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When to Publish Blog Posts - Timing Considerations

Posted: 15 Sep 2008 05:05 AM PDT

Timing-Blog-Posts Over the last few weeks we’ve been looking at important times to pause in the writing and publishing of a post. Each of these stages in the development of a blog post can contribute to whether a post makes it big around the web or not. Today we’re considering the time that you publish your post.

Image by SunnyUK

What Time Should You Publish Your Blog Post? - Factors to Consider

As I chat with bloggers I find that there are a lot of different opinions on when the best time is to hit publish on a blog post. Some pay a lot of attention to it and have studied what works best with their audience, while others go with a hunch and still others don’t think it really matters at all and just publish posts as they finish them (I’d love to hear your thoughts in comments).

In my own experience and in talking to other bloggers I find that timing issues vary quite a bit from blog to blog depending upon its audience and topic.

Let me explore some of the potential issues to consider:

Weekends

The day of the week that you publish can have a big impact upon how many people read it. While RSS feeds might mean some of your readers will read posts published when they are away from their computer I find that posts that go live on weekends tend to get a lot less traction than weekday posts. The exception to this is of course for blogs with a topic that is weekend specific (sports or certain TV shows for example). The other advantage of weekends is that I find it can be easier to crack the front page on sites like Digg as there seems to be less competition.

Mid Week

If I have a very important post that I want to get as much attention as possible I generally will publish it on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning (my time). This gives a few days after the post is written for it to be found, linked to, bookmarked etc before the weekend arrives (and momentum stops) - but means that those in catchup mode after the weekend have a little more time to digest the post.

Public Holidays

I tend to avoid posting anything important on public holidays days as web readership is lower (I’m thinking mainly of US specific public holidays as that is where my main audience is located on my two blogs). Having said this - I do find that sometimes posts on public holidays can do quite well as some readers have more leisurely type time on their hands.

On DPS I find ‘reader questions’ type posts and posts that have a more ‘fun’ nature do well on both weekends and public holidays. The main exception to the ‘avoid public holidays’ rule is when you have a blog that relates to one of them. For example I know a recipe blogger whose biggest day of the year is Thanksgiving (they have a lot of Turkey cooking tips that do particularly well).

Times of Day

My main advice with thinking about the time of day to publish posts is to test what works with your audience. My own daily posting schedule is to have something new up on my blogs at about midnight my time (which is first thing in the business day in the USA) - I try to make this my main post for the day, something that is teaching focused if possible. This means that those scanning their RSS feeds when they get to work (I know you do it) have something fresh to read and ponder during the day. I then usually have a post that goes live in the afternoon (US time) - but this post is usually a ‘lighter’ newsy post.

The key is to know where your readers are situated and watch how posts at different times of the day (and days of the week) are interacted with (both in terms of traffic but also comments and incoming links).

What I find is that it works best to be a little preemptive with your readers. ie if you have a peak time that readers come to your blog time your posts just before this time so there’s something fresh for when they arrive.

Give Posts Room to Breathe

Another tip that I’d give with regards to timing is to think about the sequence of posts and how often they go live on your blog. I think about this on two main levels:

Giving Important posts Room to Breathe - got a post that you really want people to notice? If so, I’d advise that you post it not only at a good time of day, but that you don’t post anything after it for a while. If it’s a really important post you might even want to not post again for a day or two so that it remains at the top of your blog.
Topics and Variety - sometimes too many posts on a similar topic too quickly can have a negative impact upon readers. Try to mix up different types of posts.

Social Media Campaigns

One occasion that ‘timing’ can be particularly important is if you want to do some sort of a social media campaign with a post. For example, if you’re looking to have a post do well on Digg it can be important to have the post go live, have it submitted to Digg and for a Digg This button to go up on the post all very quickly. This means that as soon as it’s live and the initial rush of new visitors to the post have the opportunity to Digg it.

Some social media experts that I know also advise you to time these posts that you think will do well on social media sites for early to mid morning (US time) so that the most visitors on Digg can be involved in promoting the post for you (again, I’ve heard a variety of opinions on this).

Less Can Equal More = Except When it = Less

Posting frequency is one of those topics that I get asked about a lot and it’s a tough one to give an ‘definitive’ answer on because like many aspects of blogging, what works for some won’t work for others.

Instead of a long section on the ins and outs of posting frequency - let me point you at a post dedicated to exploring the issues at - What is the Ideal Post Frequency for a Blog?

When Do You Publish Your Posts?

Do you give consideration to the timing of your blog posts?
If so - when do you publish them - and why?

I’m looking forward to hearing your experience on this topic.

From Ginger

Thank you to everyone who took the time to comb through my site and give me honest, constructive and most of all detailed feedback. I received many comments through my contact page in addition to the 50+ comments here at Problogger. I appreciate the time you all took to give me your feedback around the changes I need to make to the site.

Darren, thank you for choosing my site for the review, this has been on my wish list for a while now so thank you for this awesome opportunity as your readers have been thorough and helpful. Between reading your book and this review I’m certain I know what I need to do moving forward to improve my blog and take it to new heights.

I will be making changes around 85% of the consensus that was held amongst the comments. This includes:

Reducing the amount of Adsense that I use on the page. When reviewing the revenue programs, it turns out that I make more with Essence, Blogher and advertisement contracts and Adsense is last on the list in terms of amount of revenue.

Changing the color scheme: I went back and forth about this but I will work on a theme that is lighter and easier on the eyes. I definitely don’t want to alienate the male readers so I will take this into consideration. All said I love the theme layout and functionality as I think Solostream did a fantastic job with it. So while I may make tweaks to the color and layout, I don’t foresee changing the theme altogether. The jury is still out full posts instead of excerpts on the front page but I will see how it works out when I make changes this weekend.

Site Promotion: This is my top priority as you all gave really awesome ideas around how to do this given my niche. I’ve printed out all comments and highlighted the ones that spoke to this area and will be implementing those very soon, IE connecting with other sites such as Cafe Mom and Work It Mom. I don’t have children so I have often questioned whether or not I could really speak to and connect this audience but I am willing to give it a try.

I’m quite surprised to see that most of the comments liked my writing style, that made me smile as I often think I could do a lot better in this area. I do write from the heart and glad to see that most of you are able to glean some my personality based on what I write.

Special Note: The purpose of Girls Just Wanna Have Funds is for me to be able to write about personal finance from a SINKs (single income no children) perspective. I realize this is different than many of the mom blogs and other personal finance blogs out there but please try to understand that I write about personal finance as it relates to my life. There is no topic that I’ve written about that I havent considered or experienced personally. I will from time to time discuss financial challenges and there are times that I will look to readers for answers because I don’t know it all, so I’m OK with that aspect of the blog even though some commenters did not and thought it made me look as though I don’t have all the answers since I have my own challenges. Well, I do and that is the purpose of the blog, to write about those challenges and keep myself accountable as I move through them.

There was also a comment about my purchasing only organic foods and not writing about buying groceries around sale items. The comment also stated that working moms would just roll their eyes and keep it moving to Safeway. This stood out to me because I now realize that perhaps I haven’t written much to this reader group. However, I purchase organic foods because this is something I value just as other personal finance bloggers value traveling on leisure or collecting comic books. I realize this is something that all women/households aren’t able to do but it is my hope that readers won’t be turned off by this aspect of my finances. I am far from perfect in my quest for financial freedom. I shop way too much around hair and beauty products and let’s not discuss decorating our new home. I’d like for my readers to understand that much if nothing else about what I write. I write from personal experience and articles that hopefully inspire readers to take action. So while I may shop at Trader Joes and Whole Foods, this doesn’t mean that I don’t contend with the struggles of making your budget work with rising food prices.

That said, I will be adding a reader request section and reader questions answered section to make the blog more interactive and inclusive of all perspectives.

The Winner

The comment I chose that was most helpful in overall structure of how the information was presented and content is Ananda Palanisamy (no link left). This comment listed each area of improvement in addition to including more areas/issues to consider advertising and getting more readers. They were also VERY detailed in their response as most comments were, but I felt this comment was most helpful.

Note from Darren: Amanda, I’ll be in touch shortly with details of how to claim your prize.