WordPress has a really neat hidden feature that lets you postdate your posts. Many WordPress users haven’t discovered this yet. In this tutorial, we will show you how to schedule blog posts in WordPress.
Publishing great content on your WordPress blog on a regular basis helps you get more pages indexed on search engines, drive traffic to your business and keep your blog readers returning for more information.
There are instances, however, where you don’t necessarily want your content to display as soon as you hit the publish button.
For example, here are some instances when you may not want to display a blog post immediately after adding it to your WordPress blog:
- You need to go away for a while but you still want to publish content on your blog while you’re gone.
- You want an already published post removed and automatically published again at a future date/time.
- You want to distribute a daily update with the latest news about a certain topic for your blog readers, but they live in a different time zone than you. You’d like them to receive your posts each day at the same time, but this means that you’d have to get up at odd hours of the night to publish your blog post.
- You set aside one day every week to create a whole week’s worth of content for your site, or you outsource your content writing to professional writers who deliver you many articles each month, but you don’t want to publish all of your new content at once!
- You launch a private content membership area and would like to “drip-feed” articles to members over a set period of time.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just add a bunch of articles to your blog in one go, and then have it all be automatically “drip-fed” to your blog so that only one new post got published each day, or week, or every few days?
You could then implement a “set and forget” system for scheduling and publishing new content to your site that would keep your visitors regularly engaged, and be free to grow other areas of your business … or leave for a while and know that your content marketing strategy is still working for you while you’re gone.
Well … with WordPress you can! You can set a date/time in the future for publishing your posts and WordPress will schedule and automatically publish or republish your content exactly when you specify.
In this tutorial we are going to show you a little-known feature that lets you schedule WP blog posts to publish at a future date, as well as some great tips for automating your content for scheduling.
Go through the step-by-step tutorial below to learn more about how to schedule WordPress blog posts.
How To Schedule WordPress Posts – Step-By-Step Tutorial
With WordPress you can easily alter the date and time of your published blog posts, including setting exact dates and times in the future. This allows to create or add blog posts to your site, which can then be preconfigured to go live at a future date and time of your choice.
You can schedule posts to publish at a later time using the Quick Edit function if you are viewing a list of all your existing WordPress posts, or you can schedule them as you’re editing existing posts.
Scheduling Posts In WordPress Using The Quick Edit Feature
To schedule blog posts in WordPress using the Quick Edit method,
Log into your WordPress admin area and choose Posts > All Posts …
In the Posts section, find the Post you want to schedule, then hover your mouse over the post title to reveal the options menu. Click on Quick Edit…
The Quick Edit editor expands to reveal all of the “Quick Edit” options for editing posts …
Find the “Date” section …
WordPress allows you to easily edit any aspect of the date and time of your post, just by entering new values in the fields or selecting options from a drop-down menu …
Tip: You can schedule posts in WordPress in the future or backdate post dates to show content as having been published prior to its original publishing date.
This is useful if, for example, you’ve been away and would like to publish an account of your day-to-day events and would like your blog posts to show as having been published on the actual dates you’ve been physically absent. Another great use for backdating your blog posts would be to give a brand new website or blog a little bit more of an “established” look. Alternatively, you can set all content to publish in the future if you plan to launch your site after getting everything set up and configured.
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Change the date of your post to whatever date (and/or time) you would like it to show as having been published (future or past) …
Note: To schedule a post as being published in the PM, you will need to use the 24-hour system. For example, to display 1:00 PM enter 13:00 in the scheduling module. The time your post will actually get published depends on the location settings specified in your Settings > General area.
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Click the Update button to save your changes …
Your post will now show as being “Scheduled” in your Posts screen …
Your post will also display as being “Scheduled” inside the Quick Edit > Status area …
Scheduling WordPress Posts When Adding And Editing Posts
If you are creating a new post, you can schedule your post to publish at a later date and time, by clicking on Publish immediately > Edit…
Edit the date (and time if you want) of your post and click the OK button …
Remember to click Schedule to save your settings …
Note: To backdate a post, simply edit the date before you click Publish, as described above. In this case, the button will not change to Schedule.
Your post is now scheduled to publish on the date and time you have specified …
If you are editing an existing post, you can also schedule your post to be republished later, by clicking on the Edit link next to the Published on: section …
Edit the date (and time if you want) of your post and click OK …
Click the Schedule button to update your republishing settings …
Your post will show as being “Scheduled” inside the Post Edit > Publish area …
Your post status will now show as “Scheduled” in your Posts screen …
You can also see which scheduled posts are queued for publishing in your WordPress dashboard’s ‘Activity’ panel …
Congratulations! Now you know how to schedule WordPress posts to publish at a later date.
We’ll show you now how to republish posts.
Useful Tip: The above method also works for editing WordPress pages.
How To Republish A WordPress Post
In some situations, you may need to republish an old post. If you do, there are a few options you can choose:
Edit Post Date And Time
You can reschedule your post by changing the date and time that the post was published. Enter a futurelater date and time, then click Schedule.
When the scheduled time arrives, the post will move from its current position in your timeline to the most recent spot on your blog and display the new date and time. The link for the post will also be updated to reflect the new publication date.
Note: When you reschedule a post, it will not redistribute to your email subscribers. If you need the post to be redistributed to your email subscribers, use the option below.
Edit Post Status
You can republish your post by changing the status of your post to Draft, clicking Update, and then clicking Publish again …
When you do this, your post will automatically be redistributed to your email subscribers. However, the publication date and time will remain the same, so the post’s link and position in your timeline will remain unchanged.
Tip: If you want a republished post to display first on your blog, you can always make it “sticky” …
Un-Scheduling A Post
If you’ve scheduled a WP post to be published later, but then change your mind and decide to publish it immediately, just return to the Edit Post page for your scheduled post.
In the Publish feature, click on the “Edit” link next to the date your post is scheduled for publishing:
Now, just enter today’s date and time (tip: if you’re not sure of the exact time just type in an hour or two earlier than your current time) as your scheduled post time and click on OK …
Click Publish …
Your post will be published immediately …
Troubleshooting Scheduled Posts
If your scheduled post failed to publish when the scheduled time arrived, check the following:
- Is your timezone set correctly in your Settings > General section?
- Check the Post Status. Did you save the post as a “Draft” instead of scheduling it?
- Did you click the “Schedule” button after changing the date/time settings? For a post to publish, you must click the Schedule button.
- Did you schedule too many posts for publishing? Are you using bulk post scheduling plugins to queue up thousands of posts? Depending on your server resources, you could experience problems. If so, try lowering the number of scheduled items and see if this fixes the issue.
Automating Post Scheduling With WordPress Plugins
You can automate various aspects of publishing and scheduling your content in WordPress with plugins.
Queuing Posts For Publishing
Queue Posts is a free plugin that lets you place new posts and pages in a queue for publishing later at a specified interval …
Whenever you create a new WordPress post or page, the plugin gives you the option of queuing it for later …
This is great if you are scheduling multiple posts for publishing at a later date and would like these to be published in a certain order, or at specific times and intervals …
Bulk Scheduling Posts
There are a number of WordPress plugins that let you “autoblog” (adding content automatically to WordPress sites).
Auto Post Scheduler is a free plugin that will schedule ‘auto post checks’ to publish new posts and/or recycle old posts automatically.
Use a plugin like Auto Post Scheduler to publish new posts and/or recycle old posts automatically. There’s no need to schedule post times individually and recycling older posts keeps your site looking fresh.
This plugin is especially useful if you plan to import a large number of blog posts, as you can set the plugin to publish posts at whatever frequency you choose as well as setting a range of other options …
To learn more, go here: Auto Post Scheduler
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