When Should You Post?

Jun 8, 2008 by Matt | Posted in Blogging 4 Comments

This question is asked so often. Is it just me, or is this a pointless question?

Bloggers have come-up with theories that the best times to post are right before the start of most peoples’ work day, and around the time they get back from work.

But does it really matter?

My theory is that if you post early in the morning, simply because there will be more time over the course of the day for people to see it. If you use an RSS reader, do you have to catch a post as soon as it’s out? No, your reader will note the new post, and display it to you no matter what time it is, as long as it’s been published. Therefore, you post as early as possible, so as many people as possible will see it over the day.

It’s kind of pointless to try to post at weird times over the day to try to get more people to see at once. Just timestamp the posts to sometime in the morning.

  • http://www.webmasters-forum.org Raman

    well,never thought about the time for posting,I make posts whenever i get time.

  • http://www.webmaster-source.com Matt

    @Raman I do that on some of the blogs I have, and it works especially well for personal blogs. Though with Webmaster-Source, I try to write a post every day, and schedule them ahead so if I miss writing one day, one will still be published. I use WordPress’s time stamp to do this.

  • http://www.slevi.net Slevi

    I totally mix up my posting times, no definite pattern to it. Although I do make use of time stamps as well to spread out the times of my posts a bit rather than 2~3 in a row for example but with 8 hours in between for example.But I find it rather redundant to post before going to classes for example as my blog isn’t oriented at just my timezone but visitors from all over. What’s morning for me is practically evening for my visitors from within Australia and eastern Asia whereas it’s still night for those in the US.Not to mention that in case I post once every 24 hours every post will be up for 24 hours, it doesn’t matter whether the post will be made at 4 in the morning after I set my alarm at 3 specifically for that or posted at 4 in the afternoon :).

  • http://nmwoodworks.com/gardening Bill Canaday, 2010

    The particular article I am responding to was posted on June 8, 2008 and it is now the early evening of December 7, 2010 (EDT). The article is STILL BEING READ. Look, just post as soon as the article is completed … and start working on the next one. The way for a post to get its maximum readership is for it to be available for the maximum amount of time.

    This means that the optimal time for posting is sometime in the 3 seconds immediately following a careful editing. Anything else is guess work coming from the mouths of babes who can’t interpret a web stats page. Holding on to an article waiting for some imaginary ‘optimal’ time to post means that you are missing readers because you are hanging on to the article. Capice? The article will still be available when your ‘optimal’ time rolls around.