When is the best time to post to your blog?
Published August 30th, 2007 in Blogs, Increase readers, PromotionI’ve been wondering for some time, when it’s best to post to your technology blog.
There are several factors
- aggregators like javablogs.com or groovyblogs.org
- different times zones like US-west, US-east and Europe
- different times of day where people read
- weekdays or weekends
- social news sites like reddit or digg
- article sites like artima, the serverside, infoq or dzone
- different audiences
I’m not sure which way to go, when to post. When posting here in Europe at noon, it’s in the morning in the US and people get up and to work. So I can catch the morning birds (east, what with west?). Posting in the evening, I get to people in the US at noon, but the people in Europe in the evening at home probably. Timing this with the aggregators and feedburner to reach enough reads to stay on top. But not too soon or the post will be swamped by later entries before the majority of people starts reading blogs. Not too late, or you can’t catch the wave. A lot of interdependent variables.
I think I need a simulation tool to optimize weblog posting times. But as always, the best way to get readers is to post interesting stuff :-)
Thanks for listening.
Excellent question, Stephan….
I’m glad you wrote the part about being interesting at the end…. that’s the key, IMHO.
The time to post is “when one has finished an article that contributes something to the community, whether it is insight, humor, or creativity”.
Michael Easter
You’re right, thanks.
Stephan- it’s a great question– I’ve found that with the rise of RSS it doesn’t really seem to matter when something is published. I’ve not noticed any up tick or pattern related to timing and traffic (yet). This wasn’t the case before blogs and RSS….of course, the aspect that has the most direct link to traffic is not surprisingly content. Go figure! :)
andy - I’ve thought about the same thing. RSS is smoothing things out and what catched my eye recently is that more people comment on older posts. So it’s not only when you post but your post might be relevant months from now and result in a comment on your blog.