Has it been like this: You had prepared a bunch of blog posts to publish, but somehow, it skipped your mind? Well, if you’re a blogger or content creator, you can relate to this. It gets even worse if the post is time-sensitive, like a holiday update or an important announcement.
Exactly that’s where scheduling your posts in WordPress comes to save you from these last-minute scrambles and keep your blog running smoothly. In this blog, we’ll learn how to schedule posts in WordPress in three effective ways. Also make sure you stick to the last, as I’ll be sharing some tips and tricks to manage scheduled posts in WordPress.
But before that let’s talk about why scheduling your WordPress posts in advance is so important and how it can release some of your workload.
Let’s be honest no one can work 24/7, all of us need a break. But even if we go on a trip or vacation, our work cannot go on strike. Especially when you’re running a blogging site then you need to take extra care of consistency. For example, you can schedule a few of your ready blogs in advance so that they get published at regular intervals. In this way, you can keep your audience engaged by keeping your site updated with new blogs.
Other than these primary reasons, there are tons of good reasons why scheduling posts in WordPress is a smart idea, come let’s learn some more:
Now that you know why scheduling posts is a good practice next let’s walk through how you can do it in WordPress step by step.
This is the most straightforward method where you don’t need any extra plugins to schedule your posts. But we often ignore this option of WordPress’s block editor.
Step 1: To get started you first need to create a new post on WordPress.
Step 2: From the post editor > On the right side, under the “Post” panel you’ll notice “Publish” is set to immediately > Click on “Immediately” and you can schedule your post.
Step 3: Set the date & time then click the “Schedule” button
See your post is scheduled and will be published at the specified time.
Although most people prefer to use the default WordPress block editor, there are still some developers who are comfortable using the “Classic Editor”. That doesn’t mean Classics does not provide scheduling options, of course, they do. If you’re that kind of developer then nothing to worry I’ll show you how to do it. There is a little difference in interface with the Block editor.
To schedule posts in WordPress using Classic Editor, simply follow the steps I’ll be showing here:
Step 1: Install and activate the “Classic Editor” plugin from the WordPress directory.
Step 2: Enable it, if it is not enabled by default.
Step 3: Create New Post > On the right side under the “Publish” panel you can see “edit” option beside “Publish Immediately”, click on it
Step 4: Set up the schedule by giving time and date. Then click on the “OK” button. Lastly, click on “Schedule”.
Look! Your post is scheduled using the Classic Editor.
If you’re not so fond of using WordPress’s built-in post-scheduling functionality, don’t worry! there are plenty of WordPress plugins available to assist you with the scheduling. For example, you can check out CoSchedule. With CoSchedule, you can manage and schedule your WordPress blog posts, articles, and website content, from a single calendar within your WordPress dashboard.
However, it’s worth noting that the free version of CoSchedule offers limited scheduling capabilities. To access its full range of features, you’ll need to switch to a paid CoSchedule account, which starts at $80 per month.
Now that you’re familiar with scheduling posts in WordPress, let’s explore how you can do auto post and auto schedule your WordPress blog posts on popular social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, and many more to boost your reach and engagement.
Here, I’ll talk about Bit Social an excellent social media management tool for WordPress users. It is known for its user-friendly interface and affordability. Let’s talk about 3 prominent features of Bit Social:
To know how each feature operates to ease your social media management check out our blog here.
Now that you know how to schedule your posts on WordPress using editors and plugins. Next, you need to follow some tips and tricks to manage these scheduled posts so that you can attain the utmost benefits of advanced scheduling posts.
Tip 1: Set Time Zone
To make sure your WordPress posts go live at the correct time, your first and most important step is to select the right time zone from WordPress settings. By default, the WordPress time zone is set to UTC time however, you can always change it.
To change, move to Settings > General > “timezone” option, click on it a drop-down menu will appear. From there, select your local time zone and save the changes to lock in your settings.
This quick adjustment ensures your scheduled posts go live exactly when you want them to!
Tip 2: Keeping track of Scheduled Posts
Always keep track of scheduled posts. It’s simple! Just go to Posts > All Posts in your WordPress dashboard.
At the top, you’ll see several options; click on the Scheduled option. From here, you can manage your scheduled posts and can quickly edit, delete, or even publish them before the date.
Tip 3: Unschedule Scheduled Posts
You can always cancel any scheduled posts that is you can unschedule them. To do this you first need to enter the post editor section of the post you want to unschedule.
For Gutenberg users, click on the scheduled post > under Post can see “Scheduled” next to Status, click on it > various options appear from there select Draft and it’ll be saved as a draft. Also, you can directly publish it right away.
For Classic users, click the Edit button under the Publish section, next to Status > A drop-down menu will appear, select Draft from there > Click on the OK button and then on Update to save the selection.
By reading so far, you’ve seen various ways of scheduling post content in WordPress. Even though default editors are good for basic scheduling however if you want better control over your post scheduling and want more scheduling tools and functions, use plugins like Bit Social they are worth trying. Plus, if you have a huge backlog of blog posts or articles then also plugins are a better option than built-in editors.
The main reason for scheduling WordPress posts is to drive more traffic to any website. Think strategically–rather than posting a bulk of content at once, you’ll get a much better response by scheduling posts at different times. Additionally, scheduling in advance helps build a loyal audience while keeping your site organized and up-to-date.
Hope this guide made it easy for you to learn how to schedule posts in WordPress! Thanks for reading.
Scheduling posts in WordPress allows you to publish content regularly maintaining consistency, even when you’re unavailable. So scheduling is a great method to increase website traffic and keep your audience engaged.
You can schedule posts using 3 methods–
Using Block editor
Using Classic Editor
Using a Plugin
I have explained each method above, use the one that fits your needs.
Yes, absolutely! Simply navigate to Posts > All Posts > Click on the Scheduled option. From there, you can edit, delete, or publish posts.
If the time zone isn’t set correctly, your posts may not publish at the intended time. Always ensure your time zone is correctly configured in Settings > General.
Yes, for Gutenberg users, go to the post editor and click Switch to draft. For Classic Editor users, click Edit under the Publish section, change the status to Draft, and save.
Scheduling posts ensures timely publication, keeps your website updated, helps you hit peak traffic times, and reduces workload stress by automating content posting.
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