When Is the Best Time to Publish a Blog Post?
WriteCollective
You might enter the blogging arena thinking that your on-site blog will provide an effortless way to connect with new followers and add value for current customers. After all, what could be easier than waxing poetic about the industry you love? But you will quickly realize that there is a lot you don’t know about blogging. For instance, when is the best time to publish a blog post?
If you want to use this tool for the betterment of your business, you need to approach your blog with the same responsible attitude and attention to detail you devote to every other aspect of running your professional empire. That means questioning everything about the way you blog, including when to publish new content.
So when is the best time to publish your blog posts? Here are a few tips to help you find a posting schedule that is right for you.
Best Days
The best time to post depends on which medium you focus on and what you hope to accomplish. That said, having a general understanding of when people are most likely to look at your blog will help you to determine the best days to post.
It should come as no surprise that blog readers tend to have more leisure time on the weekends. Equally important is that many bloggers also take weekends off, leaving their readers with little new content to peruse while they’re most likely to be looking.
You can capitalize on this situation by publishing your posts as the weekend approaches or on Saturdays and Sundays.
Best Times
Whether you’re publishing blog posts daily or only a few times each week, it also pays to think about the timing of your posts. Numerous studies have shown that people are most likely to look at blogs and social media at lunchtime and after work.
The best times to post, then, are around noon and 6 o’clock in the evening. You should also consider a posting schedule based on Eastern Standard Time (EST) to ensure that your posts are available at peak viewing times across the country.
Social Media Sharing
If social media sharing is part of your plan for gaining exposure for blog posts (and it should be), several studies show that peak posting times are pretty consistent across most social media platforms.
For instance, a HubSpot survey of more than 1,000 marketers revealed two different time frames ideal for posting on social media: between noon and 3 p.m. and between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m.
Most marketers surveyed identified Friday as the best day of the week to publish on social media. While great social content can gain traction outside of these peak windows, we suggest sticking to these time frames to maximize your reach.
Scheduling Software
Automating the publishing process can be extremely helpful, whether you’re simply laying out a calendar or you need to automate uploads because you live on the West Coast and you want to publish early in the morning to reach readers on the East Coast. There are plenty of tools that can help you here.
If you use WordPress, then Edit Flow and CoSchedule are two programs that could help you to manage your calendar. You can also use peripherals like Hootsuite and Buffer to schedule your social media posts. With the right tools at your disposal, organizing your schedule and automating the publishing process can be easy.
Seasonal Content
Changing seasons, holidays, and other notable dates can provide you with a prime opportunity to post topical content on your blog. You just have to know when to post such articles for optimal impact.
A content calendar can help you determine proper timing where seasonal content is concerned, but a good rule of thumb is to begin posting no earlier than a month before the season or holiday in question.
In some cases, you can continue posting follow-up content after the holiday. But readers are likely to get seasonal or holiday fatigue within a few weeks, so make sure to move on before they do.
Tracking
There’s a lot to be said for knowing your audience, and this includes tracking and analyzing traffic patterns to spot trends. Despite the many studies and statistics about the best times to publish posts for blogs and social media, your target audience is bound to have its own quirks.
Tracking user activity on your blog and social media accounts can give you valuable insights into the patterns your particular audience exhibits. Over time, this information will be far more useful than knowing how the average blogger publishes their posts for maximum impact.
Know Your Goals
Are you interested in keeping your current readership happy? Are you looking to increase CTR and conversions? Do you want your content to go viral? As you know, coming up with blog titles and creating relevant content is a good way to reach your goals, but the timing of your posts can also have a major impact.
Staying up to date with studies on the best times to post can give you the information you need to reach specific goals, but you also have to factor in the inclinations of your audience. Knowing your goals, however, is a good place to start when researching how best to arrange your schedule for publishing blog posts.
When Is the Best Time to Publish a Blog Post?
You already knew why blogging is important to your business. Now you also know how to time the release of new content so you can maximize its impact. However, there is a lot more to blogging than timing. You also need a consistent flow of great content, which is why many businesses team up with our SEO agency.
Write Collective provides blog writing services for businesses in virtually any niche. From automotive to healthcare and even cloud computing, our content writing agency does it all. Our talented writers come to us from a diverse array of backgrounds, enabling us to capture your unique brand voice and share it in an impactful way.
Learn more about our blog writing services by exploring our packages.