Blogging, Like Comedy, Is All About....Timing!

One fact about blogging which I find is that I can write (what I percieve to be) brilliant posts - they don't get the interest I feel they deserve. Other times, I write posts that are just on a whim, and they get a lot of interest. Why is it? Well, I believe that a bit about blogging is not what you post, but when you post.

There are a number of directories, engines and feedreaders that read blogs in reverse chronological order. As such, if you post when 90% of your readers are asleep, there could be 5 or 6 hours of posts before they wake up. Of course, if you have a collection of regular readers, chances are they'll visit your blog regardless, but for new bloggers trying to establish a readership it's important to know.

First and foremost look for the obvious signs: timestamps. When are most users visiting and commenting? Comments are worth more than hits as they are definite readers, as opposed to google search. extremetracking has a free tracker that can give you totals and average visitors fairly quickly. Also establish what country they're from. Just because a UK person was commenting on your post at 3am when he comes home from a Saturday night out, doesn't mean he'll do it everyday.

Once you gathered this data, write your post as normal. However, don't post it until an hour or so before the "critical time to post", that way - it should get picked up by the major feed readers. Most of my readers generally read my blog first thing in the morning, so I generally post my blogs at around 8am.

Of course, don't go out of your way! There's no point in getting up at 3am just to post. But, when starting off, if you can delay postings to a more suitable time. It's usually better.

Same can be said for digging/bookmarking articles, but this is more constant. Most people on these websites are in the english speaking world, and generally America. So a good time to digg (to get the most readers) would be during American daytime. In fact, you don't have to digg straight after your posts.

Again, it's unessental, but it's a minor way of driving relevant traffic to your blog, and also a way of catering to your readers.

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