When’s the best time to post your blog entry

May 03, 2008

Does it matter when you publish your blog posts? On what days? This post at Read/Write Web says, according to a study conducted by Jake Luciani, that the best time to publish your blog posts is between 1pm and 3 pm (PST) and then between 5 pm and 7 pm (PST). And the best day is Thursday. Weekends are the worst days to post because very few people access blogs during weekends.

Jake used an RSS software API to study social bookmarking websites Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit and Mixx to arrive at this result. You can see the associated graphs on the Read/Write Web post.

Does it mean you shouldn’t post regularly? I don’t think so. Although such data helps you target certain audience, I think any time is good to post provided your post is relevant and useful. Social bookmarking websites are not good indicators of traffic trends (in the real sense) because the dynamics are totally different. Most of the time it’s the herd mentality that causes traffic surges through these websites. Real traffic, valuable traffic, is gradually built, one post at a time. I’m not saying that traffic from social bookmarking websites doesn’t matter, but you shouldn’t judge your blogging success by the amount of exposure you get from these websites.

Provided your blog content is relevant and useful, your readers will go through it as soon as they get a chance, and that can be any day, at any time.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “When’s the best time to post your blog entry”

Shane: content writer
May 5th, 2008 at 2:17 am
I agree, the “best time to post” is when you have something worth saying… Deciding exactly which day and which time of the day to post is just slightly pedantic…
Mathew
May 7th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
The only time I think timing is important is when your post is somewhat reliant on topical currency (ie. when writing on a seasonal event or late-breaking news item).
Otherwise, as previously and eloquently stated by Shane, so long as you provide quality content, people will read you irrespective of when you post.
Kjartan Bjørkvold
May 11th, 2008 at 3:56 am
I am not sure if I agree that the afternoon is a good time to post new entries. In my experience, early morning is far better.
This way, regular visitors will be able to see the latest and freshest blog entries when they get to the office. This way they can also keep up with comment developments, as they might be busy with offline activities at night.
If it was published the day before in the afternoon, they may already view the post as old and outdated.