How to schedule your blog posts, plus a bit more

Now we’re in the holiday season, we mustn’t neglect our blog posts.

I know it’s difficult keeping up with your blogging if the kids are constantly under your feet, or need to be closely supervised to make sure they don’t burn the house down, or poison Granny’s tea when your back is turned.

Well, the answer is to plan ahead.

Boring, I know, and I wonder how many people really are that organised? Well, it’s quite easy to be so, so there’s no need to let your blog go dark just because it’s a sunny day outside and everyone’s champing at the bit to go to the beach.

Get some ideas together and write a collection of blog posts for the summer. And once you’ve finished your spate of creativity, now it’s time to schedule them for specific times in the future.

This all happens within the Publish menu:

  

There are two versions here, the one of the left is from WordPress.com (the free version), the other is from WordPress.org (which you have to pay for).

In Blogger the publishing options look a little different. I don’t normally deal with Blogger, but I’m being nice today and I shall compare the two.

To schedule your posts in WordPress, click on the Edit beside ‘Publish immediately’:

   

And the menu will extend to show the date and time you started writing the post. This can be changed to the precise minute you want your post to be published:

   

Select the date and time you want to publish you post (there’s a little calendar icon to the left of ‘Publish immediately’ to help you) before clicking on OK.

It doesn’t have to be a date in the future, you can publish in the past if you want to. When I wrote my 365 blog there were some blog posts I didn’t manage to do in time, so they were written retrospectively, as it were. Nobody was any the wiser.

Once you’ve clicked on the ‘OK’ button, the big green button will magically change to ‘Schedule’. If the date and time you’ve chosen is correct, click on that to confirm your scheduled post.

And the Publish Menu will show when each of the blog posts are scheduled and when for. They will not be published before that time. If you want to change your mind again, click the Edit link after the date and time to amend it.

This is how it’s done in Blogger. Click on the Schedule option to open up the menu:

   

Click on the ‘Set date and time’ button to bring up the calendar, other than the ‘Automatic’ option.

   

Choose the date you want to schedule to from the calendar. There is a drop down menu for the time which gives you half-hourly selections. I’m not sure if you can schedule in the past, experiment and find out!

When you’re happy with your scheduled date, don’t forget to click on the ‘Done’ button.

And now the Post Settings shows the date and time your post is scheduled for.

Note underneath the date is your Time Zone. This currently says +00.00 which is GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). This might mean your blog posts won’t published at the time you think it will be. You will need to update your blog to BST (British Summer Time).

Go to the main dashboard of Blogger and look for the Settings option. Underneath it there should be ‘Language and formatting’, which you need to click on to bring up the Time Zone details.

You need to find the Time Zone for London, located in about the middle of the drop down menu options:

Don’t forget to click on the ‘Save Settings’ button when you’re done.

Now to back to your scheduled post in its edit format, and check the Post Settings Scheduled option:

And you will see it now says British Summer Time. Yay!

To do this in WordPress, go to the Dashboard and find Settings in the left hand sidebar:

And in the General page you’ll see the option to select London from the drop down menu for the Time Zone.

Once selected, WordPress automatically recognises that we’re currently in Daylight Saving time (DST) which is the same as British Summer Time. It even gives the date and time when the clocks go back!

Don’t forget to save your options when you’re done. Now you can go and have a really happy holiday and not worry about your blog posts!