Get a Head Start on Blogging by Post-Dating a Month of Content

You’ve heard time and again that posting frequently and consistently on your blog is one of the keys to generating traffic and leads.  Finding the time to blog weekly or daily can be tough – but there are some easy ways to get ahead of the curve so you can post with the right frequency at the most optimal times.

How often should you blog?

HubSpot’s studies of blogging prove that companies that blog more frequently have a higher likelihood of generating real customer wins from their blogs.  Companies who are producing great content at a consistent cadence usually plan for their success – whether through an editorial calendar filled by members of a team or with a single blogger who is crafting a lot of content at once and then publishing it in separate posts. 

What day or time should you publish & promote?

Once you’ve got that great content ready to share – why not publish, tweet or post it on LinkedIn / Facebook at the times most likely to help you achieve your business goals.  There is no ‘perfect’ time to post since your audience is unique to your business – just as your business goals are unique.  Here are a few results from studies that might help you decide when to schedule that post:

• Blog Views & Links – If you seek maximum readership to educate prospects and convert them with offers on your blog, then check out some HubSpot data that indicates 11AM is the time of day blog posts get the most views .  Other data suggests that just after lunch is ideal with Thursday as the prime day , but whichever study you adhere to, both say early morning isn’t optimal.
• Facebook Shares – If you want social reach, perhaps for a consumer product, then getting your content shared on Facebook might be a priority.  In that case, a recent study by Dan Zarella shows that posting on Facebook in the mornings, especially on weekends is your best bet.
• Retweets – If your aim is to increase brand awareness by getting your URL, name or brand in front of the most possible eyeballs, then perhaps you want maximum retweets.  The time of day that is most ideal for retweets seems to be in the 2 ^nd half of the work day and just as people are wrapping up in the evening .

Ultimately, your goals and audience are unique. So try starting with some of these guidelines and then do some testing to see if they work for you.  You may find that your audience or industry has a different pattern that you can optimize for over time.

Ready to schedule your blog posts?

Now you’ve figured out when you want to post.  If you choose post-dating to get organized, you can do a little bit of up front work to set each month up for success.  Instead of getting into the groove of blogging once a week, consider writing several posts at once.  Once you’ve gotten your brain into writing mode, it is much easier to crank out four posts.  Then you can input them into your blogging platform and post-date them to publish on a timed cadence to keep your audience and SEO fresh.  Each blogging platform handles this differently, but here’s how you could do it using two tools: Blogger & HubSpot.

Post Dating an Article in HubSpot

Jump in to ‘Create Article’ and  draft your post using the blog optimizer; this ensures you’ve crafted a keyword rich post that will help you rank on the terms relevant to your target audience. Save your draft and then use the ‘Advanced’ tab options to change the ‘Start Date’ to reflect the date & time you’d like your post to go live, then press ‘Publish’.  The post will be saved as a ‘Pending Post’, so you can sit back and enjoy watching your content roll out for the rest of the month!

Post Dating an Article in Blogger

The steps are similar and also start with drafting your post.  Next, save and select ‘Post Options’, then click the button for 'Post Date & Time' and type in your desired publish date, hit 'Publish'.  Your post will be in your list of posts ready to go out as planned.

Get ahead of next month by keeping a list of ideas for several blog posts so that when you feel the urge to write again you’ll have some great content to kick start you.  Don’t let ‘lack of time’ or poor planning stop you from producing great content on a regular basis.  Use all the tools in your arsenal to find a blogging strategy that works for you and your company!