May 21, 2014 / Beginner

Did You Miss This? Three Quick Tips for Better Blogging

Learn how to edit your tagline, customize comment prompts, and schedule posts — three great tips to have in your blogging back pocket.

One of the great things about having a blog is making it your own — adding individual touches to reflect your style and personality. Today we’ll look at three blogging features: two geared to customizing your site and one to help you post when you’re away from your desk.

Scheduling posts to appear when you choose

If you’ve got an editorial calendar, you already know which days of the week you’ll be publishing new content on your site. Why not get ahead of the game and schedule your posts? That way, you don’t need to be near your computer to hit the publish button — your posts can magically appear on your site at the time you specify. Here’s how to do it.

When you’re finished drafting your latest post, click on the Edit link next to Publish Immediately located in the Publish box:

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You can now select the precise date and time your post will publish to your site. When the time is set exactly right, click on the Ok button. The Publish button will then turn into a Schedule button. Click Schedule and you’re good to go.

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Note! Your blog is set to a specific timezone. The time your posts will appear will be based on the timezone set within Settings → General.

Personalizing your site’s tagline

Your tagline does a great job telling visitors what your site is about — provided you take a few moments to customize it.

Go to Settings → General in your dashboard. At the very top of the page, you’ll see that you can edit your site title and your tagline:

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Simply enter the text you’d like to see, scroll down to the bottom of the page, click on the Save Changes button, and you’re in business:

newtaglineonsite (1)

Comment prompts that get the conversation going

Stimulating a lively discussion on your site is part of what makes blogging fun. Did you know that some themes allow you to customize the comment call-to-action on the top of your comment form? Go to Settings → Discussion, and scroll down to the very bottom of the page to customize the prompt that appears with your comment form:

customizedprompt (1)

Be sure to click on the Save Changes button and then check out your new prompt on one of your posts:

newcommentprompt (1)

Sharing is caring

What’s your favorite customization tip? Share it in the comments below.

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    1. I was thinking the same thing. Gotta bust out a week’s worth of posts in one day and then schedule them for weekly postings while I’m sipping margaritas at the pool!

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  2. I think one of my favorite customization options is the Image widget. I think it adds just the right personal touch to your blog.

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  3. The scheduling feature has helped me out so much with my blog. I can “set it and forget it” and not have to worry if i’ll have time to make sure something went up later. Incredibly helpful!

    Liked by 2 people

  10. Scheduling let me write, then let it sit for a while to ‘gel’ , maybe I’ll up with a better way to edit my posting, and maybe even remember that I have a photo to go along with it. But it’s ‘committed’ to go live the next day.

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    1. So agree! I have to write things iteratively. For some, great work spills forth on the first go. If I want to be pleased with something, I have to work on it over a few days.

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  11. This feature has been invaluable to me since I don’t always have time to update my blog in real time. Also, I noticed an increase in traffic when posts are scheduled for certain time-frames (occurring usually when I’m traveling or sleeping) so I make sure to set my posts to appear during those times. Does anyone else do this?

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    1. Absolutely, I get the most traffic in the mornings at 7, so that’s when I schedule them to appear. It’s unlikely that I will get up at 6 to churn out something coherent to publish in real time.

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  13. I put an illustration on my ‘Contact Me’ page, which otherwise would have been a lot of boring white space.

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  14. I like the fact that you can schedule a post, it’s so helpful. I’m new to WordPress amd there’s still a lot of things I don’t know, so the scheduling is pretty cool 😀
    PS please check out my blog, I’m new to this & I’d really appreciate any comments and advice. 🙂

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  20. These are good tips, I’m using all of them. Especially the scheduling function is very convenient.

    I’d like to add that you can customise not only the comment prompt but also the sharing prompt above the sharing buttons. The default is “Share this” (boring), the Daily Post uses “Sharing is caring” (better) and I customised my prompt too 🙂 It gives a nice personal touch to your blog.

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    1. Great tip! It’s so much fun to customize prompts and calls to action so that they mirror your blog’s personality.

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  21. I love scheduling as I typically write at night but like the posts to go live in the morning. And if I ever have an abundance of content to share it’s great knowing that I can get the posts ready and schedule them.

    I like personalizing as much as possible because as mentioned in the post I think it adds personality.

    Yesterday I played around with personalizing the “follow this blog” prompts and the text that appears there. Still working on coming up with something fun and playful.

    I like the idea of personalizing the comments prompts. It would be cool if you could have a different prompt for posts vs. pages. Is that possible?

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  22. Just a general comment moderation note — please don’t leave links to your blog in your comment. We see that as a bit spammy, because people can just click on your username to visit your site. No need for the extra plug.

    Comments such as “visit my blog,” are marginally acceptable in the Community Pool, a peer-to-peer feedback feature we run each Sunday. When you ask folks to visit your blog, ask for specific feedback on a feature or aspect of your site. Here, requests to visit your blog are off-topic and will be deleted.

    For more info or reading to cure insomnia, check out our Comment Guidelines.

    For tips on leaving great comments that fuel interesting discussion, read Michelle’s great piece, Don’t Undermine Your Comments with a Plug.

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  23. I agree with Tim Taylor about the Image widget. The image of the published work, “Leaves of Grass” is striking in contrast to the dark background of my theme and immediately helps my viewers to make a connection between the title of my blog and what inspired it. My play on “The Body Electric,” a poem from “Leaves of Grass,” becomes much more identifiable when the publication is visible and beautifully highlighted.. I really like the customization that the Image widget makes possible.

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  26. Oh man, I wish I knew about the scheduling last night! I forgot to post my “Tipsy Tuesday” and published it 1 hour shy of midnight, haha. Next time!

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  27. I love using the schedule feature. I usually write 3 – 5 posts in a sitting and then schedule them to publish over the following few days. I’ll have to update my comment prompt so that it’s not so generic.

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  28. The schedule feature is great for those occasions when you think a post is finished and then have ideas for other things you can put in later on, saves having to make a later post. Plus as some of the others have said, it’s good for when you have a lot of ideas at once and don’t want to post them all in one day and then post nothing for a week.

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