One question that has probably gone through the minds of many bloggers is this: Should I publish my blog post now or later? I don’t know about anyone else, but I prefer to schedule my posts. If you blog and you want to share what you do, comment below! I think that it really is up to each individual blogger, but I have found many benefits to scheduling posts.
Benefit #1: You don’t have to be free to publish a post right when you want it to go up.
I always post on Mondays and Thursdays at 4pm Central time. This is a good time to publish when I am on a school break, but during school, I actually have class or rehearsal at that time. It’s good to keep a consistent schedule for posting so that readers can know when to expect a new post from me. Which brings me to…
Benefit #2: It makes it easier to stay consistent.
This is pretty self-explanatory, but it is nice to have a schedule for when you do something. It doesn’t matter as much if you are just blogging as an online journal, but if you want to see growth, you need to keep things consistent so that readers, fellow bloggers, and possible clients know that you are serious about your blog and your work.
Benefit #3: You can batch-publish posts.
I get pretty busy when classes are in session, and I don’t always have time to work on two new posts per week. Because of this, I like to take some extra time during school breaks to work on posts many weeks in advance. This is one of those posts. Batching is also a good idea if you are writing a mini-series, like this. If you pre-write and schedule the entire series before the first post ever goes live, you can then give readers a better introduction to the series.
Benefit #4: It allows you to keep your posts spread out.
For one reason or another, there will probably come a time when you have too much content ready to go, and there will probably be times when you don’t have enough content. This is the case with me. Since I am in school, during the school year, that becomes my priority, and my blog has the potential to fall flat and lack new content for four months at a time. At the same time, if I posted something as soon as I am done with it, there would be days with multiple posts. Scheduling can also allow you those times when writer’s block strikes.
Benefit #5: You can better plan the order in which posts are published.
If you first write a post on some very advanced topic in your niche only to write a post for beginners on that same topic a week later, you can rearrange the order in which you publish your posts. That way, you can add a link to the beginner post in the advanced one so that people can catch up.
Welp, those were five benefits that I have found with scheduling posts. I love using the schedule feature, because it gives me much more flexibility in how I manage my blog.
If you want to have these tips accessible offline, check out the “Shop My Stuff” tab. When the series is over, I will release an eBook with all of the content from the #BlogLife series and exclusive content that you won’t find anywhere else!
Thanks for reading!