5 Ways to Leverage Advance Posting
I’ve had quite a few questions and comments about how I am able to post so many blog entries across so many blogs while working two-four jobs without getting burnt out and without losing my edge, etc. It’s quite simple… Advance Posting. There are alot of benefits to advanced posting that I’ve picked up in my time blogging. Here’s a few.
- Consistency – Search engines as well as readers like to get regular content. Search engines, especially, place a higher value on regularly updated sites than hit-or-miss sites. When blogging, try to avoid the start-stop approach to blogging.
- Getting the most out of Pings – My friend, Jayvee, over at Cellphone9 pointed this one out to me. In order to optimize my content for the most exposure, I try to spread my entries out at least 30 minutes apart. Most blog tools, including WordPress, send out “pings” or notifications to sites like Technorati or Google to alert them to new content. The problem is that alot of these services have strict intervals of time between allowed pings. This is to prevent them from overloading their systems. If I post twice in 15 minutes, the second entry is likely to be ignored. By advance posting, I can optimize the exposure I recieve on the big boards. As an example, The Not So Free State has almost universally been pre-scheduled entries and has begun quite a rapid growth.
- Out of Sight, Out of Mind – while it is not realistic to really have any of my blogs out of mind, it is beneficial to sit down on Sunday night (or whenever) and schedule 7 posts in advance for the week… one for each day. That frees me up to post other relvant content at my leisure without feeling the pressure of posting at least once a day on each blog.
- Understanding Reading Trends – I look at my stats, though not as religiously as I should, so I know that most of my readers are in North America (typical for most blogs, I’d guess). If my stats tell an accurate story, I know that folks will tend to catch up on their blog reading between 8:30am and 10:30 am (after they get to work and settle in and check email, etc) and again in the late afternoon between 4-6pm (before they go home or after they get home from work). Therefore, to try to get the most bang for my buck, I will try to advance post entries for those time frames. It’s slightly complex because timezones come into play. Because I am in the Eastern timezone, an entry posted at 4pm will be available in the 4 o’clock time frame for east coasters but still be posted in time for the west coasters reading time. As a sidenote, I try to avoid night time posting for content I want to get alot of exposure for. By the time readers check in in the morning in the United States, the fresh content I posted has disappeared off of the front pages of the search engines.
- Avoiding Burnout – For the first year and some months of my blogging career, I would take the run and stop approach, blog alot then stop blogging because I lost my focus. By spacing entries out, I take advantage of the times of inspiration and cover my ass in my uninspired moments. No one knows the difference.
Maybe these 5 tips can help you. It took a long time for me to realize these things, but now that I do, things are so much easier to manage. Remember, you’re not in a race. Unless you’re a breaking news journalist, anything you blog now can likely be put off until tomorrow. Your readers will thank you. The search engines will thank you. And you’ll find yourself actually growing in blogging.
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Written by Aaron Brazell on January 18, 2006
Popularity: 2% [?]
Aaron Brazell
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Out of curiosity, is Advance Posting a built in feature of WordPress or a plug-in? Does anyone know if/how it can be done with Blogger? I use Blogger for my Beer Haiku Daily blog and would love to be able to set up future scheduled posting. It would certainly make going on vacation easier.
Cheers!
Out of curiosity, is Advance Posting a built in feature of WordPress or a plug-in? Does anyone know if/how it can be done with Blogger? I use Blogger for my Beer Haiku Daily blog and would love to be able to set up future scheduled posting. It would certainly make going on vacation easier.
Cheers!
Out of curiosity, is Advance Posting a built in feature of WordPress or a plug-in? Does anyone know if/how it can be done with Blogger? I use Blogger for my Beer Haiku Daily blog and would love to be able to set up future scheduled posting. It would certainly make going on vacation easier.
Cheers!
Out of curiosity, is Advance Posting a built in feature of WordPress or a plug-in? Does anyone know if/how it can be done with Blogger? I use Blogger for my Beer Haiku Daily blog and would love to be able to set up future scheduled posting. It would certainly make going on vacation easier.
Cheers!
Out of curiosity, is Advance Posting a built in feature of WordPress or a plug-in? Does anyone know if/how it can be done with Blogger? I use Blogger for my Beer Haiku Daily blog and would love to be able to set up future scheduled posting. It would certainly make going on vacation easier.
Cheers!
Haha… you’re the author of Beer Haiku? I have you in my RSS reader. Good stuff! :D
In WordPress, you can alter a timestamp for an entry at any time including before you hit the publish button. If the timestamp is set for a future time, it won’t be public until then. It’s built in.
As for Blogger, I have no idea.
Haha… you’re the author of Beer Haiku? I have you in my RSS reader. Good stuff! :D
In WordPress, you can alter a timestamp for an entry at any time including before you hit the publish button. If the timestamp is set for a future time, it won’t be public until then. It’s built in.
As for Blogger, I have no idea.
Haha… you’re the author of Beer Haiku? I have you in my RSS reader. Good stuff! :D
In WordPress, you can alter a timestamp for an entry at any time including before you hit the publish button. If the timestamp is set for a future time, it won’t be public until then. It’s built in.
As for Blogger, I have no idea.
Haha… you’re the author of Beer Haiku? I have you in my RSS reader. Good stuff! :D
In WordPress, you can alter a timestamp for an entry at any time including before you hit the publish button. If the timestamp is set for a future time, it won’t be public until then. It’s built in.
As for Blogger, I have no idea.
Haha… you’re the author of Beer Haiku? I have you in my RSS reader. Good stuff! :D
In WordPress, you can alter a timestamp for an entry at any time including before you hit the publish button. If the timestamp is set for a future time, it won’t be public until then. It’s built in.
As for Blogger, I have no idea.
Haha… you’re the author of Beer Haiku? I have you in my RSS reader. Good stuff! :D
In WordPress, you can alter a timestamp for an entry at any time including before you hit the publish button. If the timestamp is set for a future time, it won’t be public until then. It’s built in.
As for Blogger, I have no idea.
Haha… you’re the author of Beer Haiku? I have you in my RSS reader. Good stuff! :D
In WordPress, you can alter a timestamp for an entry at any time including before you hit the publish button. If the timestamp is set for a future time, it won’t be public until then. It’s built in.
As for Blogger, I have no idea.
Wow! You’re one of my 25 subscribers. That’s great, what a small world.
The advance posting feature of WordPress would be a good excuse to make the switch to a real domain name and a new platform. I will have to look into that.
Cheers!
Wow! You’re one of my 25 subscribers. That’s great, what a small world.
The advance posting feature of WordPress would be a good excuse to make the switch to a real domain name and a new platform. I will have to look into that.
Cheers!
Wow! You’re one of my 25 subscribers. That’s great, what a small world.
The advance posting feature of WordPress would be a good excuse to make the switch to a real domain name and a new platform. I will have to look into that.
Cheers!
Wow! You’re one of my 25 subscribers. That’s great, what a small world.
The advance posting feature of WordPress would be a good excuse to make the switch to a real domain name and a new platform. I will have to look into that.
Cheers!
Wow! You’re one of my 25 subscribers. That’s great, what a small world.
The advance posting feature of WordPress would be a good excuse to make the switch to a real domain name and a new platform. I will have to look into that.
Cheers!
Wow! You’re one of my 25 subscribers. That’s great, what a small world.
The advance posting feature of WordPress would be a good excuse to make the switch to a real domain name and a new platform. I will have to look into that.
Cheers!
Wow! You’re one of my 25 subscribers. That’s great, what a small world.
The advance posting feature of WordPress would be a good excuse to make the switch to a real domain name and a new platform. I will have to look into that.
Cheers!
Well I think it’s because you’re in Baltimore (correct me if I’m wrong)
Well I think it’s because you’re in Baltimore (correct me if I’m wrong)
Well I think it’s because you’re in Baltimore (correct me if I’m wrong)
Well I think it’s because you’re in Baltimore (correct me if I’m wrong)
Well I think it’s because you’re in Baltimore (correct me if I’m wrong)
Well I think it’s because you’re in Baltimore (correct me if I’m wrong)
Well I think it’s because you’re in Baltimore (correct me if I’m wrong)
Hi Aaron ..
For my PetLvr blog I try to pre-post an article every 5 hours when I’m really swamped with my ‘day-job’ work (usually around mid-month and month-end dates. It works great, because I can continually post content to the blog for about 3-6 days in advance and not have to worry about it. Of course, I do worry about it and continually read my bloglines and occassionally post some new content or news/current events as I see it. As I mentioned, it works great for me – but, I really think you are wrong in the pinging. Or, my template doesn’t do the pinging as it should be doing. It pings only when the article is published. Even though it might be predated for 3 days from now, it’s publishing time is now.
Of course, I subscribe to my own feeds .. so what ends up happening is that in my bloglines, with no further posting, I will not see any of my posts being retrieved. Then, if I manage to post a periodic entry in the middle, all the posts up to that point from the date and time of publishing gets posted, so I might all of a sudden get 12 posts retrieved. I realized this was happening when my nightly daily stats were suddenly declining over the one week that I spent a whole weekend and pre-posted about 40 articles for the next 7 days.
Hi Aaron ..
For my PetLvr blog I try to pre-post an article every 5 hours when I’m really swamped with my ‘day-job’ work (usually around mid-month and month-end dates. It works great, because I can continually post content to the blog for about 3-6 days in advance and not have to worry about it. Of course, I do worry about it and continually read my bloglines and occassionally post some new content or news/current events as I see it. As I mentioned, it works great for me – but, I really think you are wrong in the pinging. Or, my template doesn’t do the pinging as it should be doing. It pings only when the article is published. Even though it might be predated for 3 days from now, it’s publishing time is now.
Of course, I subscribe to my own feeds .. so what ends up happening is that in my bloglines, with no further posting, I will not see any of my posts being retrieved. Then, if I manage to post a periodic entry in the middle, all the posts up to that point from the date and time of publishing gets posted, so I might all of a sudden get 12 posts retrieved. I realized this was happening when my nightly daily stats were suddenly declining over the one week that I spent a whole weekend and pre-posted about 40 articles for the next 7 days.
Hi Aaron ..
For my PetLvr blog I try to pre-post an article every 5 hours when I’m really swamped with my ‘day-job’ work (usually around mid-month and month-end dates. It works great, because I can continually post content to the blog for about 3-6 days in advance and not have to worry about it. Of course, I do worry about it and continually read my bloglines and occassionally post some new content or news/current events as I see it. As I mentioned, it works great for me – but, I really think you are wrong in the pinging. Or, my template doesn’t do the pinging as it should be doing. It pings only when the article is published. Even though it might be predated for 3 days from now, it’s publishing time is now.
Of course, I subscribe to my own feeds .. so what ends up happening is that in my bloglines, with no further posting, I will not see any of my posts being retrieved. Then, if I manage to post a periodic entry in the middle, all the posts up to that point from the date and time of publishing gets posted, so I might all of a sudden get 12 posts retrieved. I realized this was happening when my nightly daily stats were suddenly declining over the one week that I spent a whole weekend and pre-posted about 40 articles for the next 7 days.
Hi Aaron ..
For my PetLvr blog I try to pre-post an article every 5 hours when I’m really swamped with my ‘day-job’ work (usually around mid-month and month-end dates. It works great, because I can continually post content to the blog for about 3-6 days in advance and not have to worry about it. Of course, I do worry about it and continually read my bloglines and occassionally post some new content or news/current events as I see it. As I mentioned, it works great for me – but, I really think you are wrong in the pinging. Or, my template doesn’t do the pinging as it should be doing. It pings only when the article is published. Even though it might be predated for 3 days from now, it’s publishing time is now.
Of course, I subscribe to my own feeds .. so what ends up happening is that in my bloglines, with no further posting, I will not see any of my posts being retrieved. Then, if I manage to post a periodic entry in the middle, all the posts up to that point from the date and time of publishing gets posted, so I might all of a sudden get 12 posts retrieved. I realized this was happening when my nightly daily stats were suddenly declining over the one week that I spent a whole weekend and pre-posted about 40 articles for the next 7 days.
Hi Aaron ..
For my PetLvr blog I try to pre-post an article every 5 hours when I’m really swamped with my ‘day-job’ work (usually around mid-month and month-end dates. It works great, because I can continually post content to the blog for about 3-6 days in advance and not have to worry about it. Of course, I do worry about it and continually read my bloglines and occassionally post some new content or news/current events as I see it. As I mentioned, it works great for me – but, I really think you are wrong in the pinging. Or, my template doesn’t do the pinging as it should be doing. It pings only when the article is published. Even though it might be predated for 3 days from now, it’s publishing time is now.
Of course, I subscribe to my own feeds .. so what ends up happening is that in my bloglines, with no further posting, I will not see any of my posts being retrieved. Then, if I manage to post a periodic entry in the middle, all the posts up to that point from the date and time of publishing gets posted, so I might all of a sudden get 12 posts retrieved. I realized this was happening when my nightly daily stats were suddenly declining over the one week that I spent a whole weekend and pre-posted about 40 articles for the next 7 days.
Hi Aaron ..
For my PetLvr blog I try to pre-post an article every 5 hours when I’m really swamped with my ‘day-job’ work (usually around mid-month and month-end dates. It works great, because I can continually post content to the blog for about 3-6 days in advance and not have to worry about it. Of course, I do worry about it and continually read my bloglines and occassionally post some new content or news/current events as I see it. As I mentioned, it works great for me – but, I really think you are wrong in the pinging. Or, my template doesn’t do the pinging as it should be doing. It pings only when the article is published. Even though it might be predated for 3 days from now, it’s publishing time is now.
Of course, I subscribe to my own feeds .. so what ends up happening is that in my bloglines, with no further posting, I will not see any of my posts being retrieved. Then, if I manage to post a periodic entry in the middle, all the posts up to that point from the date and time of publishing gets posted, so I might all of a sudden get 12 posts retrieved. I realized this was happening when my nightly daily stats were suddenly declining over the one week that I spent a whole weekend and pre-posted about 40 articles for the next 7 days.
Hi Aaron ..
For my PetLvr blog I try to pre-post an article every 5 hours when I’m really swamped with my ‘day-job’ work (usually around mid-month and month-end dates. It works great, because I can continually post content to the blog for about 3-6 days in advance and not have to worry about it. Of course, I do worry about it and continually read my bloglines and occassionally post some new content or news/current events as I see it. As I mentioned, it works great for me – but, I really think you are wrong in the pinging. Or, my template doesn’t do the pinging as it should be doing. It pings only when the article is published. Even though it might be predated for 3 days from now, it’s publishing time is now.
Of course, I subscribe to my own feeds .. so what ends up happening is that in my bloglines, with no further posting, I will not see any of my posts being retrieved. Then, if I manage to post a periodic entry in the middle, all the posts up to that point from the date and time of publishing gets posted, so I might all of a sudden get 12 posts retrieved. I realized this was happening when my nightly daily stats were suddenly declining over the one week that I spent a whole weekend and pre-posted about 40 articles for the next 7 days.
Hart–
If you use WordPress, if you predate your article it is not published until that date… it is saved. Publishing can be more accurately lined up with pings sent and they are not sent until the time the article is dated for.
- Dated for previous time, ping sent now
- Dated for now, ping sent now
- Dated for future time, ping sent then
RSS feed entries, on the other hand, are regenerated whenever an entry has changed (timestamp mod, content change, typo, new subject line) and has absolutely zero to do with pings. In fact, you’ll notice that if you go to a new feedreader, all your feeds will be unread again. This is because it is the feedreader, not the feed itself, that determines what is read and what is not. Those 12 post appearing in your feedreader have nothing to do with pings and possibly something else, content or otherwise.
Hart–
If you use WordPress, if you predate your article it is not published until that date… it is saved. Publishing can be more accurately lined up with pings sent and they are not sent until the time the article is dated for.
- Dated for previous time, ping sent now
- Dated for now, ping sent now
- Dated for future time, ping sent then
RSS feed entries, on the other hand, are regenerated whenever an entry has changed (timestamp mod, content change, typo, new subject line) and has absolutely zero to do with pings. In fact, you’ll notice that if you go to a new feedreader, all your feeds will be unread again. This is because it is the feedreader, not the feed itself, that determines what is read and what is not. Those 12 post appearing in your feedreader have nothing to do with pings and possibly something else, content or otherwise.
Hart–
If you use WordPress, if you predate your article it is not published until that date… it is saved. Publishing can be more accurately lined up with pings sent and they are not sent until the time the article is dated for.
- Dated for previous time, ping sent now
- Dated for now, ping sent now
- Dated for future time, ping sent then
RSS feed entries, on the other hand, are regenerated whenever an entry has changed (timestamp mod, content change, typo, new subject line) and has absolutely zero to do with pings. In fact, you’ll notice that if you go to a new feedreader, all your feeds will be unread again. This is because it is the feedreader, not the feed itself, that determines what is read and what is not. Those 12 post appearing in your feedreader have nothing to do with pings and possibly something else, content or otherwise.
Hart–
If you use WordPress, if you predate your article it is not published until that date… it is saved. Publishing can be more accurately lined up with pings sent and they are not sent until the time the article is dated for.
- Dated for previous time, ping sent now
- Dated for now, ping sent now
- Dated for future time, ping sent then
RSS feed entries, on the other hand, are regenerated whenever an entry has changed (timestamp mod, content change, typo, new subject line) and has absolutely zero to do with pings. In fact, you’ll notice that if you go to a new feedreader, all your feeds will be unread again. This is because it is the feedreader, not the feed itself, that determines what is read and what is not. Those 12 post appearing in your feedreader have nothing to do with pings and possibly something else, content or otherwise.
Hart–
If you use WordPress, if you predate your article it is not published until that date… it is saved. Publishing can be more accurately lined up with pings sent and they are not sent until the time the article is dated for.
- Dated for previous time, ping sent now
- Dated for now, ping sent now
- Dated for future time, ping sent then
RSS feed entries, on the other hand, are regenerated whenever an entry has changed (timestamp mod, content change, typo, new subject line) and has absolutely zero to do with pings. In fact, you’ll notice that if you go to a new feedreader, all your feeds will be unread again. This is because it is the feedreader, not the feed itself, that determines what is read and what is not. Those 12 post appearing in your feedreader have nothing to do with pings and possibly something else, content or otherwise.
Hart–
If you use WordPress, if you predate your article it is not published until that date… it is saved. Publishing can be more accurately lined up with pings sent and they are not sent until the time the article is dated for.
- Dated for previous time, ping sent now
- Dated for now, ping sent now
- Dated for future time, ping sent then
RSS feed entries, on the other hand, are regenerated whenever an entry has changed (timestamp mod, content change, typo, new subject line) and has absolutely zero to do with pings. In fact, you’ll notice that if you go to a new feedreader, all your feeds will be unread again. This is because it is the feedreader, not the feed itself, that determines what is read and what is not. Those 12 post appearing in your feedreader have nothing to do with pings and possibly something else, content or otherwise.
Hart–
If you use WordPress, if you predate your article it is not published until that date… it is saved. Publishing can be more accurately lined up with pings sent and they are not sent until the time the article is dated for.
- Dated for previous time, ping sent now
- Dated for now, ping sent now
- Dated for future time, ping sent then
RSS feed entries, on the other hand, are regenerated whenever an entry has changed (timestamp mod, content change, typo, new subject line) and has absolutely zero to do with pings. In fact, you’ll notice that if you go to a new feedreader, all your feeds will be unread again. This is because it is the feedreader, not the feed itself, that determines what is read and what is not. Those 12 post appearing in your feedreader have nothing to do with pings and possibly something else, content or otherwise.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for reply. Your scenario is exactly as it should be and that we all want. I’m just not 100% confident that is happening with my site however, (being “dated for future time, ping sent then”). There are several threads on wordpress.org/support with other people having same problem but, I don’t have URL’s handy – I will have to spend some time this evening and do more research :) In my case, I’m not going to stop pre-posting because that’s a great feature and saves me time. I make it a point to post at least one additional one each day for peace of mind, to help with the pinging – right or wrong.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for reply. Your scenario is exactly as it should be and that we all want. I’m just not 100% confident that is happening with my site however, (being “dated for future time, ping sent then”). There are several threads on wordpress.org/support with other people having same problem but, I don’t have URL’s handy – I will have to spend some time this evening and do more research :) In my case, I’m not going to stop pre-posting because that’s a great feature and saves me time. I make it a point to post at least one additional one each day for peace of mind, to help with the pinging – right or wrong.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for reply. Your scenario is exactly as it should be and that we all want. I’m just not 100% confident that is happening with my site however, (being “dated for future time, ping sent then”). There are several threads on wordpress.org/support with other people having same problem but, I don’t have URL’s handy – I will have to spend some time this evening and do more research :) In my case, I’m not going to stop pre-posting because that’s a great feature and saves me time. I make it a point to post at least one additional one each day for peace of mind, to help with the pinging – right or wrong.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for reply. Your scenario is exactly as it should be and that we all want. I’m just not 100% confident that is happening with my site however, (being “dated for future time, ping sent then”). There are several threads on wordpress.org/support with other people having same problem but, I don’t have URL’s handy – I will have to spend some time this evening and do more research :) In my case, I’m not going to stop pre-posting because that’s a great feature and saves me time. I make it a point to post at least one additional one each day for peace of mind, to help with the pinging – right or wrong.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for reply. Your scenario is exactly as it should be and that we all want. I’m just not 100% confident that is happening with my site however, (being “dated for future time, ping sent then”). There are several threads on wordpress.org/support with other people having same problem but, I don’t have URL’s handy – I will have to spend some time this evening and do more research :) In my case, I’m not going to stop pre-posting because that’s a great feature and saves me time. I make it a point to post at least one additional one each day for peace of mind, to help with the pinging – right or wrong.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for reply. Your scenario is exactly as it should be and that we all want. I’m just not 100% confident that is happening with my site however, (being “dated for future time, ping sent then”). There are several threads on wordpress.org/support with other people having same problem but, I don’t have URL’s handy – I will have to spend some time this evening and do more research :) In my case, I’m not going to stop pre-posting because that’s a great feature and saves me time. I make it a point to post at least one additional one each day for peace of mind, to help with the pinging – right or wrong.
Hi Aaron. Thanks for reply. Your scenario is exactly as it should be and that we all want. I’m just not 100% confident that is happening with my site however, (being “dated for future time, ping sent then”). There are several threads on wordpress.org/support with other people having same problem but, I don’t have URL’s handy – I will have to spend some time this evening and do more research :) In my case, I’m not going to stop pre-posting because that’s a great feature and saves me time. I make it a point to post at least one additional one each day for peace of mind, to help with the pinging – right or wrong.
Great advice. I have been advance posting for awhile. I custom wrote my own blog software on my site so I could do it the way I wanted. But I didn’t think of some the other items you mentioned, like checking for the higher traffic times of the day.
I just signed up wtih a different free web tracker that provides me with statistics during the day, so I will be sure to advance post based on that.
Great advice. I have been advance posting for awhile. I custom wrote my own blog software on my site so I could do it the way I wanted. But I didn’t think of some the other items you mentioned, like checking for the higher traffic times of the day.
I just signed up wtih a different free web tracker that provides me with statistics during the day, so I will be sure to advance post based on that.
Great advice. I have been advance posting for awhile. I custom wrote my own blog software on my site so I could do it the way I wanted. But I didn’t think of some the other items you mentioned, like checking for the higher traffic times of the day.
I just signed up wtih a different free web tracker that provides me with statistics during the day, so I will be sure to advance post based on that.