When is the Best Time to Publish Blog Posts?

When I was a brand new blogger over a decade ago, my primary concern was with what to write. Then I became concerned about what to recommend. It was only after I had been blogging for about a year that I asked the question “when is the best time to publish blog posts?”

It turns out that everyone seems to have an opinion on this topic, so I chose to listen to the people who had been blogging for the longest period of time and enjoying the best results. One of these people is Darren Rouse from ProBlogger, and his post on when you should publish your blog posts makes some excellent points.

Darren says that years back, when people subscribed to blogs through RSS feeds and used something called feed readers to go through them (raise your hand if you remember this) then it was more important to publish your post at a time when the majority of your readership was online.

He goes on to say:

“Today, I’m not sure that the timing of your blogpost being published has as much impact as the timing of your social media post and your emails. They’re probably the big effectors today, but I guess there are a few things that you might want to consider when it comes to the timing of your blog post.”

So now it’s social media that comes into play. I know that most of my readers and subscribers are on the East coast of the United States and that the majority of them are still working at jobs. So I make every effort to hold back on publishing my posts until six or seven in the morning eastern time, and then immediately promote the post using social media sites and channels.

But what about niche topics that appeal to people on a different schedule? Darren writes:

“I know a sporting blogger who finds that Monday mornings is the worst time to publish. He actually finds that Saturday mornings is a great time because it’s just before all the games that he’s writing about are about to be played. He also publishes on Sunday night, at the end of the football round. He publishes about the games that have just been played.”

And remember that people tend to have more time available on the weekends, so a well placed post on Saturday morning can do very well for you. Also, be sure to write something I refer to as a “flagship” post every month or so. This post would be more lengthy – typically five hundred words or more – and would link back to other posts on your site. This serves to position you as an expert in your field and to make sure each of your posts is indexed by the search engines and connected throughout your blog to other posts you have written. This way none of your content falls through the virtual cracks over time.

And to reiterate, I agree with Darren about the importance of promoting your post over publishing it at a specific time. He writes:

“Let me cycle back to something I said earlier and that is that the timing of your blog post being published is probably less of a factor than the timing of the promotion of that blogpost. This is where you probably do need to do some more analysis to really get things right. What’s more important than the publishing of the blogpost is the timing of your social media and the time of your emails.”

Write meaningful blog posts, share as much as you possibly can, and know that the best time to publish blog posts is completely up to you as you do your research and become more experienced as a content creator and publisher.