CHANCES ARE you’re constantly wondering when is the best time to publish new posts on your blog, as you want your blog posts to attract lots of readers.

While creating high-quality content is a great start to achieve more traffic, knowing the best publishing time also plays an essential role in the success of your digital marketing strategy.

However, the best publishing time is not a one-size-fits-all recipe. So here, I will show you how to identify the best posting time for your blog.

In this article, we will discuss the key factors that determine your best posting time. Then, we will show you how to optimize your strategy based on various goals – number of pageviews, social shares, traffic, and comments.

3 Factors That Affect Blog Posting Time

Since each blog has different needs, there are three factors to consider when deciding what time best suits your blog. Let’s take a look at each of them.

1. Goal of the Blog Post

Identifying the posts’ goals helps to determine the best posting time.

Let’s say your post’s goal is to increase traffic and get more social shares. Reaching these objectives requires different strategies, so it’s best to experiment by publishing content on different days and hours. Then, monitor the results.

This helps you identify the days and hours your blog performs best. When testing it, consider also publishing on days like holidays and weekends, since different industries may experience different peak hours.

Furthermore, no matter what industry your blog belongs to, make sure your hosting provider is reliable. It’s essential to keep the blog at peak performance, even during heavy traffic.

2. Audience Demographics

Your target audience also plays a significant role in determining the best publishing time for your blog.

Use tools like Google Analytics or Facebook Insights to learn about them – such as their age range, gender, and geographic location.

Once you get this information, tweak your publishing schedule accordingly. The location information is critical since it’s directly related to time zones.

However, you should further research your audience to optimize your timing strategy even better. It may include finding out their occupations, whether they access your content during work hours, or what device they prefer to use.

For example, if your target audience is marketers who live in the United States, try to post your digital marketing blog post during working hours in the Eastern Time Zone (EST) and Central Time Zone (CT).

That way, you increase your blog post’s chance to be accessed when your target audience is researching for their work.

3. Your Competition

Don’t forget to monitor your competitors’ performance as well. Peak activity hours may mean more potential blog visitors but also a higher chance of your content being lost amidst a heavy stream of information.

Thus, consider posting during lower activity hours, as the reduced competition can make your content more prominent. The number of potential visitors might be smaller, but you might increase engagement and conversions.

To identify your competitors’ peak and low activity hours, use tools like Google Alerts or WhatRunsWhere. Every time a competitor publishes a new post or a post related to specific keywords you monitor, it will alert you.

Having this information, you can avoid posting at the same time or take a measured risk by publishing at the same time as your competitors.

It’s also wise to evaluate your competitors’ content performance with tools like BuzzSumo.

This tool will help you see2 whether a competitor’s blog performs well at a specific time. This way, you don’t have to test it yourself or use a trial-and-error approach.

When Is the Best Time to Post on Your Blog?

In this section, we’ll show you the best time of the day to post a blog based on four objectives.

For More Pageviews

Pageviews indicate the number of times a blog post is viewed in a browser. It helps you see what your audiences are interested in and whether your posts are correctly optimized for search engines.

Many people read blogs in the morning hours, which makes sense as they start their day by checking emails and reading up on the latest news. It is also a common time for people to start their working day by reading content related to their business.

However, it also depends on what kind of blog that you have. If it’s related to a particular professional area, readers may access it during working hours.

On the other hand, if it is a hobby blog, such as gardening, they will more likely access it outside working hours.

For Social Shares

Social shares are a metric to identify how many times a blog post is shared on a social network. They help generate more traffic and increase conversions.

To get a better engagement on social media, publish blog posts during your audience’s active hours – note that it will vary across different social media platforms.

For example, if you want to generate maximum engagement on Twitter, Sprout Social recommends publishing your blog post on Wednesday, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

To get an in-depth overview of your performance on various social media platforms, we recommend using tools like Facebook Page Insights and Twitter Analytics.

For Traffic

Traffic here means the volume of users visiting a website. The more traffic your website has, the more potential customers you will have.

In addition to posting on peak hours, when your visitors are likely online, a Kissmetrics research suggests Monday as the best time to publish a post that generates more traffic.

However, keep in mind that this also varies across industries. If your blog is about leisure activities, publishing towards weekends may bring better results than if you post on weekdays.

For Links and Comments

A backlink or inbound link is a link you earn from another website that directs visitors to your site. It helps drive traffic to your site and get it to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs).

Kissmetrics suggests that Monday and Thursday are the best days to get backlinks, particularly around 7 a.m.

Additionally, it’s also important to attract visitors to comment on your blog post since it will trigger discussions and make it more interactive.

To get the most number of comments, Kissmetrics recommends Saturday around 9 a.m. as the best time. It is a reasonable suggestion since people have more time to explore and interact with your content on weekends.

Conclusion

In this age of information overload, it is essential to ensure that your blog post stands from the crowd. One of the ways to do so is by posting your content at the best time possible.

To determine when is the best time to post a blog, consider the goals of your blog post, your audience demographics, and how your competitors perform.

Based on that data, adjust your publishing time strategy. However, here’s a handy cheat sheet of the best time to post a blog, based on different objectives:

• For more pageviews – Mornings, as people usually start their day reading emails and news.
• For social shares – It depends on what social network you target.
• For traffic – Peak hours, especially on Mondays.
• For links and comments – Mondays and Thursdays, around 7 a.m. (links) and Saturday, 9 a.m. (comments).