Thursday, October 21, 2010

Does Timing Really Matter?

I'm not ignoring yesterday's loss to the Yankees, but I am ignoring yesterday's loss to the Yankees. I can't talk about it and I'm stressed out about game 6 already.

The ALCS has nothing to do with this post.

I'm curious about your thought on the timing of your blog posts. Now that I'm following a considerable number of blogs (169) I see a few trends. Some people post at approximately the same time every day (or when they post) and some people seem to post at a variety of times.

I typically schedule posts to hit at the same general time each day. It's not a necessity, but more a matter of spreading them out a bit. Although I've done it a few times recently, I don't normally post at night/early morning when I'm awake and working because most people aren't up reading blogs at that time of day. I have wondered if I'm scheduling my posts at the optimum time of day or if the time of day even makes a difference. Sometimes I wonder if people might miss it because they don't scroll far enough down their dashboard to see all the posts from that day.

What do you think? Does it matter what time your post hits the blogosphere or do you think people are going to see it regardless of the time?

16 comments:

  1. I've actually been thinking about this alot, too. I tend to get higher numbers of pageviews for posts around 7 pm than any other time. You'll see the majority of my posts are at 7:01 pm. I tend to schedule them a day apart, with occasional random posts in between (such as contest updates, random thoughts).

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  2. I throw on against the wall when I have 5 minutes. Could be anytime of the day. Got five minutes to spare?

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  3. I used to always do 2pm just because...but those do get less read, definitely. I like either something like 6am EST (before work, everyone checks the blogs once) or, like spankee said, 7pm (after dinnerish, everyone checks the blogs)

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  4. For Auto-Matic for the People, I usually write the day's post late at night (unless I have some spare time to put together a few ahead of time.

    My biggest traffic spike is usually around lunchtime.

    For my own blog, I usually post something in the morning, around 7:30 or so. WordPress doesn't give me hourly stats.

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  5. I write my posts and schedule them to run later. They almost always run at 8:30 AM Monday, Wednesday and Friday (for both of my blogs) Occasionally, I'll toss in a quick post -- a book review, plug for a seller, or a thanks to a trader/another blogger -- which can be anytime.

    I've been looking at my stats since Blogger began tracking them, and it appears that my blog gets much of its traffic through Google. Honestly, I'm still seeing hits almost daily to posts I wrote months ago (informative posts about specific sets like 1941 Goudey and 1933 Sport Kings, for example) and hits throughout the day. Since I deal exclusively with vintage cards, it's not as important to be getting out info yesterday as it is with bloggers who are showing off the newset, shiniest stuff.

    In that sense, I can afford to just keep a schedule with both blogs.

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  6. Though not a prolific blogger, I think about timing of my posts too.

    I tend to see Cardboard Junkie [and a few other blogs besides my own] as my jumping off places where I'm going to look through their blog rolls to see which blogs have been updated.

    As a 'blogger,' the perception I have is if I post something late at night, it gets lost in the shuffle on a prominent blogger's blog roll [Cardboard Junkie] as other people make their own blog posts during the day.

    Though scheduling a post at 7 p.m. is something I consider as well, I tend to think posts get traffic when they are made when people are generally awake - at least I'd like to hope so when thinking about putting something up for people to read at various times.

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  7. I try to post twice a day. I post once in the middle of the night, because that's when I get off of work and that's when it's convenient for me.

    Since I make one post convenient for me, I make the other convenient for readers, and try to schedule it sometime in the evening hours.

    Lately, though, I've been all over the place. I guess I figure if people are interested in my blog, they'll find it.

    (Not that you would care, but I've noted you post around 5 p.m. EST. I almost always miss that post -- unless I scroll through 9 hours worth of blogs -- as that's the time of the day when it gets hectic for me).

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  8. I did a blog entry on this a few days ago: http://fanofreds.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-have-successful-blog-when-is.html

    That entry is a summary of my 24 posts in 24 hours experiment. Certainly nothing is binding, but it does provide a little fodder for thought!

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  9. I try to post every few days just so people don't forget about me, but I don't have a set schedule. If I buy any packs or boxes, those get posted, as do any trades I complete and cards I buy from eBay, and that stuff happens often enough, but then I try to fill in the gaps with other useful stuff.
    Also, it's fun reading this post having known that the Rangers beat the Yankees

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  10. Talk about timing, this just happened to me Sunday. I was watching the Patriots/Vikings game and started to get uncomfortable, waiting for Favre to get knocked and throw a pick to loose the game. So I wrote a post on my blog All About Cards "Is it time for Favre to retire?" http://booboosue.blogspot.com/2010/10/is-it-time-for-brett-favre-to-retire.html Within 5 minutes of hitting publish, Favre got injured and taken out of the game. I almost to the post down but it was exactly why I wrote it. Instead I added a notation at the top of the post saying it was written before the injury and that I wished Favre a full recovery.

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  11. I try to post around 6 or 7 (NY time) since that works best for me. I also figure that is a decent time for readers from any part of the country. Sometimes though something will change that plan (work, wife, kids) so I just get a post in when I can.

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  12. I don't pay any attention to it. Being out west, it really doesn't matter. I get up later and go to bed later than 90% of the blogosphere so I just post when I'm done.

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  13. I'm on the left coast too, so my early morning is the east coast's mid morning...after work hours, the east coast's bed time. I've done a couple of scheduled posts, but nothing on a regular basis. I would like to get to that point where all my posts are scheduled at late afternoon EST so they show up at the top of the blog rolls when everyone gets home from work. But you know what they say: You can wish in one hand...

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  14. I think it does matter, but I'm not sure about when is best to post. I think it is probably late afternoon or early evening.

    I too have thought about this though.

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  15. I have not been posting lately because life has gotten in the way. I have the most time in the evening, but don't really have access to the home computer at the time. I would like to get to making it a priority to post, but life is making it hard.

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  16. The contest is closed. Feel free to still leave an answer to the question.

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