Why & How To Schedule Blog Posts On WordPress?

how-to-schedule-post-in-wordpress

If you want to establish the authority of your blog, then you should practice publishing the content on a regular basis.

Yes! I’ll discuss in detail!

So do you want to know how to schedule blog post in WordPress? All possible & best ways?

Let me cover the entire topic in this post!

Before checking the plans of publishing the upcoming blog articles, you should know the importance of doing it, so that you will show a keen interest in the content scheduling task. 

Why Is Scheduling Blog Posts Essential? 

Blogging is a constant journey where you need to update your blog on a regular basis.

Yup!

CONSISTENCY matters a lot in standing out of the crowd and pleasing the search engines as well! 

The scheduling of the future blog articles is critical as you don’t want your subscribers to miss your new post because you published it late.

With WordPress, a lot of things such as scheduling blog posts get easier.

Besides scheduling the post, you also need to set the right frequency to make your subscribers know when to expect new content.

Nowadays, social media highlights most of your new posts when you share them over there.

However, loyal subscribers or the genuine followers who are keen to read the next blog update often wait for your post as per the schedule.

Well, you might be wondering why schedule posts when you can publish a new blog post from anywhere in the world.

Agreed!

That’s the power of blogging that you are not bound to a single desk or machine, but you are free to blog from anywhere.

However, there are times when you don’t get enough time to blog due to traveling or while attending the family function.

Also, when you fall sick or need to take care someone in your family, then?

During such scenario, you are hardly able to post new articles and the updates or activities on your blog simply go barren.

On the contrary, if you move the blog posts to the schedule calendar as per your busy itinerary, then your blog remains active even if you aren’t available.

WordPress makes scheduling the upcoming blog posts entirely comfortable with its built-in feature.

Default Post Schedule Method Of WordPress

If you are running your blog on WordPress, then there’s no reason to worry about scheduling your blog posts.

WordPress offers a simple and easy solution where you can add a new post and instead of publishing it right away, you can plan it for a later time or date.

However, before you use this option, you must set your desired time zone as the WordPress uses Universal time (UTC) by default.

You can fix it by visiting Settings > General on your Admin dashboard. You will find the field to change your Timezone.

Now, you are all set to schedule your posts. Just follow the simple instructions below.

Once you have updated and edited the final draft, simply go to the section where the “Publish” button is located.
Instead of hitting the Publish button, you need to click “Edit” link in front of Publish immediately.

schedule-upcoming-wp-posts

Now, you can set the desired date of publishing in the future or the past as per your preferences. Once set, hit “Ok.”

You will notice the “Publish” button change to “Schedule.” Hit the “Schedule” button, and your post will be automatically published on the set date.

fix-date-for-future-blog-posts

Well, that was quite easy. Isn’t it?

You can always use this default scheduling option offered by WordPress to start creating a calendar schedule for your posts.

However, this default method is excellent for single author blog or blog with one or two weekly posts.

What if you run a multi-author blog with a series of different posts every day?

Don’t worry yet!

WordPress community understands this concern, and you will find a lot of different plugins that would help make scheduling your posts an easy task.

Best 4 Plugins To Make Your Blog Posts Live On Desired Date

Using the WordPress default scheduling option is a good option, but it has to be done manually for each post. It becomes a big task if you want to create a full calendar or have multiple authors on your blog.

With multiple authors, there are chances that two or more posts are scheduled for the same day and probably at the same time.

It’s not going to help your blog much!

Hence, you need an automated system to schedule posts based on frequency rather than dates or times. Well, you can get all such options if you try out the WordPress plugins given below!

1. Editorial Calendar

Blogging gets more straightforward when you set a calendar schedule. Editorial Calendar is designed just for that; I’m using it 🙂 

Imagine that you can visualize the full calendar ahead of you and set your posts to schedule accordingly. Simply draft all your upcoming posts and go to “Calendar.” 

Check the unscheduled posts drawer and drag & drop the posts as per the calendar. You can also use the default schedule option on WordPress to schedule posts.

Later you can quickly change or edit the scheduled date or time from the editorial calendar itself.

If you have multiple authors, you can see all their posts on the calendar and schedule their posts accordingly, so they don’t mix up with others.

Here is a video to use this WordPress post schedule plugin! 

2. WP Scheduled Posts

WP Scheduled Posts is the best extension when it comes to scheduling WordPress posts for the site that has several admins and authors. 

The plugin was originally developed by a multi-author blog called The Tech Journal. However, today it is available for all WordPress users for free.

With this plugin, you can create your post schedule calendar as well as choose to allow access to the plugin according to user roles. 

The best part of this plugin is that it gives you full control on user access, category type, post type, etc. and you can do a lot many things other than just schedule blog post in WordPress. 

The planned to publish topics will be displayed on the Dashboard and the Admin bar, and also you can set the custom template and style in the admin bar for the posts scheduled.  

schedule-posts-wordpress

3. Auto Post Scheduler 

If you are looking for a scheduler plugin to publish posts at regular intervals, then Auto Post Scheduler by Super Blog Me is the right plugin for you. With this plugin, you can not only schedule new posts but also recycle the old ones.

This extension works great for blogs with multiple authors and a considerable number of articles drafted daily for publish. Just set the interval you need and the scheduler with automatically publish the posts every single day at the right time.

This WordPress schedule posts plugin is designed to work the best with the auto blogging plugin. You can use both these plugins to automate your blogging business completely.

Auto Post Scheduler Options

4. Schedule Posts Calendar

Schedule Posts Calendar is just a fancy layout over your default WordPress Schedule panel on the “Edit Post” page.

However, this plugin can come handy as it will show you a calendar popup rather than the default drop-down fields to schedule your content.

With the calendar popup, you can choose the time & and date to schedule your upcoming posts and hide the default WordPress time display. 

There’s nothing more to this plugin but it is, of course, better than the default schedule option currently available on a WordPress blog.

schedule-calendar-wordpress

Few WordPress Plugins To Support Scheduled Content

While these plugins don’t help you schedule blog post in WordPress but they can come handy to maintain your schedule calendar.

1. WordPress To Buffer

Talking about planning the upcoming blog articles, you must be aware of Buffer app.

Buffer App is designed to schedule social media posts. Well, if used smartly, you can easily link the Buffer App with your WordPress blog with this plugin and schedule a social media shout out for each post published on your blog.

It is a great tool to manage your social media accounts and post automatic updates on major social channels when a new post is published on your blog.

The plugin requires your Buffer App credentials to set up the link, and you can schedule the social media shout out for each published as well as updated post.

2. Internal Linking For Scheduled Posts

Internal linking is very important as it helps you reduce the bounce rate on your blog. Also, the internal links can also help pass the link juice within the domain and boost search engine rankings.

However, if you are scheduling the upcoming posts for let’s say some 30 days in advance, then you may be losing out of internal linking for the future posts.

The scheduled articles are not visible in the suggestions while inserting a link. Not anymore!

Install the Internal Linking for Scheduled Posts plugin today, and you will now be able to see links to scheduled posts among the suggestions.

Nonetheless, you must be careful that you add links wisely according to the scheduled dates as none of these posts are active yet.

Over To You!

Scheduling the upcoming blog posts in WordPress is very simple but essential to maintain the content publishing consistency.

Yes!

When you have a plan for the content strategy, you will not be getting stress in engaging your readers during your vacations.  Also, you will get into a regular publishing routine which is indeed needed to build a profitable blog. 

The WordPress plugins mentioned above can be helpful to create a posting calendar for your WordPress site. Choose the plugin wisely and don’t install any unnecessary plugin that you are not going to use ever.

by Nirmala
Nirmala Santhakumar is a professional blogger, WordPress enthusiast who has been blogging since 2010. She always loves to write useful WP tips, tricks and tutorials on this active blog. Sharing her SEO knowledge is her keen interest.

4 thoughts on “Why & How To Schedule Blog Posts On WordPress?”

  1. Hi Nirmala,

    This post about scheduling blogs on WordPress is really valuable for me. I read your blogs and I like the way you write, it’s simple and effective at the same time but enough for anybody to understand. I am new to blogging and want to start a blog. I have come to you with a question and will be grateful to you if you will respond to it.

    Are WordPress themes are one time investment or I have to renew them every year just like web hosts and other services??

    Will be happy if you will suggest a nice WordPress theme for my blog. Have a nice day ahead.

    Thank you
    – Vishakha

    Reply
    • Thanks for reading my blog posts. Glad I could help you. I have just emailed you all the details, please check and let me know any further assistance.

      Reply
  2. Just suggest also wp-postscheduler.com to reuse and rescheduler posts, pages and custom type based on hourly, the day of the week and months.

    Reply

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