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:

publishbox (1)

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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  4. One downside to scheduling. It’s hard to turn off for a particular post. And it doesn’t send you the “post” alert notification like when you publish immediately. I found I can only unschedule in the app not on the computer version.

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  9. Regarding the first idea: I don’t bother with drafts or set future post dates. Typically, I want what I’m writing to be up and available as soon as I’m done writing it. If that means my site goes a while without a post, so be it. With my writing, there is no need for “working ahead.”

    Regarding the second idea: You mean there are people who don’t do this???

    Regarding the third idea: Looking at it from the blog owner’s point of view, I can see where a custom comment prompt helps with branding, but from a reader’s perspective, whether or not I comment is based solely on the post itself. I look to see if comments are open, and while I do occasionally find some comment prompts humorous, or very well tied to the tone of the site, I have never had one influence me to change my mind about leaving or not leaving a comment.

    Now for the sharing is caring bit at the end: Personally, I find the “Publicize” option to be of greater use than the “Publish” option from idea #1. Right now I am just pushing post information to my Twitter account, but at one time, I had my blog connected to Facebook and LinkedIn as well. (There are reasons I chose to remove the Facebook & LinkedIn connections that have nothing to do with WordPress and everything to do with Facebook & LinkedIn,)

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    1. Regarding the second idea: You mean there are people who don’t do this???

      Each week, 30,000 users sign up with WordPress. They’re from all walks of life and levels of experience. Some don’t have much experience using a computer. The learning curve is steep, and yes, sometimes things that seem old hat to some, baffle others.

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      1. 🙂 I definitely get that. Working in the IT field, I deal wit those who don’t have any clue regarding things that are obvious to me on a daily basis. That was kind of my point of reference with what I said, but tongue-in-cheek doesn’t always convey well in text.

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  17. Scheduling is great. I also love the social media share icons, making it super easy to share your post. I changed the tagline on my blog to “Sharing is Caring” too… I try to include at least one picture in my posts so when people share them you’ll see a picture relevant to the post. You can even create a cool word pictures with different apps. They are handy.

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  18. Has anyone else had trouble with scheduling posts and then they never show up in the blog reader? I see that they have published, but I don’t see them in the reader and am sure no one else is because I won’t receive any comments or likes on that post from wordpress readers.

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  21. I haven’t thought of using this feature but after reading this post I need to check it out. Guess there are so many features and widgets I am yet to discover and customize in my blog.
    As a full time mother, some days are busier than others with the kids so scheduling my posts will be just perfect.
    Keep enlightening new bloggers like myself.

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  23. Since I can’t comment on the daily prompt, ill comment on the most recent post. I have commented this before elsewhere. I am getting some posts in my reader from the daily post, but I am not getting the writing challenge, photo challenge or daily prompts. Why? Is it gonna be fixed? Because they were the main reason I followed so if they aren’t being fixed I’ll unfollow

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    1. All posts are going into the Reader — this is likely an issue specific to your account. I can suggest unfollowing the Daily Post and re-following. If that doesn’t fix the issue, please contact Support. They’ll be able to dig more deeply into why you’re not seeing all the posts in your Reader.

      https://wordpress.com/support/contact/

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  24. I haven’t been able to adjust the time setting zone……can anyone help me? I honestly cannot find the general tab under settings! ><

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    1. Hi there — to get to the dashboard, you may need to hover over your avatar in the top right-hand corner of the screen and click on the title of your blog on the dropdown menu that appears.

      Once you’re in the dashboard, head to Settings → General to change your blog’s timezone.

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  25. Thanks so much! I really enjoyed the tips and will put to good use. They are so time saving for me and I can get other things done without worrying that I have not been productive.

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  26. I hope next time you blog about how one can customize his/her site. I have trouble regarding customizing, I selected a theme but then I can’t incorporate a background image. Anyway, thanks for this info … I really have no idea that I could change the comment prompt 🙂

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  27. The scheduling feature is really awesome: It is useful but above all it is very easy to use. Whoever has been programming this is a genius (and a blogger-friendly-person 😉 )

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  30. For me, these will come in handy, I’m not well experienced with blogging, but I do have one and I’m very busy with an upcoming high school credit summer class, two exams, and being in a large family. There’s always something to be done so I’ll start scheduling posts right now!!

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