Personal note: I can’t tell you how much each and every comment on my Iron Girl 1/2 Marathon recap meant to me. I love this community. You {swoon!} complete me.
My personal favorite from the bunch?
you are AMAZING. seriously! side note: that first photo? your calves are rocking.
So much better than being called pretty or skinny — THAT is a compliment I can get behind, so thanks, Janetha!
And someone else is pretty happy that I brought home a medal:
I don’t think of myself as an expert, but I am an expert aggregator. That is to say — I’m pretty good at collecting content on a given topic, and pulling out a few “so what now” points. This is going to be one of those posts where I share the information I’ve gathered from several sources (good ones) and try and help you form your own opinions.
I’ll also share my own, and I’ll start with a big disclaimer:
- Nothing I’m going to tell you here will beat bad content. So I’d much rather you spend your time creating good posts than trying to manipulate your posting schedule.
- There will be many people that this does not work for — lifecasters, for instance, shouldn’t hold posts to accommodate the statistics seen here. That’s just silly.
- Good marketing can beat “bad” timing ANY DAY. So when in doubt, publish on whatever schedule you want, but consider sharing links on your social networks at the times listed below.
- One of my favorite posts ever — this one by Lisa Barone — makes the case that there really shouldn’t be any rules in blogging, and I agree. So please take everything you read as food for thought and not a manual for how to post.
There may be stuff here that you like … there may be stuff you sneer at. I’d love to know your reaction (you won’t hurt my feelings — it’s not my research), so let me know what you think in the comments!
Resources/Sources
- When’s the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts? (via Problogger)
- Best Time to Post (via Socialnomics)
- The Science of Blogger (via HubSpot)
- Best Posting Time (via Find My Blog Way)
- Best and Worst Times to Post (via Read Write Web)
- What is the Best Time to Publish Blog Articles? (via Blog Tyrant)
- Best Time to Blog Post (via Inbound Sales.net)
Best Time(s) to Post
Publish early … but market late (see below for more)
Research shows that people tend to read blogs as they start their day — either before work or when they get to work and check email, etc. That means that they’re looking for fresh content when they pull up your website (or open a feed reader), so having a new headline up can build loyalty.
In addition, most people have their feed reader set to read from oldest to newest, so the earlier you post in the morning (or overnight), the better your chances are of appearing at the top of the lost. As people get further in their list of new posts, they tend to get fatigued or distracted, and may mark your post as read (even if it wasn’t).
So, if you can — consider posting before 9am or after 4pm (9am gets you the morning readers; 4pm gets you the evening readers)
Best Day(s) to Post
Weekdays, and specifically, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
The research shows that Mondays are BAD days for pageviews, because you’re fighting all of the other tasks that need to be done after the weekend ends (reading and responding to emails, work meetings, etc.). And weekends are also traditionally terrible times for getting attention. The three best days tend to be Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (Friday is especially good for posting light or funny content, because people tend to transition into the weekend mindset around Thursday night).
Avoid holidays if you have important posts, because — like weekends — people tend to be doing other things and when they return to their computer, they’re often happy to just move forward, rather than go back and read blogs that may have been posted before.
Best Time(s) to Market
Mid-morning and mid-afternoon — at DIFFERENT times than when you publish the posts
I considered putting this first, because it can be much more effective than posting at a certain time.
In general, it’s best to tweet MULTIPLE times (see my previous post on timing tweets), although I strongly advise you to mix it up. For example, here are my times and tweets from my half marathon recap post:
Sunday, 5:45pm
Monday, 9:15am
Monday, 4:15pm
I saw big surges in traffic after all three tweets, because I hit totally different audiences. In fact, some research shows that the best time to get retweeted is around 4pmET, so consider that!
For Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc., posting once is fine, but you should consider submitting it between 1pm and 3pm. Again, you get your loyal, subscribed readers when you actually publish the post, but you expose that same link to different people in the mid-afternoon.
How Often?
In general, the more you post, the better — although there is a point at which you’ll hit reader fatigue. The research shows that multiple short posts are generally better than single long posts (oops), especially when it comes to getting people to comment and/or share your work. Even with how-to posts, it’s better to break up your tips (but link them all to each other when you’re done).
Posting twice a day may not get you twice as many page views…but you WILL see an increase (as long as the content is meaningful and not just a throwaway).
How can you tell what works best for your own site? Analytics, my dear Watson. You’ll have to do some work, and experiment with different days, times, marketing strategy, etc. And you’ll have to measure it all.
Here’s a tip: use Google Analytics to see when people come to YOUR website.
Navigate to Visitors > Visitor Trending > Visits, then click the clock icon (hour) above the graph. You’ll see it broken down by hour.
You can even go one step further and use Advanced Segments to see exactly when your visitors come from social media links — so you can track your experiments:
Google Analytics is the jam to my peanut butter, but I also love Post Rank (more advanced, but a great tool) for seeing what readers do when they get to your site. Do they read it? For how long? Do they share it?
If you made it this far…you should get some kind of award. It’s a lot to take in, so feel free to bookmark this for future reading. And I can’t say it enough…it still comes down to good content. So I’d advise spending time coming up with the best marketing approach for the great work you’re doing, no matter what time of day you’re doing it.
Post early on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Avoid weekends and holidays. Share on social media multiple times, and do it mid-morning and mid-afternoon.
About Katy
Thanks for this really helpful post — I’m definitely going to implement some of your tips and see what kind of difference it makes.
Hi, Katy! Just stumbled on your blog and I love your content! Thanks for the tips! Although I want traffic on my blog, above and beyond I want it to be something I’m proud of. Glad you touched on that here, too. Have the best day!
Great tips as always girl! I need to get better a twittering my post a few times. A goal of mine!
I am starting to explore more the tools of google analytics. I will have to start paying attention to the times, to be honest never noticed.
Excellent post, Katie!
I’m curious though, what do you other bloggers out there find works best for you?
Keep it rolling in the comments
Sorry, KATY
*embarrased*
Thanks for the great tips, as always!
These are GREAT tips, Katy! Thanks so much for sharing. I find all of this so interesting and really want to learn more.
Thank you for taking the time to put all that research together in one post!! I really think the take home message is that it has to be GOOD content- it doesn’t matter how often or when you post if no one wants to read it. I get more page views now that I post once a day (or even less) than I did posting 3 times a day, simply because more people want to read it because it’s not as crappy.
And randomly, Fridays are my worst days!
Thanks for the wonderful info!
Interesting stuff…and I’m glad to see that my assumptions were correct! My traffic is always highest on Tues, Weds and Thurs, and my morning and night posts get the most hits. It’s kind of funny to think about the way these stats work…I’m imagining everyone collectively on their computers at 8-9 and then peeling off to do their other work. Which is exactly what I’m doing, too
Great post Katy! I totally agree that above anything else you need to have good content. I think you said it prefectly the other day….if you have great content and a post ready to go what’s the best way to get “the most bang for your buck”. Thank you for addressing all sides of this issue!
Ditto! I totally agree. You explained everything so well and easy to understand. Esp. to me, being super new to this whole world of blogging and socail media!
Thank you!
Thanks so much for all the great tips!! As a newbie to blogging, I really value your advice.
Interesting to see time of day trends from your Analytics. Are those your numbers? Sheesh blogger envy here. I auto-post at 6 a.m., then Tweet maybe 3-4 times during the day. I also don’t have a blog FB page but do post about 1-2 times per week to my personal FB page.
This information is really interesting…I haven’t read all the links- but I think I might. Stats are really fascinating even if I’m not looking to take full advantage of the information
Good advice. One thing I would add is to make sure you post consistently so your readers become dependent on the timing.
With my previous blog, I always posted at 10am and soon saw a huge spike at that time of traffic, even on days I didn’t post anything for whatever reason.
This couldn’t have come at a better time! I just switched to self-hosted last week and I’m using google analytics. It’s kind of over whelming because there is SO MUCH info! Holy statistics! I don’t even know what I’m looking at half the time, or how to use it to my advantage! So, thanks for the great tips! I’m definitely goig to look into the other site you listed, PostRank..and definitely bookmarking this post because it has SO MUCH INFO!!!
These are all great great tips. Thanks for doing the research.
I feel like I won a prize! Haha. I am glad you liked the comment but I am even more glad you have amazing muscles. I know you work hard for those! And gosh I love your cat sooo much, because he reminds me of my old one!! And I just love cats.
This post was AWESOME and so comprehensive. Thank for doing the work! To be completely honest, I don’t pay attention to what time I post. That’s probably horrible, but I have a busy life and I post once a day, at night, as soon as I can get my post typed up that evening. Sometimes it is at 7 PM other times it isn’t til 11 PM. I LOVE what you said about marketing at various times, though, that is so smart.
I am about to be self hosted so i am excited to hop on the GA train. Looks like there is a lot of useful stats there.
XO
Great info! Thanks:)
thanks so much katy! i can’t wait to come back to this to re-read and really digest it!
based on janetha’s comment above, can you only use GA when you’re self hosted? that would explain why i could never figure it out after trying several times! haha…
Hey Sarah!
Google Analytics can be installed on the Blogger platform (which is now a Google product):
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/blogger/thread?tid=20a407a0b05ffca6&hl=en
But it cannot be installed on a WordPress-hosted blog; only a self-hosted blog that is run on the WordPress.org platform:
http://en.support.wordpress.com/stats/
Monday is actually one, if not the, best day for me!
This is really interesting and helpful!
As soon as I’m done with the semester, I’m going to take a good 3-4 days and just sit down and read a lot of your past posts with blogging tips. There is SO much that I need to learn!
Great tips, Katy! Thanks for sharing! Such great information
And lately i’ve been obsessed with my analytics and site stats. But i know THOSE DO NOT make the blogger sucessful!
Great tips! I am especially grateful because I was going to work on a work blog post for Thursday, but see that I should put it off until Friday.
My “schedule” is pretty much like Marci’s but I will post right away if I have something very timely that I am excited about (like a race recap). For my work blog I learned that it needs to post by 6:00 am my time (which means scheduling for 3:00 am pacific) to get sweeped up in that’s day’s email — another good reason to subscribe to your own blog.
This was really insightful. The issue I’ve debated over comes down to time zones. I currently live in Hawaii – and Hawaii Standard Time is 6 hours behind East Coast Time! So I’ve often wondered if I should just write my posts at night here, and set them to publish a few hours later so they’ll register first thing in the morning for mainland readers. Overall though I only post if I’m feeling like I’ve got something worthwhile to share. That might mean skipping a day or two but I’m just not into snapping pictures of everything I put in my mouth just so I can blog about it (no offense to bloggers who do – that’s just not my forte).
I also agree with you that receiving a comment about how great your calves look is way cooler than a “you look skinny” compliment!
Thanks for these great tips! Also a good way to limit time spent on writing blog posts (sometimes I feel I could go on forever writing all my ideas down!). I love your cat – such a beautiful colour!
Great post Katy.
Although I have studied a lot of this stuff so it was not new to me, I think your comment at the end about giving an “award for making it this far” at the end may have been necessary if your post wasn’t as strategically written, concise, and clearly written to appeal to people familiar with the material and analytics newbies alike as it was. It was not a struggle to get through at all. Being able to explain something well to beginners and veterans alike at the same time without dumbing it down is a sign of character.
If I ever start using my twitter and blog to entertain anyone but myself (which I doubt will happen given that I like to pretend not to take myself that seriously) I will definitely keep these tips in mind, especially with the timing of posts. Although I like how you wrote the post to appeal to those with personal blogs (underlining the importance of not getting caught up in rules at the expense of good content) I do think that performers, artists, and especially businesses should follow these rules, or some rules that work for their brand. As a company, if you post at certain times or on a reliable schedule, it shows evidence of consistency
(i.e., trust) in your business and your best practices which may build brand loyalty, whether customers realize it or not.
So, I tried your twitter suggestion today and tweeted my morning post in the afternoon. I got about 10 hits off Twitter — which doesn’t seem like much, but I swear I never get views from Twitter! So yay!
I JUST switched to self hosted and I am LOVING Google Analytics. I am a big data nerd to begin with, but I could spend hours analyzing these stats! It was actually the #1 reason I wanted to self host. Is that wrong?
Thanks for all of these great tips!
This post is so informative; love it! I’m really new to this blogging thing so I haven’t thought about all these details. I appreciate that you took the time to research it and put it together for us. I’m going to take some of your tips to heart and hope that it increases my blog traffic. Ever since I’ve started blogging, I’ve been having so much fun and I want to share it with more people
I LOVE love GA
Google is so smart! P.s. this was an awesome post….I guess I need to switch some things if what your research shows is totally legit. haha. Ohwell, I also like the flexibility of blogging when I feel like it-ya know?? thanks!
Ha! I found it
lol, I was waiting for this post and then somehow missed it. anyways, good research and great advice. I was actually a little surprised about the long vs short thing. Most of the blogs I really like give longer posts. It means more pictures and/or details on the topic of interest.
Also – I just ctrl+tab the Post Rank – never heard of it and excited to check it out!
ahh! and now that I looked at the post rank site – they have sooo much stuff! What do YOU use?
I am a little behind in my blog reading, this is a great post! I usually post all at once (to Twitter, Facebook), now I am going to space them out. Thanks, Katy!
I was surprised that you suggested people post on Friday…aren’t a lot of people out on Friday night? Isn’t that a poor choice for a post day?
Obviously this next comment might be a micromanager’s nightmare, but here’s my theory as to why Fridays are a popular day for blog content. (Anecdotally), I know for a fact that people occasionally surf the web at work (I know you’re as shocked as I was to find that out). Anyway, barring any major deadlines, projects, etc. Fridays are always the most laid back day of the week, especially after lunch, so it is not surprising that you might have a more captive audience for your blog posts.
Ooh, thank you for the Analytics tip! Clearly there’s so much to Analytics that I need to explore. And now I know that, oddly enough, Monday is the day I get the most visitors. Interesting!