In this latest installment of our tutorial series, we will show you how to schedule posts in WordPress. WordPress has a really cool feature that allows you to postdate or backdate posts. Lots of WP website owners don’t know about this.
Publishing new content on your WordPress blog on a regular basis helps you get more pages indexed on search engines, drive traffic to your site and keep your blog readers coming back for more information.
There may be instances, however, when you may not want content to be published when you hit the publish button.
For example, here are some instances when you may not want posts published immediately after adding it to your WordPress blog:
- You travel a lot but you still want blog posts being published on your blog while you’re gone.
- You would like an already published post removed and automatically republished at a future time/date.
- You want to start publishing a daily post with the latest news about a certain topic for your blog readers, but they live in a different time country than you. You’d like them to receive your posts each day at the same time, but this would require you to get up in the middle of the night to hit the “publish” button.
- You set aside one day each week to create a whole week’s worth of articles for your website, or you outsource your article 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 an online training course and would like to “drip-feed” posts to members over a period of time.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could just add a bunch of content to your website or blog in one go, and then have it all be automatically “drip-fed” to your blog so that only one new blog post gets published each day, or week, or every few days?
You could then implement a “set and forget” system for scheduling and publishing fresh content to your blog that would keep your readers regularly engaged, and free up your time to grow other areas of your business … or leave for a while and know that your content marketing strategy is still working for you.
Well … with WordPress you can! You can set a date/time in the future to publish your posts and WordPress will schedule and automatically publish or republish your content exactly as you have specified.
In the tutorial below you will learn a little-known feature that lets you schedule posts in WordPress to publish at a later date, and some tips on how to automate your content for scheduling.
Go through the tutorial below to learn how to schedule posts in WordPress.
For more in depth WordPress Training, check out Wealthy Affiliate.
Schedule Posts In WordPress – Step-By-Step Tutorial
With WordPress you can easily alter the date and time of your published posts, including setting exact dates and times in the future. This enables you to create or add articles to your site, which can then be pre-set to go live at a future date and time of your choice.
You can schedule existing WordPress posts to publish at a later time using the Quick Edit method when viewing a list of all your existing WordPress posts, or you can schedule them when you’re editing your posts.
Schedule Posts In WordPress Using The Quick Edit Function
To schedule WP posts using the Quick Edit function,
Log into your WordPress admin area and select Posts > All Posts …
In your Posts section, find the Post you want to edit, then hover your mouse over the post title to reveal the options menu and click on Quick Edit…
The Quick Edit editor expands to reveal all the the “Quick Edit” options for editing posts …
Find the “Date” section in the “Quick Edit” in-line editor screen …
WordPress allows you to set the date and time of your post, just by changing the values in the fields or selecting options from the drop-down menu …
Useful Tip: You can schedule posts in WordPress in the future or backdate posts to show posts as having been published prior to the original date of publication.
This is very 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 posts to reflect the same dates you’ve been absent. Another great use for backdating your posts would be to give a brand new website or blog a little bit more of an “established” look. Similarly, you can set all posts to publish in the future if you plan to launch your blog after getting it all ready and finished.
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Change the date of your post to any date (and/or time) you would like your post to show as having been published (future or past) …
Note: To schedule posts in WordPress in the PM, you will need to use the 24-hour clock. For example, to display 1:00 PM enter 13:00 in the scheduling module. The time your post will actually publish is determined by the location settings specified in your Settings > General section.
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Click the Update button to save your changes …
Your post status will now show as being “Scheduled” in your Table of Posts …
Your post will also display as being “Scheduled” inside the Quick Edit > Status section …
How To Schedule Posts In WordPress When Adding / Editing Posts
If you are creating a new post, you can schedule your post to publish at a future date and time, by clicking on Publish immediately > Edit…
Change the date (and time if you want) of your post and click the OK button …
Remember to click Schedule to update 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 set …
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 …
Remember to click the Schedule button to update your republishing settings …
Your post will show as being scheduled inside the Post Edit > Publish module …
Your post status will now show as being “Scheduled” in your Posts section …
You can see which scheduled posts are queued for publishing in your WordPress dashboard’s ‘Activity’ panel …
Congratulations! Now you know how to schedule posts in WordPress to publish at a later date.
Let us show you now how to republish existing WordPress blog posts.
Useful Tip: The above method also works for editing WordPress pages.
How To Republish A WordPress Post
In some instances, you may want 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 the time the post was published. Enter a future later date and time, then click Schedule.
When the scheduled time arrives, the post will move from its current place in your timeline to the most recent spot on your blog and display the new date and time. The post link 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 your post to be redistributed to your email subscribers, use the option below.
Edit Post Status
You can republish your post simply by changing the status of your post to Draft, clicking Update, and then clicking Publish again …
When you do this, your post will immediately redistribute to your blog subscribers. However, the publication date and time will remain the same, so the post’s link and position in the timeline will remain the same.
Tip: If you want a republished post to display first on your site, you can always use the “sticky” feature …
How To Unschedule A Blog Post
If you schedule posts in WordPress to be published later, but then change your mind and want to publish it immediately, simply return to the Edit Post screen for your scheduled post.
In the Publish section, 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 the current time showing on your clock) as your scheduled post time and click OK …
Click Publish …
Your post will now be published right away …
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 your Post Status. Did you save your post as a “Draft” instead of scheduling it?
- Did you remember to click the “Schedule” button after modifying the date/time? 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 hosting setup, you could experience problems. If so, try lowering the number of scheduled items and see if this solves the problem.
Automating Post Scheduling With Plugins
You can automate certain aspects of publishing and scheduling content in WordPress using plugins.
Queuing Posts For Publishing
Queue Posts is a free plugin that lets you queue new posts and pages for publishing later at a specified interval …
Whenever you create a new 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 between certain times and intervals …
Bulk Schedule WP
There are a number of WordPress plugins designed to schedule posts in WordPress for “autoposting” or “autoblogging” (add content automatically to WordPress blogs).
AutoPost Scheduler
Auto Post Scheduler is a free WP 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 old posts can revitalize traffic.
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: Schedule Posts in WordPress
WPRobot
Although you may not want to use all of the features of an “autoblogging” plugin, a plugin like WPRobot includes a module that allows you to bulk import posts or article files into your WordPress site, and then set these to automatically publish at regular or random intervals in the future.
To learn more about using this plugin, go here: WPRobot – WordPress Plugin
Has this tutorial helped you in any way? Did we leave something important out? Please add your thoughts below and take a moment to share this tutorial with your friends.
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