Should You Schedule Your Blog Posts?
Scheduling your blog posts can help you maintain control over your site, while giving you the opportunity to write when your creative juices are flowing.
This article is dedicated to Dominique who solicited my thoughts on blogging in advance. Make sure you check out her blog, An Unlikely Perspective 2, to find out what is on Dominique’s mind.
The blogosphere has evolved over the years to where it seems to be much more about marketing or conveying business information than about personal online journaling. Still, blog variety is the spice of life which means that there is enough room for all kinds of writing and publishing styles, with few rules holding sway. I hope that I never see the blogosphere organized to the point where originality is no longer prevalent!
How Often Do You Write?
One question that some bloggers have about blogging concerns their writing schedule. At some point, you’ll discover a rhythm that works best for you – perhaps you like posting on Mondays and Thursdays or maybe you prefer a more frequent schedule which includes Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and the weekend. Or whatever.
Regardless of how often you write, you can probably agree with the following sentiment – there are days when inspiration flows, but there are other times when you’d rather not write. However, by not adhering to a consistent schedule your blog could eventually fall to the wayside, perhaps even die. No serious blogger would allow that to happen to their blogs which for some folks serves as an extension of themselves.
Scheduling Your Articles
An important way to ensure that your blog is always fresh is to write articles in advance and schedule them to appear (drip) at certain times and on specified days. Even though I don’t have to tell you, I wrote this article on Labor Day when things were quiet and slow. I completed the article shortly before noon, then took the rest of the day off. Thanks to scheduling, I have enough articles set to appear on my other blogs for the coming days as well.
What this ultimately means is that I can work writing around my own schedule without being tied down – a measure of freedom I want and crave. Likely, you feel the same way too.
Assuming that your blog platform allows you to schedule articles in advance, developing a schedule certainly makes sense. Even though the calendar says September, I’m already thinking about articles I’ll write for the remainder of the year, including seasonal topics such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. I may write and schedule my Christmas message in November, especially if I feel particularly inspired.
Three Tips For Successful Article Preparation
Of course, there are a few things to keep in mind when writing in advance:
Don’t Date Yourself – You may think it odd to write your new year’s message when the leaves have yet to change, but that’s something entirely up to you. If I’m writing well in advance, particularly for a holiday, I write as if the holiday is in the present or “today” – not the future. That goes without saying that you should never reference the actual date when you wrote your article – your readers don’t need that distraction nor will they care.
Pick And Choose – With several of my blogs, I usually write one or two articles in advance, but with one particular blog I go much further. For example, sometimes I’ll write an article about a special event taking place one or two months out, then I fill in the remaining dates here or there.
Don’t Force It – One bad habit to avoid when writing in advance is to force yourself to write when you aren’t prepared to write. I have a personal policy that works well for me – I write only when inspired. Maybe I have only one article to write; perhaps three or more. If I write when my creative juices aren’t flowing, then I’ll torture myself to complete the task. And, who wants to read tortured writing?
In the end, writing in advance is something completely up to you. Sometimes, I will write in advance and amend the article before it is published. There are other situations where I’ll change the date when an article is to appear. My readers aren’t aware of these changes, but I like to maintain control over the publication process as that gives me the freedom to write and publish as I see fit.
Photo Credit: Maxime Perron Caissy
Tags: blog, Blogger, blogging, Blogspot, Maxime Perron Caissy, online journal, WordPress, writer, Writing
Writing | Matthew C. Keegan, 10 Sep 09
By Jan from BetterSpines, September 10, 2009 @ 12:16 am
Hi Matt. I agree – only write when you have something to say! There’s nothing worse than those “sorry I haven’t written a post” posts that don’t give something to the reader. And you explain the process of pre-scheduling in a way that’s easy to understand. Thanks.
.-= Jan from BetterSpines´s last blog ..Inspirational Quote =-.
By Matthew C. Keegan, September 10, 2009 @ 5:16 am
@Jan from BetterSpines
Jan, I’m with you. I never understood why some bloggers have to explain every minute details about themselves especially as pertains to slacking off with their writing. Sure, if an emergency comes up your followers need to know about it, but reporters and journalists don’t preface their work with so notices.
By LarryJackson, September 10, 2009 @ 6:44 am
Scheduling articles is something that I have never used. I written a few in advance, but for some reason, I have not scheduled them to post. Instead, I just go back and hit the publish button. One of those pre-written articles was about John McCain’s vice-Presidential pick. I had two different articles ready to go, depending on who he chose.
I can see where scheduling could be very useful, especially if I wanted to take a vacation and still maintain my blog traffic. Good article, Matt.
.-= LarryJackson´s last blog ..Health care reform and illegal immigrants =-.
By Matthew C. Keegan, September 10, 2009 @ 6:49 am
@LarryJackson
Much appreciated, Larry.
I like the idea of having two articles ready to go, especially when it comes to breaking news. That’s more work, but it allows you to have the right article for the right moment.
Scheduling makes a lot of sense for most bloggers. On occasion, I’ll write and publish immediately, but I like to plan my writing schedule much as newspapers do as they lay out each copy.
By Joe, September 10, 2009 @ 7:19 am
Yes it is indeed very necessary for managing your blog posts. You need to keep your blog at constant work and need to keep on working on it constantly. I am confident that if you keep a proper scheduling of the work then it will definitely achieve maximum fruits.
By Matthew C. Keegan, September 10, 2009 @ 7:25 am
Thanks, Joe. I take it that by “constant” you don’t mean “all of the time” rather to have your blog set up to constantly or consistently update. We shouldn’t be tied down to our blogs which is what post scheduling frees us up from.
By Karen & Gerard Zemek, September 10, 2009 @ 7:30 am
I love the scheduling feature and use it regularly. Like you, I write when I’m inspired. For both my blogspot blogs, I have this capability but my Zemek’s Updates (http://karen.pnn.com) one on PNN does not. The nice feature there though is that it’s easy to write posts for my different categories. Our book reviews I do as we finish the books, our pet blogs are updated about once a week, the News I do when something really happens that I feel pssionate about and other things are more or less done sporadically. If I have a bunch of posts to write, sometimes I’ll do them in Word or in an email to myself and then post it at a later time.
.-= Karen & Gerard Zemek´s last blog ..Thank You Grover Trophy–What A Nice Surprise! =-.
By Matthew C. Keegan, September 10, 2009 @ 7:37 am
Karen, I like the idea of writing your articles in Word first. I do the same with most of my posts and there are times I will email the article to myself in order to ensure a back up copy is available.
I’m glad that Blogspot articles can be scheduled too. You have so much more control over your site and you can write when the mood strikes. I’m amazed when I find a blog that hasn’t been updated in weeks, even a popular one at that, because the blogger was too busy. Well, with a little planning you can write a few articles in advance to keep your site fresh.
By Dominique, September 11, 2009 @ 5:15 pm
Hi Matt – Now that was a surprise!
Well, I too, use the publish route. I also use word to story article for the future.
Having said that, it can be tricky to stay on top of writing ahead when you cover politics. Things grow “old” quiet quickly, thus, you almost have to keep on top of things every day.
Thanks for the great advice.
.-= Dominique´s last blog ..the FALLING man… =-.
By Dominique, September 11, 2009 @ 5:18 pm
I have one other question for you. Perhaps a future article! Where are good places to get images and photos that are free or close to free?
.-= Dominique´s last blog ..the FALLING man… =-.
By Matthew C. Keegan, September 12, 2009 @ 9:20 am
Thanks, Dominique!
I get most of my free photos from http://www.sxc.hu and, if the creative commons licensing isn’t too restrictive, I’ll take some from Wikipedia as well. I almost always attribute the photo whether required or not. I do this the first time I use it on my blog, but generally not for follow up occasions.
By Roy Hunter, September 12, 2009 @ 11:04 pm
I agree with you, it is not productive when you are not inspired. With no inspiration I feel I am forced and when I feel like I am forced, my writing suffers. I have never been good at maintaining a blog schedule but most of my Internet copywriting gets picked up randomly from digg, blog catalog, technorati, etc. so staying on schedule is no biggie. great article, thanks for sharing it!
.-= Roy Hunter´s last blog ..Internet Copywriting: Writing Website Copy, Part Two =-.