5 Steps to Auto Publishing Content with Wordpress

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One of the best ways to increase the appeal of a website to prospects and search engines is by being a helpful resource. In order to do that you’re going to need to populate it with lots of useful content. The task is often easier said than done though; especially when you’re trying to keep that content train rolling. For smaller business owners, hiring someone to write the recommended 2 or 3 content updates per week just isn’t feasible.

If you still want to generate web content yourself, you’re going to need to start keeping a content bank for use on your site. Sometimes you may have a few hours to spare or a free afternoon to write several entries. You may even want to set an entire day aside and write content for the next month or so. If you find yourself up late at night with the ideas just-a-flowin’, you could also write some content after everyone else is asleep.

Or you could keep counting how many hours you can still get if you fall asleep right now. Or now. Or now.

No matter when you write your content, the key thing for site performance in search engines is that the site must be updated at consistent intervals that work best for your target audience. Early mornings or late nights might not necessarily be the best time to publish content, so you’ll need to identify the best times to publish your content. Luckily there are tools that will help you schedule your content updates and make the whole website updating process a whole lot smoother.

So how do I schedule content to publish at the right time?

Most Content Management Systems today have the ability to auto publish content. Since most of our clients are running the WordPress CMS, we’ll stick with that example:

Steps to create a new post and schedule auto publishing in WordPress

Start a new post and set the category – Begin like you would any page or post and as always don’t forget to set the category and add any tags and custom fields that your particular setup requires.
Fill out SEO fields – Most of our custom WordPress websites use an SEO system to help achieve the best bang for buck, ensuring that your post is optimized for search engine ranking. Make sure you choose the keywords that you want to rank for while also making sure they are related to the content you are writing about. Also make sure you optimize the title and meta description for your post.
Write the post – While following the best practices for your industry write your post in the content panel and add any additional imagery, links or forms.
Set the publish date and time – Setting the post to publish itself is the action that allows you to set it and forget it. So here’s how it works:
1. In the publish control panel, click the Edit button next to where it says Publish Immediately.
2. Choose the appropriate date and time to publish your post. Remember to keep the timing consistent! That’s what tells search engines that your business hasn’t become a smoking crater in the ground thanks to a chunk of space rock from the heavens. Once you’ve selected the date, click the OK button.
3. You will now notice that the Publish button now reads Schedule. Click the pretty blue Schedule button.
Rinse and Repeat – Once you get a few of these under your belt it will begin getting easier. Content will begin updating on your site right when you need it to and you won’t need to burn the midnight oil or buy any more stock in 5-Hour-Energy.

Daily-Double Bonus Tip with extra Hot Fudge and Sprinkles: Of course you’re going to want to push your new site content out to social networks. A great free program that allows you to schedule these types of updates is called Hootsuite. The program allows you to auto publish posts for up to 5 social media services all at the same time, for free.

Free 10-Step Checklist for your Website Redesign

This is not your average checklist

A step by step guide to auto publishing content with WordPress

So how do I schedule content to publish at the right time?

Steps to create a new post and schedule auto publishing in WordPress

Free 10-Step Checklist for your Website Redesign

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