Automatic Blogging

With Word Press

Building a steady and reliable blog readership requires the blog to be frequently updated. Which, by a number of a webmasters, is often thought of as a hassle. However, if you use Word Press as your blogging platform, then you have a fantastic automation feature available which allows you to work to your schedule and not be a slave to your blog.  You can sit down to write posts according to whatever schedule you prefer to keep and then just set the blog to post them on the dates and times you prefer.

All you have to do to begin some automatic blogging and to take advantage of this fabulous time saving feature is to click on the ‘edit timestamp’ box and enter the date and time that you want the post to appear to the public before you click publish.  The post will show up as a scheduled entry in your admin dashboard but it won’t show up on the blog until the time you set.

One little quirk to the system involves ‘pinging’. When you first installed your blog you probably set it to ‘ping’ the popular blog directories and let them know when you publish a new post.  When you schedule an entry, the blog knows not to make the post public, but it still sends a ping – which can create some confusion.

The solution to this issue is found in a simple Wordpress plugin called wp-cron.  You can grab this plug in here: http://www.skippy.net/blog/category/wordpress/plugins/wp-cron/
The plug in will ensure that your blog doesn’t send a ping before the post is actually added to the blog site for public viewing.

Automated posting gives you the freedom to schedule your posts, set your own routine and enjoy time away from your blog without missing a beat with your blog readership.  You can also use it to schedule a series of posts just so you don’t have to think about it again.  For example, you may have written a special series of short articles that you want to post once a week for the next seven weeks. Just write the post, edit the timestamp and then forget them.

If you have a big online event coming up, you can sit down and write out all of the appropriate media promotions at the one time and set them to post on a set schedule.  30 days, two weeks, one week, three days, the day before and even on the big day. 

When you start doing some automatic blogging by using the features outlined you are making another step towards working smarter not harder and that is a great thing!

New To Blogging or need more information to get your blog moving?

Be sure to have a look at the Blogging Starter Pack. Read more about the Blogging Starter Pack in our Tool Box section.