How do you automate WordPress blog posts without writing every day?
Set up a recurring campaign that tells WordPress what to write about, which category to use, and when to publish. I use My Content Creator Pro Elite to save those choices with the article length, style, links, and images I want. Once the campaign is running, I can check the post that went live instead of starting the day with a blank editor.
On my All About Dog Training site, I have seven campaigns. Each one runs once a week on its own day. That gives the whole blog one post a day. You can start much smaller. One topic you know well and one day on the calendar are enough to try the workflow I show below.
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Step 1. Start with the job you want to take off your daily list
Think about the last post you published. How much of your time went into explaining the topic? How much went into picking a category, finding an image, adding links, and getting the post ready to go live? Those are different jobs. If you only get help with the writing, you can still end up at your desk doing all the other jobs each day.
That’s why I start this walkthrough on the ChatGPT Autoblogging Setup screen inside WordPress. Under MyContentCreatorPro, the menu item is Add Auto AI Schedule. You can see the topic field and, just below it, the post status, AI provider, category, and interval. Those fields put the decisions that usually happen at opposite ends of the writing process on one form.
Take a look at the category field on the fresh form. It says Select a category. On the public side of my site, visitors can already choose from subjects such as Puppy Training, Behavioral Dog Training, Advanced Dog Training, and Dog Health & Nutrition. The category I pick in the dashboard should make sense to someone who clicked one of those choices on the home page.
Try this before you fill in the form. Finish this sentence: “The person who opens this part of my blog wants help with ___.” If you can fill the gap with a clear task, you have a good starting point. If your answer could describe every page on your site, choose a smaller subject. A clear subject makes the rest of the form much easier to fill out.
Step 2. Enter a topic that gives the article a clear purpose
At about 3:10, you can see Potty training a puppy in my topic field. Notice how much work those four words already do. They tell me who needs the article, what stage they’re at, and what they’re trying to teach. Someone who clicks a post about that topic has a different need from someone looking for help with a dog that gets anxious during a car ride.
There’s a Keyword Research option beside the topic. A keyword is simply a word or phrase someone might type when they want help. For this example, start by reading the topic out loud. Would someone actually say it that way? Then think of a question they might ask once they reach the page. That second question can help you decide how much detail the article needs.
Here’s a way to try it on your own blog. Pick a question you’ve answered in an email more than once. Keep the words that tell you what the person was trying to do. If the question covered three tasks, choose the first one they needed help with. You now have a topic that came from a reader and a simple way to check the finished post. Did it help with that task?
Keep track of the example on this screen as you watch. The puppy topic is on the setup form. Later, I open a saved Service Dog Training campaign. The published article I show after that belongs to Anxiety Relief For Dogs. Those three examples let you see what you can enter, what a saved plan looks like, and what reaches a reader.
Step 3. Set the post status, category, and publishing day
The first time you look at the form, you’ll see Publish for post status and ChatGPT for the AI provider. You’ll also see Every Minute (only for testing) in the interval field. If your goal is a weekly article, change that interval. At about 3:35, the form shows Once a week and Monday. A note under the day field says the schedule uses the WordPress site’s time zone.
Here’s how to read those choices together. The topic tells the plugin what to cover. The category gives the post a home. The interval says how often the job should run. The day tells you where that job fits in your week. If one field is still blank, a good choice in another field may be easy to mistake for a complete plan. In particular, check the category before you finish.
Pick a day that makes sense for you, too. If this is your first campaign and you normally look at your site on a Friday, give yourself a chance to read the first post then. Open the page on your phone. Look at its category under the headline. Think about what you would change before the next run. That little review is much easier when it already fits into your week.
What if you just want one post a week for now? One weekly campaign does that. You can stop there and learn from the result. There’s no need to come up with seven topics in one sitting. If the bigger issue is a blog that goes quiet whenever work gets busy, my guide to keeping a WordPress blog active while you sleep covers that part of the process.
Step 4. Decide how much writing each post needs
The setup form shows fields for Content length, Language, Writing Style, and Writing Tone. On the fresh example, you can see 300 for the length and Formal in the writing controls. Later, you’ll see 2,200 in the saved Tuesday campaign. That difference is worth noticing. A number you see when you open a fresh form tells you very little about how a campaign already on your site is set up.
How do you choose a length of your own? Picture what the reader came to do. If they need to find one button, they may be happy with a few lines and a picture. If they’re trying to learn a skill over several weeks, they’ll likely have questions about what to do first, how to spot progress, and what to change if they get stuck. Give that article room to cover those points.
Style and tone deserve separate choices as well. Think of style as how you teach the lesson. Think of tone as how you sound while you teach it. You probably explain a first step to a new reader a little differently than you explain a tricky setting to someone who already knows the tool. When you read the finished opening, ask whether it sounds right for the person you had in mind.
The form also includes SEO Optimize, SEO Meta Generator, Generate FAQ, and Generate Conclusion. SEO means search engine optimization. On a finished article, I want a reader to recognize the topic in the headline and get an answer near the top. An FAQ can handle questions that come up later. If that part of the setup is new to you, see how to write SEO blog posts with AI in WordPress.
Step 5. Include the links and media you’d usually add by hand
Scroll down the form and you’ll reach Enable Internal Links. An internal link takes a reader to another post or page on the same site. The Smart / Automatic choice takes the length of the article into account. The note explains that existing links count toward the target and irrelevant links aren’t forced. It’s a useful setting if you tend to forget about older posts while finishing a new one.
Think about where you’d use such a link yourself. Suppose an article gets someone as far as choosing a weekly schedule. Their next question might be how to set a different day for each category. That’s a good place to send them to a guide that explains that exact task. A reader who already knows the answer can keep going. My WordPress internal linking walkthrough shows where to find those controls.
How many images does the plugin make for one blog post?
Choose three images and you get four in total: one featured image plus three inside the post. Choose four images and you get five in total: one featured image plus four inside the post. The Number of Images field counts the pictures that go in the article body. The plugin creates the featured image separately in both cases.
There are two screens in my video that make this easy to miss. Around 8:55, the setup example shows 0 Images and Pixabay. Later, around 10:35, my saved Service Dog Training campaign shows 3 Images and ChatGPT. Read the note below the number on that second screen. It explains why the featured image comes in addition to the three you chose. That saved campaign is the one to look at if you want to copy my setup.
In my own workflow, I use Image 2.0 or Image 2.5, and I usually choose three or four images for the body. Think of those as two separate decisions. The image option is about what makes the pictures. The number is about how many pictures go between the opening and the end of the post. The same counting rule applies with either image option.
Here’s how I’d choose between three and four for a new post. Read the headings and look for places where a picture would help someone understand a step. If three sections each have something worth showing, choose three. If a fourth section introduces a different example that would be easier to follow with a picture, choose four. You don’t have to pick four just to get a featured image. You already get that with three.
To check the result, open the finished post in the WordPress editor. First, look at the Featured image panel. Then look through the article body and count the pictures there on their own. With three selected, you’re looking for one image in that panel and three in the body. A theme may also show the featured image above the article or use it on the blog page. Seeing the same cover in both places doesn’t add another image to the campaign total.
Where should the YouTube video go?
The YouTube option on the same screen includes Top of Page and Right Before End of Page. Ask where the video would help most. Someone following a screen recording may want to watch before they read the steps. Someone reading a short answer may prefer the video at the end. When you’ve checked the topic, schedule, and article options, the control at the bottom is Schedule Article.
Step 6. Read the whole week from the saved campaign list
At 9:35, I open the list of saved campaigns. This is the screen to use when you want to know what’s already set up. Each row has a title, post category, and interval. Read across a row to check one subject. Read down the interval column to see whether the days fit together. Here’s the week on my site, arranged from Monday through Sunday.
| Day | Campaign category |
|---|---|
| Monday | Dog Health & Nutrition |
| Tuesday | Service Dog Training |
| Wednesday | Advanced Dog Training |
| Thursday | Anxiety Relief For Dogs |
| Friday | Behavioral Dog Training |
| Saturday | Puppy Behavior Management |
| Sunday | Puppy Training |
There’s one weekly campaign for each of the seven days. When the campaigns run as planned, that comes to 30 blog posts in 30 days across the site. Each individual category gets a turn once a week. That’s the part that makes daily publishing practical for me. I can give attention to seven different parts of the blog without choosing a new category every morning.
Now watch what happens at 10:00. I open the saved Service Dog Training campaign. You can see Publish, ChatGPT, Service Dog Training, Once a week, Tuesday, and a target length of 2,200 words. Compare those fields with the puppy topic on the earlier form. If you’re checking Tuesday’s plan on your own site, open the saved row for Tuesday. A new setup screen can’t tell you what you saved there.
You can use the same list to spot a gap. Write the days down and put one campaign beside each day you mean to cover. Two campaigns on Tuesday and none on Thursday might be just what you want. If your goal was one per day, you’ve found the row to change. For more on this part, I’ve put together a guide to automated multi-category posting and a walkthrough of my seven-day publishing schedule.
Step 7. Open the live article and see what your reader gets
At 11:15, I open “Counterconditioning for Dog Anxiety: A Practical Training Guide.” Under the headline is the category Anxiety Relief For Dogs and my name. Find that category in the table above and you’ll see it has the Thursday slot. This is a useful check for any site owner. A good title might fit more than one part of your blog. The category under it shows where that particular article ended up.
Read the opening before you scroll. “Counterconditioning” is a word some readers may never have heard. The article starts with scenes they can picture, such as a stranger coming closer, a car ride, or a loud sound. By the time the article explains the training term, the reader knows why it matters. You can use that same test on a post about software, home repairs, or any other topic with words beginners may find hard.
Near 12:25, you can see the conclusion. It brings the lesson back to a short set of ideas and gives the reader a sense of what to pay attention to next. There’s also a Google Preferred Sources prompt below the article. That placement makes a useful distinction when you review your own site. First, read the end of the article. Then check what your site shows after it.
Here’s the review I’d suggest for your first post. Open it as a visitor. Read the headline and first paragraph. Check a link by tapping it. If you chose video, see where it appears on a phone. Then scroll to the end. Which part would you be glad to send to someone who asked for help? Which part would you change? Those answers give you a better starting point for your next edit than changing every campaign setting at once.
Step 8. Check the category and Yoast results inside WordPress
At 13:30, you can see the same anxiety article in the editor. The sidebar shows Anxiety Relief For Dogs checked. Yoast shows Good for both its SEO analysis and readability analysis on that post. You can compare that screen with the live page you just saw. The title, category, opening, and end of the article are all things you can check for yourself.
If your own result looks off, start with the smallest fix. If the category is wrong, check the category field. If the first paragraph takes too long to answer the question, edit that paragraph. If the article is hard to scan on your phone, look for a long section that would be easier to read under two headings. Save a campaign change for something you want to be different in future posts, too.
Frequently asked questions
Can I automate WordPress blog posts if I only publish once a week?
Yes. One campaign with a weekly interval and a chosen day is enough. Start with a category you know well so you can tell whether the first post answers a useful question. You can add another day later. You’ll then have a real example to guide the choices you make on the second campaign.
How is this different from scheduling a post I already wrote?
When you schedule a finished post, you’ve already done the writing and picked a time for it to go live. In this walkthrough, the saved campaign also has instructions for creating articles. It has a subject, an AI provider, a category, and choices for what each article should contain. Those instructions can be used again the next time the campaign runs.
Do I have to use the same word count and images for every category?
You can set the length and image count for each campaign. My saved Tuesday example has a target of 2,200 words and three images inside the post. It also gets a separate featured image, so that setup produces four images altogether. If another category needs four pictures in the body, choose four for that campaign and you’ll get five altogether. For a closer look, here’s my guide to adding AI images to WordPress blog posts.
What should I check if I don’t see the post I expected?
Look at the saved campaign’s day, the site’s time zone, its post status, and the category it uses. Open that category on the live site. If the article is still missing, check View Logs on the campaign row for more information about the run. That gives you somewhere specific to look before you create another campaign that might later publish a second post.
Conclusion. Give one category a day of its own
The first thing I’d take from this video is how little you need to decide to get started. Pick one question your readers ask. Choose the category where the answer belongs. Give that campaign a day, then check the first post from both sides of WordPress. On the public page, see what the reader gets. In the editor, see whether the choices you made carried through.
As the owner and developer of My Content Creator Pro Elite, I like being able to open one screen and see what my blog has planned while I work on something else. If you’d like to follow along, explore My Content Creator Pro Elite and start with the category you most often mean to write for but rarely get around to.