How to Keep Blogging on Holiday in 3 Easy Steps

Perhaps you have not been blogging long enough to worry about what happens to your blog when you go on holiday for a few weeks or months. You may even belong to the rare group of bloggers whose readership happen to go on holiday at the same time as themselves. In spite of all of the above, there is no doubt that you cannot sit around blogging everyday of the week without having to attend urgent matters, some which might take you away from your computer for days, weeks or even months. Sometimes, these events may be unplanned, in which case you do not have enough time to warn your readers in advance of your impending absence.

Most blogging platforms offer different ways and functionalities to deal with this problem but I will focus on the WordPress platform as I am more familiar with it. However, if you use other platforms such as Blogger, TypePad and so on, feel free to make a contribution in the comments box below as our readers would love to hear from you.

How To Schedule Blog Posts/Articles In WordPress

WordPress makes the job of scheduling posts very easy with its post scheduling tool. The following are three easy ways to arrange your posts or articles to be published on a later date.

1. Find It!

In the current version o f the WordPress platform (version 2.9.2), the post-scheduler is positioned in the Publish section which is located on the right-hand side of the editor. Sometimes being over-familiar with the Publish section may result in either consciously ignoring or paying no attention whatsoever to the scheduler. If you look any closer you will find it directly above the Publish or Update button.

2. Set It!

Setting or using the post-scheduler is actually a breeze in WordPress. Once you find it, all you have to do is actually click on the Edit hyperlink next to Publish immediately as shown in the picture below. This triggers the date function so that you can select the Month, Day, Year and Time you want your blog post to be posted. I scheduled the post in my example to 23 December, 2050 at 8.00am to show that you can pretty much choose any date you want.

3. Schedule It!

Once a date has been set, select OK and then Schedule (as shown below). This steps can be repeated for as many posts as you like. Furthermore, the flexibility of this tool makes it possible to edit or change the date and time on already scheduled posts if you feel the need to do so.

Talking Point

How do you maintain your blog readership when you have to go away on holiday or attend to other pressing issues for a reasonable period of time?