The Science of Timing: Blogging

How many times a day or week should you blog to keep people interested?

Do you know what time of day is best for blogging?

Does it matter?

The answer is simple: there is a science to blogging. With millions of bloggers, how do you make your message rise above the digital noise and gain traction within your industry? When are people listening? Don't worry, there are answers to this based on scientific research. Modern day blogging has evolved into a science.

If you are interested in keeping a client and subscriber base informed and engaged with you and your message, it is well worth your time to invest in learning some of the research behind the science of blog timing.

HubSpot social media scientist Dan Zarrella discussed his research on timing.

He has conducted research on the Internet for the last 2-3 years. Of all the subjects he researches, the science of timing is the number one piece of data consumers want to know. He researches and identifies best practices.

This webinar presents all the data to date that Zarrella has studied. It covers three marketing mediums businesses use for inbound marketing: social media, email and blogging.

This article focuses on blogging specifically.

Blog Timing Highlights

When do people read blogs?

Based on Zarella's research, most people report that they do not know why or how they do things. It's not that they aren't being honest, people often underestimate when they do. When Zarella actually tracked blog activity, however, he did see a trend of consumers reading blogs more in the morning with a declining slope as the day goes on.

Gender Preference

Do men read blogs at different times of the day than women?

Yes, more men report reading blogs at night than women. Women tend to read blogs more in the morning. If you are marketing to a specific gender, consider when to release your blogs to target one over the other.

Views by Day

Page views take a slight dip on weekends. Mondays are highest in terms of blog views.

View by Hour

Research revealed that blog posts between 10 and 11am get the most views. This could have to do with contra-competitive timing. Less people post blogs at this time, but this is right before lunchtime, which, for working professionals, is a key time to scan for content and catch up on favorite blogs.

Interestingly enough, late at night, around 11pm, has high traffic as well.

Blogging for Comments

Which days do most people comment on blogs?

If you are more focused on blogging for comments, comments spike on the weekends when people have more time to engage with an interesting blog topic.

Is there a time of day when more people tend to comment on blogs?

Aside from blogging on the weekend for comment generation, consider the time of day where most people comment. Zarella says that most comments are made early in the morning. If your blog is the first blog a consumer sees, there is a higher chance they will comment.

Specific hours are between 7 and 8am in the morning.

Blogging for SEO

Which days in the week do blogs tend to be referred to by other bloggers linking to them?

If you are blogging for SEO, you probably know having other sites linking to your blog can be a great way to appear higher in search results. The days of the week that bloggers tend to link to other blogs are Monday and Thursday.

Zarella correlates this to the "Linkerotti" (a.k.a. avid blogging community). Not every blogger generates enough content and blog topics on their own to sustain consistency. There is a special class of people who link during the week and who write blogs during mid-week. If you want to put your content in front of them on the days they are more focused on linking to other blogs, focus on Monday and Thursday.

Is there a time of day the "Linkerotti" pay more attention to other blogs?

Yes. Most bloggers try to post blogs by 8am and 9am in the morning, so they start looking for inspiration before that time. Therefore if you want to catch their eye or spark their interest, consider posting your blogs around 6am to 7am in the morning.

Frequency of Blog Posts

How often during the week and during the day should you post blogs to generate the highest amount of traffic and comments? What is best?

Most blogs that post daily get a higher number of links and traffic. So post on a daily basis if you can.

When it comes to how many times you should post to your blog per day, the research shows that the more times per day you can post, the more rates and comments you’ll get.

The secret to blogging is that quantity is king. Focus on blogging more frequently.

Blog Tracking

Once you have an audience, you need to measure the traffic and track the results. Lead management is as important as lead generation.

Additional Resources

Zarella plugged two product lines at the end of the webinar that help track and maintain leads.

The first, HubSpot, is an inbound marketing tracking solution used by many companies to show the Return on Investment (ROI) of inbound marketing strategies.

The other tool Zarella mentioned was a new, free tool called Tweet When. If you are curious when your specific company gets the highest number of re-tweets, visit http://TweetWhen.com. It will ask you to sign in to your Twitter account and then it will analyze it to find your most re-tweetable days and times. Unfortunately your account will need to have over 1,000 tweets for the solution to succeed.

If this subject matter is interesting to you, consider signing up for the next HubSpot marketing webinar. To learn more about HubSpot, click here.

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