What Time of Day do You Post to Your Blog?
February 27th, 2007 by Michael Gray in BloggingIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
So I’ve got an idea in my head, that’s entering the “hey I might actually do this one” and of my biggest questions is when do I schedule my posts to go live?
Generally speaking for posts that are pre-written I schedule them to go live between 3am and 6am EST. I know that feedburner works on a 30 minute delay. Bloglines also has a 30 minute delay and Google reader has an unpublished delay. I vary the time so I don’t look like an auto-posting bot. I also keep it that early as a worse case scenario I just miss the feedburner bot and just miss the bloglines bot so I’m guaranteed my posts go live by 7am EST. I’m sure that’s probably sometime in the late morning or early afternoon for my friends across the pond, but hey that’s my reality and I’m sticking to it.
The thing that makes this project different is there will be usually daily ’round up’ style posts. Which means the news will have to happen before a well formed and thought out opinion can be dispensed. Worst case scenario the post goes live 5-6pm PST. I also seem to remember reading somewhere in a sample weblogs inc contract that got out that it was highly encouraged to have more posts go live in the AM for the eastern US.
So for those of you who publish on non US eastern seaboard schedule, especially the Lisa and Duncan, do people read your work the same day or the next day. Any downsides or upsides to following that schedule, other than say having a real life? Also what about my friends in Europe, do you take the US time zones into account when you blog on a schedule, and do people who post with a US schedule bias annoy/please you? Inquiring minds want to know …
Sphere It
February 27th, 2007 at 7:30 am
I try to schedule a post to go off just after midnight my time (GMT +10) which means that it goes up at a similar time to yours.
If I have more posts I then try to get them up during ‘office hours’ while the US is awake - I actually find that later in the day for your time (morning mine) is also another good time - I guess it’s when everyone at work over there is watching the clock and counting down the last hour before going home (looking for distractions).
I also do post during the day Aussie time (while you’re all asleep - but those posts are usually more ‘newsy’ in nature).
February 27th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Depends on the audience.
On my football blog, my main audience is in UK so I try to post along their times - late morning (10-12 am), early afternoon (3-5 pm) and evening (7-9 pm) time slots work best.
For SEO and other blogs, I try to target EST.
I try writing them earlier, but for ‘newsy’ posts it’s a bit hard and you have to post them during the day as they come in.
One thing I’ve noticed - it’s not enough to be the first to break the news, but you have to have the most interesting angle on it.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:27 am
I just make one post in like 14 days to a month. And I publish them manually. Does that count?
February 27th, 2007 at 9:48 am
You just saved me some time here Michael, indicating that FeedBurner takes 30 minutes to update. I’ve been trying to figure out why it is I couldn’t see posts in their feed after they were made.
In terms of my own blog, I’m lucky to get a post out on a regular basis. In the rare event that I can post-date it though — I often shoot for 7:30AM EST or 11:30AM EST — only so readers will get to it when they come in for the morning or while they’re sitting around having lunch at their desk.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:55 am
There is no way I could wait for the most advantagous time to post. Once it’s written, off it goes.
Most of the time writing is akin to crawling over broken glass, or expunging poison. No way am I going to wait for it to be published.
Rather than worry about the time it goes out I prefer to worry about what I’m going to write next.
Being in the UK I get to read the US midnight-oil-burners stuff before the rest of the US get out of bed. There is an advantage there if you want to write about what others have wrote about, but where’s the fun in that. I much prefer to write about stuff that knocks around my nogging rather than reblogging.
I may not be time optimised, but you have to find the blogging style that suits the personality.
Honestly, I couldn’t careless when the stuff I read is published. As long as I get to read it whilst it’s still warm from the fingers that tapped it out.
February 27th, 2007 at 10:44 am
What’s the point of scheduling a post to go live ?
Why not just post it when you write it ? Maybe some of you crank out three post but schedule them to be released during the week ?
February 27th, 2007 at 10:52 am
>Why not just post it when you write it ? Maybe some of you crank out three post but schedule them to be released during the week ?
yep for example my local series was all scheduled. Most of my posts are scheduled. I write when I have the time/feel creative and spread them out to cover when I’m working or AFK.
February 27th, 2007 at 11:00 am
You could ping FeedBurner after you post, either manually or have your blog engine do it. Then it’ll pick it up right away. More details here: http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/ping
February 27th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Building a schedule does a couple of things I have learned.
One, you condition your regular readers to check in. Very rarely will I look for Michael to post in the afternoon, but every morning I check his feed as there usually is a morsel for me to chew on.
Two, you commit yourself to a schedule which gets through the writers block times. I recently went on vacation and few would have known because the blogging pattern remained the same.
And also, if you are maintaining a few sites, there is a quality of life issue. Nothing is worse than waking up in the morning with 5 blogs that all need information and real life is also screaming at you.
February 27th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I think you can over rationalize when to post (it’s the optimizer in you;) - Fact is - if it’s good, people will read it when they get a chance.
If I’m inspired Friday night at 11pm - and the post is good and ready to go. It’s a fine time to post.
I would guess most of the rationale for “optimal” times balances itself out with other factors, although it is probably good to set deadlines, or you end up posting as often as I do:)
February 27th, 2007 at 3:57 pm
From another perspective - one of my blogs is a local news blog so I publish as soon as I have the news.
By doing that I can scoop the local newspapers, and I can usually beat the local radio and television news broadcasts. I can also publish more information than some of those other media outlets.
And people do come to my blog looking for news more often.
February 27th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
So, I guess I’ll admit to posting whenever the fuck I feel like it. Very rare exceptions. Like, I plan to REAM a writer at wired this week, and am waiting for their article to actually go up on the web before I post it so others can read the nonsense of which I rant. Aside from that, I post when it’s convenient for me. But, we’ve already established that I don’t care.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
I generally post at 20:00 CET. After a day’s work (full-time job, I read email and rss feeds along with blogging.
Never really toom notice if it affects when a post is made. This is the only time I have to post.
February 27th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
LOL.
Honestly, I never thought about scheduling posts until yesterday when I wrote about 6 that will be published between now and the 1st of March.
Most of my stuff really isn’t time critical and if it is, then I’ll post it NOW rather than wait until a certain time.
G-Man
February 27th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
It depends a lot on what sort of outcome you are looking to achieve. Currently I just post when I feel like it on my personal blog because I don’t really care about the traffic, it’s a personal indulgence and nothing more at this stage. However, with other sites I’ve played with different times:
Mornings US EST are the logical time to target because you’re looking at grabbing readers first thing HOWEVER so does everyone else. If you’re trying to deliver multiple posts with an average return this is the ideal time to target, but I have found that odd times can deliver better results for standout (flagship seems to be the term at the moment) content. Because I’m nearly a perfect flip (12 hours ahead of US EST Apr-Oct) you see a drop off in posts after say 8-9pm US EST across the board, but I know from experience that a lot of the key movers and shakers are still awake well into the night (Arrington at TechCrunch often posts as late as 1-2am US WST) so you’ve got a lot less competition at those times to get your content across, I’m presuming here that people are like me in that when they read their feeds in the morning they go through 500-1000 posts so you tend to skim looking for the good stuff, posts that come in later get better eye ball time because there’s less competition.
Strangely enough, if you’re looking at Social Networking traffic, weekends are better again. My last two top of Page 1 Digg stories (all in the last month) were both written and posted on the weekend. Less competition=better chance of success. Again though, it’s all relative to the outcome you’re after. News/ topical sites need to be up to date with the breaking/ big stories so post them for the morning crowd, but unique/ flagship content is better left for other times.
On the question of people reading the content the next day, it’s an interesting thought, but it ignores the fact that there’s a market outside of the US as well. English speaking Asian traffic continues to grow, and the UK comes online in my afternoon which helps. Often if you run a good post that might miss the bulk of the US, the Brits can pick it up and give it strength going into the morning crowd on the US East Coast. It’s not always the case, but sometimes stories/ posts can build over 12 hours.
Thats my 2 cents anyway
February 27th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I have a full-time job so rarely do I post during the day. I post once a night usually with a collection of links in a timed post that goes out in the middle of the night. This way folks visiting in the morning and evening get two different posts waiting for them.
On the weekends, I often do my best writing since I’m thinking about it all week.
Doug
February 27th, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Great tips Darren for us Aussie bloggers
I’ve got to be honest - whenever I’m finished writing a post, I publish it. But I don’t have a big readership.
February 28th, 2007 at 2:08 am
I post when I feel like it, but I try to make sure that I have at least one fresh post ready every day for the 9:30 a.m. Feedburner delivery for email subscribers. I like to make it into their inbox once a day.
I also write a lot of posts that never make it to the blog. Every now and then something will come up, I’ll remember the relevant, unpublished post and I can have it posted in seconds.
February 28th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I find the best time is 7:00am EST. Good entry time for people heading in for a nice long day at the office, surfing the net.
March 2nd, 2007 at 7:53 pm
It really depends on the blog topic, but I personally try to post very very early in the morning before the United States “wakes up” and starts posting about whatever happened in the news while we were all asleep.
That really helps get some news out there on your blog before anyone else.
So, I would say the best time is before 6am EST.
Keep in mind, though, that all of the major company announcements come out at 9am EST, so if you’re blogging about any company news then you might want to get your fingers ready at 9:01am EST. (hint,hint)
March 7th, 2007 at 2:44 am
I haven’t found posting time matters too much unless it is a news item, and then it is best to get it out there as fast as you can and do enough better content than the blogs you ping to maybe retain a few new subscribers.
On more automated sites I normally set it up fairly randomly.
In GMT my lowest viewing figures are around 8am, views climb to a peak at between 3pm and 4pm and then slowly decrease throughout the day in the US.
The biggest drop is between 5am and 8am GMT
March 7th, 2007 at 7:34 am
I blog from Europe, and tend to blog around 11PM/12PM CET during weekdays. Weekends vary though, due to my having more time on my hands. I guess I subconsciously blog later at night during weekdays since the majority of my readers are US based, though to be honest I don’t really give that much attention to my blog post timings… hmmm perhaps I should start to?
March 7th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I usually post between 5am - 7:30am EST, for a number of reasons:
1. That’s when I write. I think clearly and get a lot of things done early in the morning, so that’s when I get up and start working.
2. My content of the day is ready and waiting when everyone else gets to work and starts browsing around/reading feeds.
I also post one or two things over the weekend, for your aforementioned reasons.