Automatic Blogging With Wordpress

To take advantage of the search engine benefits of having a blog, you need to post to it regularly. This could be a problem if you're going on holidays, or have days where you just don't feel inspired. And ultimately, you shouldn't be a slave to your business!

Fortunately, Wordpress has a feature that allows you to automate your blogging somewhat. Basically, what you do is edit the timestamp of your blog, setting it to the date that you want the post to appear. This allows you to schedule your posts without entering them on the day. And it's a great solution if you have a report you want to appear on your blog over time.

To do this, just click on the 'Edit Timestamp' box, and put in the time and date you want your post to appear publicly. Then click 'Publish'. The post will be visible in the admin dashboard, but it won't be published on your blog until the date you've specified.

The problem with this is that if you have set your blog to ping the popular blog directories (as you should have when you set it up), then those directories are still pinged. - Even though your post is not public yet!

There is a workaround to this. It just involves installing a plugin to the wp-plugin directory, which is located in the wp-content directory of your blog. Simply FTP the plugin to that directory, then log into your admin area. Select the 'Plugins' option on the top menu bar, find the plugin, and click to activate it.

You'll actually need to activate two plugins. The first, WP-Cron, is needed for all the Cron plugins to work. The second specifically allows you to ping future posts at the date of publishing. It's called WP-Cron Future Pings (appropriately enough!)

You can download them here: There are more instructions on the site.

Using automated functions help you to work smarter not harder and that is a good thing!