Last updated on August 1st, 2018 at 06:18 pm
If you’ve started a blog, congratulations. Now it’s time to learn how to schedule posts on WordPress and start batching your content.
I know what you’re thinking, what is batching and why should I start?
As a new blogger, it’s exciting to think about the all the possibilities that a blog can bring. After all, you most likely have seen people’s income reports online that promise you that you can make thousands per month with your blog.
While it’s true that your blog can make money. The thing to keep in mind is that the money is not going to come overnight.
In fact, it’s going to take a while to build up your blog. Some of us it’s going to take longer than others.
That’s why I wanted to share this important tip with you on how to schedule posts on WordPress and start batching your content.
What is Batching
You might have heard the term “batching” being used on the Internet in the blogging world. Batching is nothing more than sitting down and writing several pieces of content for your own blog or guest posts.
When you are batch writing, you do not do any brainstorming or spend time looking for the right keywords.
You don’t focus on creating images for your social media images. All you do is sit down and write, you don’t even proofread.
Here Is How I Batch My Content
Everyone is different and has their own system. In this tutorial, I am going to share how I batch my content. Then I’ll run you through on how to schedule posts in WordPress.
I’ll even give you an inside look at my editorial calendar. I personally do not use any plugins or premium tools to help me stay organized.
Instead, I use Google Drive to help me with my blog organization. I think it’s much easier, the downside is that it’s harder to move my posts around if I decide to do that.
Sitting Down And Writing
When I sit down to write content, I already have several topics on Google Drive. This makes it easier for me to spend time writing, instead of looking for topics to write about.
As you know, I use LongTailPro to help me find keywords for my blog posts. This year, I am focusing more on long tail keywords with less competition to see if I can improve my organic traffic.
Maybe I’ll show you how I have my content schedule set up for my WordPress categories later on.
Where I Write My Content
I know that a lot of new bloggers just write their upcoming blog posts in their current blog and then save it as a draft. I personally don’t do that.
One of the reasons that I don’t write my upcoming blog posts on my live blog is that once I accidentally hit the publish button instead of the draft button.
I don’t know if that’s ever happened to you or not. But I don’t want to make that mistake again.
So now, I make it a point to write all my upcoming blog posts on my testing site on my computer. I even have a test site set up for all the guest posts that I write for other blogs.
I personally use Desktop Server to set up my test development site. Another thing that I do with this testing site, is I test out new plugins or make any changes on it before making them on my live site.
I’m not a developer and I would freak out if something if happened to my blog. Thank goodness I have BlogVault as my blog savior.
How to Schedule Posts on WordPress
Once the content is written, it’s time to get it scheduled on my live blog. Remember, your goal should be to batch your content and get ahead on your content writing.
This makes it easier for you to focus on promotion and take some time off from your blog if you need a break.
Related: How to Use Pinterest For Business Trying a New Strategy
One of my goals is to make sure that my blog posts are written at least 2-3 months in advance.
Although that doesn’t always happen. Right now at the time of this writing, I am only one month ahead with my content.
So let’s get this post scheduled to publish in February 2018. This will help you see what I do to schedule my posts.
Adding A New Blog Post In WordPress
Scheduling a blog post in WordPress is the same as if you were publishing a new post on your blog. You will want to add a new blog post.
Once you click on add new post, you will see the text editor. If you have never written a blog post in WordPress, it can be a little confusing. Here’s a tutorial that will show you how to write your first blog post.
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Copying and Pasting My Content
Since I have already written the post on my test site, all I have to do is copy and paste the content from my dummy blog to my live site.
One of the things that I do is I also take the time to set up the Yoast SEO plugin on my localhost that way all I have to do is copy and paste and then schedule.
Since I have a 27″ iMac computer, I am able to have two windows open at one time. So I open up my live blog on one side and my test site on the other side.
Then I just copy and paste my content from one to the other. The image on the left is my dummy site and the one on the right is my live site.
I’ve personally found it easier to just click on the Text tab on the editor and paste and copy the content that way. This way all your links and formatting stays intact.
Once you’ve got everything copied into your live site and have it looking pretty, it’s time to schedule the post.
Schedule Posts On WordPress
Instead of publishing your blog post, you want to make sure that you’re scheduling the post. WordPress gives you the option of publishing your post right now or you can choose to schedule it.
You can choose any date in the future that you want. So schedule your date and then click on Okay.
Once you click on Okay, the publish button will change from publish to schedule.
Now all you have to do is click on schedule the blog post.
The post will be scheduled to be published for the date you selected. Now you have started batching your content and this will help you get ahead of your content writing.
All you have to do is keep writing your blog posts and adding them to your content calendar.
Keeping Track Of Your Upcoming Content
Staying organized with your upcoming blog content will help you know what you have published on your blog and which upcoming articles are going live.
Yes, there are plugins that you can use to help you keep track of your editorial calendar. However, I personally do not use a plugin for my editorial calendar.
I don’t want to add another plugin to my blog, especially since I already have all my favorite plugins on my blog.
Using Google Drive
I don’t pay for any fancy software or programs, Instead, I just use Google Drive to help me keep track of all the posts that I have written for the month.
Let Me Show You
I’ve set up a document on Google Drive called My Blog Posts. Feel free to call it whatever you want. Since I am currently publishing new posts on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays, I have them set up on my document.
Whenever I write a new blog post I will add it to my document on Drive.
I have a color-coded system to help me keep track of the different stages of my upcoming blog posts.
Yellow: The blog post has been written but still needs to be proofread
Green: I’ve proofread the article and it is ready to go live
Purple: The post has been published and is now ready to promotion
You can see that I have other information about the blog posts that help me stay organized even further.
This system helps me keep track of which blog posts still need social media images created and which ones need to be proofread.
Once everything has been finished and proofread, I will change it from yellow to green. Yes, I also create a Pinterest image and Pinterest description for every blog post that I publish.
It may sound confusing, but this actually works really well for me. So feel free to use whatever system works for you.
The important thing is to find what works for you and use it. You’re going to need a lot of content to grow your blog, so you want to make sure that you’re implementing a system that you can use.
Final Take Away
Blogging is hard work. It’s fun sharing my tutorials and blogging journey with you. My little quirky systems seem to help me stay on track for keeping an updated blog schedule.
Hopefully, this tutorial will show you how to schedule posts on WordPress. Once you start getting ahead with your content marketing, you will never go back to writing content the night before.
Being consistent in blogging is one of the keys to success. No, you don’t have to publish content every day, but you do need to create a consistent blogging schedule that works for you.
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Do you batch your content? If so how many posts do you like to write in advance? Do you feel like batching has helped you focus more on the promotion aspect of your blog?
My Recommended Blogging Resources!
Here are my affiliate links for my most recommended resources. I hope these resources can help you grow your blog too!
Free 12 Day Blogging Bootcamp: This is a course that will show you how to get your blog started.
ShareASale: ShareASale is one of my favorite affiliate networks. It’s free to sign up and they have tons of advertisers that make it easy for any blogger to make money through affiliate marketing.
SEMRush: This tool is amazing and has helped me increase my organic traffic. It is expensive, so don’t pay for it every month. When I’m NOT using it, I’m using KWFinder to help me with my keyword research.
Quiz: Which theme is best for your blog?: Take this quiz if you’re having a hard time trying to decide which WordPress theme you should use.
If you want to build an email list and send newsletters, I recommend ConvertKit: I’ve started using this to help me grow my blog and it is so user-friendly.
JumpStart Blog Traffic: Learn my secrets to growing my blog from zero pageviews to growing each and every month, using Google and Pinterest.
Hey Susan!
This is a great tip for bloggers.
Batch content creation is the way to go. I didn’t do this at the beginning of my blogging journey and it was hard to be consistently publishing new content. What a dummy I was! haha
If you want to be publishing unique content on a regular basis, it only makes sense to do this. It saves you a lot of time and stress. For real!
As you mentioned, everyone has their own way of doing this. I, personally, like to do my batch content creation in one of my WordPress Blog. And no, hitting the publish button by accident has not happened to me so far. To prevent such thing from happening I would suggest having a “test” WordPress Site where you can just create and save your upcoming content (and I see you already have such site).
I just like the WordPress Content Editor. I’m very used to it. And I can access it from any computer with internet access – just like you would your Google Docs. I do use Google Docs sometimes, as well.
Another reason why I like to create a bunch of blog posts inside my WordPress – is because if I’m going to submit a new guest blog post I’d like to see how it would look like published as I’m crafting the masterpiece. 😉
Oh I’m very excited to try out the new WordPress Content Editor called ‘Gutenberg’.
This new content editor should make it easier for the writer to focus a lot better.
This is smart blogging!
I highly recommend the new blogger to take these tips seriously.
Thank you for sharing Susan!
Best regards! 😀
Hi Freddy,
Glad to hear that you’re batching your content as well. It’s definitely a lot easier than trying to sit down and write it the day that it needs to be published.
I’ve actually haven’t heard of the Gutenberg WordPress editor.
Let me know how it goes for you, I’d love to hear about it.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
Hey Susan,
Everytime, I am visit on your website so I felt amazing because you share amazing content with us.
Thanks for sharing these type amazing posts.
Hi Basit,
I am glad that you enjoy the information that I share and find it helpful. I try my best to share information that you can use.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
Hey Susan,
Awesome resource! I was a terrific practicer of batch processing until baby #2 arrived 🙂 Now I just “almost” process rather than batch process hahaha..
Jokes aside, batch processing is aHUGE time saver and is a system that helps you accomplish a lot of things. When you batch and complete one particular type of tasks you get a sense of big achievement, because in fact you have accomplished a lot.
Batch processing also saves you the mental effort of having to switch back and forth between different types of tasks – with batching you just focus on one kind of task and get it done. Much easier on the brain and leaves you with lesser exhaustion.
Thanks for sharing your method. By the way, the Long Tail Pro aff link leads to a not found page – you might want to fix that.
Cheers,
Jane.
Hi Jane,
Yeah, I get it batching is a time saver. I don’t mind the writing, my problem is making the time to go back and proofread the content. I hate proofreading.
Thanks for the Long Tail affiliate heads up, they changed my affiliate link and I wasn’t aware of it.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
Great post Susan, I can’t seem to get the downloadable pdf file to open. I saved it twice and both times it says it is corrupted or wrong format. I really hoped to see how Post Gopher worked.
Hi Connie,
I am sorry you keep getting that error. I just tried it and didn’t see any errors at all. Did you check your downloadable files, it should be there.
I’ve personally been using the plugin to help me grow my email list and haven’t had any complaints, otherwise, I would’ve contacted the developers of the plugin.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
This is yet another awesome tutorial Susan,
Writing batches is something I’ve not really taken so serious even though I know of its importance, I’ll have to work something out though.
For me, I always prefer writing on Microsoft Word document first before moving it over to my blog. I also, sometimes, uses Google spreadsheet to write.
However, i don’t really think it matters much where you write your posts, the most important thing is always to get it done right?
Hi Anil,
Batch writing has definitely helped me keep up with my blogging schedule.
You’re right, it really doesn’t matter where you write your blog posts. The most important thing is to just get ahead if possible.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
Helo Susan,
Thanks for sharing. Just a few hours ago, I scheduled a post for Monday. Though I don’t do it often but it’s an interesting way to save time for me and improve my productivity.
When I’m done scheduling, I can focus on something else.
Thanks for sharing.
Emenike
Hi Emenike,
I always schedule my posts in advance. Glad you’re using it to help you stay more productive.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
Hi Susan,
I really love the content batching concept. I haven’t done it before, buy after reading your article, I believe batching is an amazing way to get much done in less time.
However, as you pointed out, everyone has his/her own way of creating content for the further. I have mistakenly hit the publish button more than once, so for now I’m using Google docs to write my articles, save them in Google Drive and just copy and paste on WordPress for publishing.
Thanks a lot Susan!
Hi Moss,
Batching is what makes it easier for me to take time off from my blog and focus on other things in my business. Right now, I already have all my posts written for April and am starting on May.
Although, I still need to proof them and create the images. But I couldn’t imagine keeping up with my blog if I didn’t batch my content.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan
HI Susan, I’d love to be in the process of batching but I have 2 issues, one is time and the other is the relevancy of long time posts. Most of my posts are about recent updates to Twitter and a social media so I can’t do those in advance more than a few days. BUT if I were better organized I could do some that way and would love to.
You may have inspired me to look at a calendar and put some tutorials in between those that need to go asap for the relevancy.
Thank you Susan and have a wonderful weekend!
Hi Lisa,
It’s funny that you mention that, because sometimes a blog post will be published and I completely forgot what I wrote about.
I can only imagine that it would be more challenging to batch content for Twitter and trying to keep up with their updates.
I’ve started writing quite a bit about Pinterest. I always write about it from my personal experience and what I am doing. I always make it a point to say as of right now.
This seems to work for me. Of course, if something totally changes, then I’ll go in and make changes to the post.
Good luck and let me know if you do start batching your content. Batching definitely makes it a lot easier for me to focus on other things and know that my blog will always have fresh content.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by and comment.
Have a great day 🙂
Susan