Getting Ahead by Using WordPress Post Scheduling

The holidays are a busy time for all of us, travel time, family gatherings, shopping, last minute deadlines before the new year. During this time a lot of us tend to neglect or put off our writing till after the new year. For those of you that have chosen to use the popular and highly recommended WordPress publishing platform, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can still relax and enjoy the holidays knowing that you are staying on top of your writing and ahead of the competition by scheduling posts for publication ahead of time.

I would recommend planning your posts a few weeks out. Depending on your topic you do not of course want to disappoint your readers with stale or out of date content. Before the holiday rush ensues grab yourself a little notepad and jot down 2 to 3 ideas that might make for good holiday reading. Don’t put it off, get to writing as soon as possible while the content is still fresh in your mind. Whether you compile your post directly in the WordPress editor or using another publisher such as Mars Edit, get something down and ready to go.

Now doesn’t that feel better, believe me you are now way ahead of the game.

Within a few days of “breaking for the holidays”, sit down and edit. Craft your masterpiece and get it into WordPress if you have not already. Now for the good stuff, getting ready to schedule your post.

If you navigate to the post editor you are more than likely familiar with the publish options located on the upper right of the editor screen. Here you will notice a small calendar icon followed by the words “Publish Immediately”. Go ahead and click Edit. You should be presented with date and time options. Set the time and hit the schedule button.

Sit back, relax and breath easy over the next few days or weeks while the WordPress magic takes care of your blog for you.

Note: Some of you may have recently upgraded to WordPress 2.9 and are possibly experiencing problems with this post scheduling feature. The WordPress developers are working hard to push out another release fixing some of these issues as soon as possible. I just tested 2.9.1 Beta 1 and it looks as though the scheduling issues have been fixed among other items. With that this post is still relevant to you as a blogger whether these tips get you ahead over the holidays or through those times that you are just too busy to post. Enjoy!