If you’re publishing high-quality blog content, you’re already off to a great start in terms of online marketing. However, many factors will determine your success, such as knowing the best time to post a blog.
By carefully planning your content schedule, you can help your blog posts get the attention they deserve. This includes finding the perfect day and time when your target audience is online and hungry for quality content.
In this article, we’ll discuss why timing is everything in the world of blogging. Then we’ll explore three key factors to consider when determining the best time to post on your blog for the maximum number of page views, social shares, and comments. Let’s get started! 🏃
How often should you publish blog posts? 🤔
The perfect blogging frequency will vary depending on your target audience and goals. For example, if you’re trying to increase your click-through rate (CTR), you may need to publish more frequently.
If you’re blogging to raise general brand awareness, you might benefit from a less aggressive publishing schedule.
However, as a general rule, it makes sense to publish as much content as possible without compromising quality. Search engines favor blogs that are updated frequently. The more content you publish, the better your chances are of climbing the search engine rankings.
At a minimum, you’ll want to try and publish new content every week. Many blogs have achieved success by publishing around three times per week. Here at the Themeisle blog, we’ve found publishing four times per week to be the sweet spot, though we do adjust our publication frequency from time to time.
However, quality is also essential. It’s far better to publish one skyscraper post per week rather than three mediocre articles. If you push out tons of low-quality content, you risk getting lost in the noise of the millions of posts that are published every single day. You’ll also likely struggle to retain readers, who may quickly grow tired of being bombarded by poor-quality content.
Once you’ve decided on an initial frequency, it’s smart to monitor how this approach helps you achieve your goals. You can assess your blog’s performance using a tool such as Google Analytics:
Every blog is different, so we recommend experimenting with your publishing schedule. Through trial and error plus careful monitoring, you can find the frequency that delivers the desired results for your particular niche.
When is the best time to post on a blog? 🕰️ Three considerations
Whether you’re writing for fun or you want to generate revenue, one thing is true for all bloggers – you want people to read your content. Once you’ve written and rewritten the perfect post, it’s important to get your timing right. Here are three things to consider before hitting that Publish button.
1. The goal of the post
Your content publishing schedule should reflect what you ultimately hope to achieve. Some common goals include generating the maximum number of page views and increasing engagement in the comment sections.
Unfortunately, there’s no perfect day or time that guarantees the desired results for every website. After identifying your goals, it’s smart to experiment with publishing your content on different days and times. Then, you’ll want to monitor the results carefully.
By running these tests, you should be able to identify the days and times that bring you closer to your specific goals. Ramsay Taplin, the founder and CEO of BlogTyrant, recommends performing one test per month.
If you want to achieve a large number of social shares, some days and times may deliver more positive results than others. For example, research by Sprout Social identifies Tuesday between 9am and 2pm and Wednesday between 9am and 1pm as the best times to post [1].
If you’re focusing on Facebook, Sprout Social found consistent engagement from Monday to Thursday between 8am and 1pm:
If you’re posting to Instagram, Sprout Social identifies Tuesday (9am to 1pm) and Wednesday (10am and 1pm) as peak engagement periods. Meanwhile, tweets posted from Tuesdays through Thursdays generate the most buzz:
For LinkedIn, the study found Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10am to noon as the best times to post content.
However, there’s conflicting information out there. For example, HootSuite has identified Monday as the best time to post on LinkedIn and Instagram [2], and Friday for Twitter.
Therefore, to identify the best time to post on your own blog, we also recommend analyzing your unique audience using platform-specific tools. Twitter Analytics and Facebook Page Insights are both effective choices.
2. Audience demographics
The best time to post a blog will vary depending on your target audience. The first step is learning about your audience using tools such as Google Analytics and Facebook Insights:
Then you can tweak your schedule to suit your user demographic. Location is very important, particularly when it comes to time zones. This becomes more complicated when your audience spans multiple locations.
If you’re targeting the United States, it’s worth noting that almost half of the US population is in the Eastern Time Zone (EST) [3]. In addition, the EST and Central Time (CT) zones combined represent almost 80% of the US population. Therefore, it may make sense to prioritize these time zones when targeting an American audience.
It’s also wise to research your target audience’s occupations, including when they’re most likely to be at work and whether their jobs involve internet access. You can then consider whether they’re likely to read your content while at work. For example, if you’re targeting marketing professionals, it may make sense to make your “best practices for a successful campaign” post live during their regular workday.
By contrast, you may be sharing advice on how to launch your own business or get your garden ready for spring. In these scenarios, people will typically consume this content outside of work, which your publishing schedule should reflect.
3. Your competition
The level of competition also affects how much attention your blog receives. You might attempt to reach as many people as possible by publishing during peak activity hours. This can generate more comments, social shares, and page views. However, there’s also a higher chance of your content getting lost amid the noise.
Alternatively, you might publish during low activity hours, when you’ll have a smaller potential audience but may achieve a higher percentage of engagement and conversions. Your content will also have increased prominence due to the reduced competition.
To identify peak and low activity hours for your industry, it makes sense to study your direct competitors. You can use a premium tool such as Pathmatics, or a free solution like Google Alerts to notify you every time a competitor publishes a new post:
This can help you build a picture of when your competitors are most likely to post new content. Armed with this information, you can either adjust your schedule to avoid direct competition or try to redirect your target audience by publishing at the same time as your competitors.
It may also help to evaluate how well each competitor’s content performs. This can be a way to pinpoint days and times when your target audience is particularly receptive, which is useful information to feed into your own tests. You can analyze how well the competition’s content is performing using a tool such as BuzzSumo:
By learning from your competitors in this way, you may be able to fast-track through the trial and error stage and discover the perfect dates and times when you should be publishing your own content.
Conclusion 🧪
With millions of posts being published every day, it’s important to set your content up for success. The date and time when you publish each article can determine whether it finds a receptive audience or gets lost in the crowd.
To help you find the best time to post a blog for your own unique website and audience, you’ll want to consider:
- The goal of the post
- Audience demographics
- Your competition
💡 For some other ways to get more eyeballs on your blog content, you can also follow our guide on how to increase blog traffic.
Do you have any questions about how to find the sweet spot for your particular blog? Ask us in the comments section below!
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