The Best Day for Blogging is Thursday
Actually, as you can see from the time stamp, it’s not quite Thursday when this blog was posted. Yet according to quite a few blog posts themselves, this is the prime time to post your blog when it comes to catching the attention of visitors. Is this really the case, though? I’m not too sure.
Although I can see the logic behind this reasoning (and the charts highlighting traffic spikes for the time of day and actual weekday make a good argument), there are a few reasons why posting a blog at pretty much any time is just as beneficial.
One Can Make a Community
Unless your solitary goal for blogging is to see how much traffic you get, or how many subscribers you have, then there’s no real reason for favoring a particular day to post.
Agreed, if your blog is a business-oriented one, then perhaps it is more useful to post from the beginning to the middle of the week.
However, if you’re simply writing a blog to share your views and hopefully connect with others that share similar and open up a thread of discussion, then any day of the week is good enough. Even if you only receive one visitor/commenter, that’s someone you’ve touched with your post and surely that’s reward enough for blogging?
Besides, there are also wonderful social media tools like Stumbleupon, Reddit, Sphinn and others that can bring you passive traffic for the virtual lifetime of your post. Add in the sharing aspects of Twitter and Facebook, and services like them, and you can see a blog post can live long after the initial publish date.
Roads? Where We’re Going We Don’t Need No Roads!
A quote from one of my favorite movie trilogies – Back to the Future – it also sums up why posting any day you wish is fine (in a roundabout kind of way – bear with me). When you write and post a blog, it’s present only for you and everyone else in your particular timezone. Anyone else is either a future or past reader.
For instance, I’m originally from the UK but I now live in Burlington, Canada. There’s a difference of 5 hours between the two places (the UK is ahead of Canada). So, anything I write could potentially be read on a completely different day, yet still at the immediate point of posting. So, I write a post at 8.00pm on Saturday night, and someone in the UK would read it at 1.00am on Sunday morning.
Take into account the likes of Australia, Asia and other places even further afield, and you can see that what might be a prime time for one country is already in the past (or yet to come) for another. Which kind of negates parts of the “ideal time to post” theory.
Of course, the whole time travel thing in Back to the Future always was a bit confusing to me, so maybe I’m just talking nonsense!
The point is – we blog because we like it. As I mentioned earlier, if it’s a business-minded blog then perhaps there should be certain days that a post is published. For the rest of us? Look at it this way – slow and steady might not win the race, but it certainly won’t lose it.
Write engaging content, communicate with your readers, share with the community and you’ll enjoy visitors and readers no matter what day of the week you write. And of course, always invite your readers to subscribe to your blog!
What say you – do you prefer posting at certain times or do you blog when the inspiration takes?
30 Responses to “The Best Day for Blogging is Thursday”
I’m curious if you tried other days and found them to be not as responsive, Rob?
Hi Danny,
You have shared a quite ethical point which bloggers should understand that if you are blogging to share your ideas and connect with people don’t try to be traffic minded and blog on specific days.
The reason why they choose certain days is that most of the content readers are based in USA or Canada and its better for them to target them, plus quite a while ago I had read a full post on this I forgot where but it did mention that Wednesday and Thursday are the best days for blogging,as in the first few days of the week people are busy with there work and later in the week its relaxing time, I think this strategy does work for business blogs.
But your point here is true that is to share regular content with quality and as a blogger you will never feel alone.Thanks Akash. I’m wondering whether this will change as the Asian blogging market starts to take off, especially if China (as is rumoured) relaxes its web access for normal users?
Great post Danny! For me, I follow an editorial calendar and post when I’m inspired, keeping a good balance between purposeful content and that is completely inspired
.-= Maria Reyes-McDavis´s most recent blog post …Online Business Reality Check =-.You’re far better organized than me, Maria (and it shows!)
Danny – I agree with you – it totally depends on what your goals are. If you want to drive traffic, you should be approaching it like a direct marketer would and test every variable you can, including day and time of day. Your goals should drive how you approach it.
I’ve been hearing so many differing opinions about this, it’s crazy. I only started blogging this Spring and tried following the advice of the A-list bloggers. Then I shopped around to see what others were saying.
Same issue with how many posts should be written per week from 3 to 5. I tried it one way, then tried it the other. Some bloggers even suggested specific times, for business and non-business blogs. And I’m based in Switzerland, writing for English-speaking audiences only.
Finally, I decided to chuck it all out the window after many months of the yo-yo ride which I suppose was par for the course.
All of that to say Danny that I completely agree with you. I write and post every day because I love it. Sometimes I write all weekend for the week, and other times I write and post on the day. Sometimes I skip Saturdays or entire weekends. Particularly since my posts are rather lengthy.
Cheers.
.-= Catherine´s most recent blog post …96 Life Lessons Learned in 2009 from My Private Hell of Nothingness =-.The best advice for blogging, Catherine? There is none – only you know what works for you, so run with that
Great post Danny!
I have a blog about business, but it’s not a blog BY a business, nor does it have ads (by design … a philosophical choice). So I guess this is a personal blog with business as a topic. : ) The majority of my readers are business professionals.
I have not done a tight statistical analysis, but I seem to have good luck posting on Sunday evenings. Seems to be a lot of people perusing blogs before the workweek? Who knows? Kind of a Sunday/MOnday combo deal seems to be a good time frame for my readers.
Fridays and Saturdays are deadly for me. My second best day is Wednesday.
Thanks, Danny!
You could have a point there, mate – I know I like to do a lot of stuff on a Sunday because the early work week knocks me off doing much else. Why should blogging be different.
And I hear you on the weekends – I usually try and leave the “fun / lite” stuff for the weekends if I can. Not shirking from blogging; just easing up on depth, maybe. It’s an ongoing lesson
Timely post, Danny, as I’ve been thinking about this myself recently.
I definitely agree with Guy Kawasaki’s idea of posting a tweet 3 times at day, 8 hours apart, to ensure you reach people in various timezones. As you stated, the ideal time for YOU to post may not be the ideal time for a particular reader in a different time zone to read it.
I’ve been experimenting a lot myself with my timing of tweets regarding Beyond The Pedway, with more of the experimentation taking place inside Su.pr.
I think this whole notion is more important now than ever, because many of us are reaching a global audience and often need to be paying attention to that.
.-= Tim Jahn´s most recent blog post …Teletech Video =-.How are you doing that, Tim? Is it via a service like Tweet-u-Later or similar, for timed tweets, or just recalling that you need to share a post? Successes, more traffic, readers? Curious to your findings, mate.
I use Su.pr itself to schedule tweets. It shows you a chart of the best times (for each day of the week) to send out tweets (based on your usage so far). I use that data to ensure my tweets will get the best exposure, as well as to ensure I’m reaching people in far time zones when I may be inactive (sleeping or doing other things).
So far, it’s definitely been helping in terms of traffic to the Su.pr links. I can’t say enough good things about the analytics and data Su.pr provides (totally free).
.-= Tim Jahn´s most recent blog post …Teletech Video =-.Let me clarify – I don’t use Su.pr EXCLUSIVELY to send out tweets. Rather, I use it more for Beyond The Pedway related tweets and interesting things I might want to share during my night time (and other time zone’s day times).
.-= Tim Jahn´s most recent blog post …Teletech Video =-.Gotcha. I had Su.pr for a while on the blog, but it kept messing up for some reason (and I do love Stumbleupon!) – may have to try it again. Cheers fella!
I add things when inspired, whether daily, twice a day, or once every few days. You only need to click my name above and scroll to the bottom of the resulting page to see the dates of recent posts.
.-= Ari Herzog´s most recent blog post …Do We Celebrate the Wrong Social Media Tools? =-.As a newcomer to blogging, I’m still figuring out my potential audience so figuring out timing is a bit down the priority list. Still, once I know my audience I want to reach them. I’ll be open to tips and techniques like timing. Being a voice in the wilderness only sounds romantic.
.-= Doug´s most recent blog post …How Values Make or Break Your Business (And You) =-.That’s the best part, Doug, the “early days” of experimentation. Just make sure you don’t lose the joy of making mistakes to learn from along the way. And hey, voices in the wilderness are seriously underrated
Hi Danny.
The point most definitely is “we blog because we like it” – and I’ll very much like making this blog today’s “Site Of The Day” on my own site ( all days pretty much the same here I guess)
Ok,hoping this small spotlight shows the way here to a few new visitors – and 12for12k.org too
Cheers
Will
.-= Will´s most recent blog post …Brianwave – The Alexa Ranking Contest =-.Anyone that blogs because they like it and includes 12for12k love in the same comment is A-OK by me, Will – cheers!
Quoting Daniel Quinn: “When They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways.” In other words, when someone tries to tell me when to *do* something, based on what works for them, I do what works best for me anyhow (because nothing else works for me!) ha…
I like the logical way you think. While some businesses may benefit from posting on particular days at specific times, my philosophy is that blogs can be reference resources. Why only read the latest post when there is so much more to learn?
.-= Gail @ GrowMap´s most recent blog post …MEME: Share What Makes You Feel Thankful =-.I have been blogging for 5.5 years now and have found that if you do a good job of building a community there is no one day that is superior to others.
Loved this one.
.-= Ct Kingston´s most recent blog post …Think Sausage: Visualize Happiness =-.
Thanks for making the distinction between personal blogs and business blogs. For business blogs, there are definitely better posting times such as early to mid week. We’ve adopted a Tues/Thurs posting schedule for the business blog, and that seems to work quite well.
Whatever the frequency, as long as its consistent and regular, you’ll keep your following engaged.
Rob – LexiConn
.-= Rob Mangiafico´s most recent blog post …PCI And Its Predatory Practices – What Went Wrong? =-.