You've just finished a brilliant blog article. All the formatting is finished and you already found a perfect photo to go with the post. Excitement is running through your veins"you cant wait to publish this masterpiece and see the results. But wait!
Is now a good time to publish your blog post?
Your answer depends on how important it is for you to get lots of comments, subscribers and social media shares.
Most likely, if you are reading an article about blogging on Search Engine People, you want to grow a larger blog audience than what you have currently.
If so, then yes, it does matter when you post a blog.
For maximum results, you need to consider these three factors
- The time you post
- The day you post
- When to promote your post on social media
I'm going to share with you the answers I've gathered based on my own blogging experiences while studying the analytics that have been generated along the way.
Just be sure to keep in mind that these days and times don't always work as expected and actually its possible you will see a time or day surprise you"like a 2 am Sunday post going viral. Or a post made on the best day and the best time fall flat.
Consider these guidelines on posting times to be generally helpful, yet flexible, depending on unique factors like your blog niche.
Which Days Of The Week Boost Your Blog Post The Most
Tuesday or Wednesday generally works best for blog posts.
Mondays tend to generate less traffic and I think this is due to everyone starting off their week distracted by a full agenda and finding a full inbox of emails needing their attention.
Again, your niche might break this mould. For example, if your blog covers pro football, then posting on a Monday or Thursday morning before a game might bring you a lot of traffic.
What Times During The Day Boost Your Blog Post The Most
Sending subscribers your latest post should be done before lunch; sometime between 8:00 am and 11 am EST in the U.S. People are getting online for the first time during this period.
Your email list will see your new post during the morning hours in one of several possible ways
- On their phone before getting out of bed.
- On their tablet during a morning train commute
- In their work inbox first thing
Blog posts scheduled in the morning also tend to work in your favour because the morning period also happens to be an optimal time for sharing your blog through social media.
Here's How You Should Use Social Media To Boost Your Blog Post
Pretty much everyone is using at least one of these social media platforms"most of you use multiple platforms. With this well-known list, notice how morning hours work well for most of them
Google+: 9 am to 11 am
Twitter: 1 pm to 3 pm
Facebook: 1 pm to 4 pm
Linkedin: 7 am to 9 am & 4 pm to 6 pm
Pinterest: 2 pm to 4 pm & 8 pm to 1 am
As Jay Baer once said, "Content is fire. Social media is gasoline." But the flammability depends on how well you use social media. When your content is great, many of your subscribers who received your post in the morning will also be sharing your post through social media in the morning, which is fabulous.
Keep a few things to keep in mind about social media, though:
- Facebook is blocked at roughly half of all places of employment.
The good news is evening Facebook shares between 7 pm to 9 pm can be quite effective in generating traffic, as many people use Facebook in the evening before bedtime. I have also found Saturday mornings to be effective hours to share a Facebook post. People not working tend to spend more time commenting and sharing your postsbut I've noticed this drops down a lot by 1 pm on Saturdays. Evening posts on Saturdays don't usually work well.
- For some reason Google+ is driven predominately by morning hours but sometimes an evening post will stand out on G+ since there's less action in the newsfeed.
- When it comes to LinkedIn, you need to think about your blog niche and how responsive these particular connections will be to the content. Blogs that cover topics like business, marketing, technology or personal development can receive great responses on LinkedIn. But if your blog covers topics like entertainment, sports, religion or politics, LinkedIn might not be an effective platform to use for blog article promotion.
- Twitter is a great platform to use as you can send out a lot of tweets for your blog (using different headlines, of course) without appearing spam my or annoying. I have noticed that for some reason the afternoon does work best for Twitter, but you should experiment with other times, as they can work too.
- More and more men are using Pinterest, so if your blog has a predominately male audience, don't rule out this visually oriented platform.
One last thing on using social media if you are not a morning person, you can still share your blog posts during the morning hours by simply scheduling your posts using a tool like Hoot suite.
Conclusion
These are my conclusions so far when it comes to posting blog posts at the right day and time. I would like to hear some other ideas and thoughts on this. Please tell me why you publish your blog articles the way you do. What differences do you see in traffic results based on different times or days? Let me know in the comments.