How to Schedule a Post in WordPress

There are often two reasons somebody would want to schedule posts in advance. The first reason would be that a lot of websites have a peak time that visiting them is popular. For example, I always check Facebook when I wake up in the morning. This allows a WordPress blog author to schedule new posts for when they are at their peak number of users. The second reason people schedule posts in WordPress is for convenience. Going on vacation? You can schedule the next two weeks worth of posts on your blog ahead of time. This way your website visitors will never know you were gone.

How to Schedule Posts

Here are the steps you need to follow to schedule your posts as you write them.

When you are on the “Add New Post” screen, you should see a box labeled, “Publish” to your right. Click the Edit link, next to Publish immediately.

This opens up the option to set an exact date and time to schedule a post in WordPress. You even have the option to post it in the past too (if you need to). You have the option to change:

• Month
• Day
• Year
• Time

The time might be a little tricky for some, due to the fact that it is based on a 24-hour clock. The time is based on your location that you set up in Settings > General. Click the OK button when you are finished editing the time and date.

Following these steps, you should have scheduled posts in no time!

What if you forgot to schedule your posts as you were saving them as drafts into WordPress? Do you have to go in and individually edit each post? You can. However, there is an easier way to handle that problem.

Forget to Schedule?

If you have a ton of article drafts saved but have not yet set up a publishing date, you can also schedule your posts from the Posts > All Posts screen. All you need to do is hover over the post in question.

Next, hit the “Quick Edit” link. This will take you to a page that allows you to edit a lot of information about the post. Now, all you need to do is modify the date and then click the button labeled, “Update”.

It always feels good when you can get ahead of the curve and schedule your posts ahead of time. We are curious to know. How many of you use this time-saving method of managing WordPress?