date.
• It is possible that you are bubbling with new ideas one day and don’t have anything new on the other day. So when you have a lot of ideas you can make use of that. Just start writing down and prepare as much as posts you can. Now you can schedule these posts to be published in future according to your choice.
• Scheduling the posts provide you a great chance to maintain balance in your posts. You can post on definite intervals so that your readers can get used to it and they do not have to wait for your posts every now and then.
• One of the most sought after benefit of scheduling is that you can publish a post at a particular time of the day. There are specific times for a website when the visitor flow is highest. So you can post at that time to attract a maximum number of visitors to your post.
• One more thing it can do for you is that it allows you a great vacation. How? Consider you want to go on vacation but you do not want your readers to wait for your posts until then. Scheduling the post can solve your problem. Write the posts and schedule them to be published on your desired dates and you can enjoy your vacation.

 

How to Schedule a Post in WordPress?

WordPress allows the feature of Schedule your Post. It is again very easy to use just like any other WordPress feature.

1. For publishing a post according to your reader’s time zone

 

• Log on to your WordPress dashboard
• Click on “Settings”
• Go to “General” menu
• Go to the ‘Time Zone” section
• Select your preferred time zone and save the changes.

 

2. There is a Publish meta box in the edit panel of your post. After writing your post click on the “Edit” given just in front of the Publish immediately option.

 

Select your preferred date and time to publish the post. You have to use the 24-hour time format to choose the time. SO if you want to choose the time to be 8 AM then set it to 8 and if you want it to be 8 PM the set it to 20. Click on “Ok” button.

Once you have selected your desired time and date just click o the “Schedule” button. You will get to see the time and date you have set just in front of Scheduled for.

Your post is now scheduled to be published on your given date and time.

In case you want to reschedule this then click on the “Edit” option again and change the date and time. It is as simple as that.

You can use a plugin to Auto schedule your posts in WordPress. There are a number of plugins you can use. Let us see an example of using one such plugin known as “Publish To Schedule”. It is a free WordPress plugin.

You can easily install this plugin from the WordPress plugin directory.

• Go to your wordPress dashboard.
• Go to the plugins.
• Click on “Add New”
• Search for “Publish To Schedule”
• Just install and activate this plugin.

 

Now go to the settings area for the Publish To Schedule and you can configure from here.

Here you can select how many posts you want to schedule for each day. Just set the number of posts in the text box in front of that day’s name.

Now you have to specify the time interval in which you want to schedule your posts.

This plugin replaces the default “Publish” Button with “Pub. To schedule”

You can also set how much information you want to show near the Publish button.

Now you are ready to Schedule your posts. You can start writing and use Pub to Schedule for scheduling your post for the available slots.

If you want to check which post is scheduled for which day just go to the dashboard, click on posts and check the Date in front of the title of the post.

You understand the fact how important is the to post regular on your blog to drive in a healthy flow of visitors. If you do not blog frequently then it may hamper the popularity of your blog. You can avoid skipping to publish a post on a particular day. Just schedule it and forget.

 

Author Bio:

Mary Scott is a WordPress expert, associated with Stellen Infotech and has a lot of experience in providing Offshore WordPress Development. She has delivered numerous range of quality products related to this. She has a strong passion for writing useful and insights about WordPress tips and tricks.