When do you get the most exposure?
I recently read an article posted by Daily Blog Tips about ensuring that your best content gets the most exposure possible. DBT recommends that our best content gets released into the Blogosphere on Monday rather than later in the week.
Why is Monday the best day to post quality content?
1. Bloggers are more likely to post fresh material on Mondays.
2. More time for links. Many bloggers won’t link to your post right away. A good number of bloggers have a schedule that they stick to. If they post on the same day that you publish your kick ass post, posting on a Monday gives them a whole week to find time to recommend your post to their readers. If you post it later in the week, you risk other bloggers not finding it and getting lost in the hundreds of blogs in their readers.
3. More time for social media traffic. The same principle from above applies here. Usually it takes about 24 hours for traffic to peak on sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon. If you publish your best content on Monday, traffic will pick up on Tuesday and you’ll have the rest of the week to watch the numbers. If you post on a Thursday, peak traffic will be smaller with the weekend nearing.
Obviously there are some drawbacks to posting on a Monday. One of them being that it’s the busiest day in the blogosphere. Your post is competing with other material for attention. This is why it’s important to have quality content. Make your post stand out from the other 300-400 weekend re-caps.
I am curious if good content is exempt from this Monday = more views rule. If you post exemplary content on a Tuesday or Wednesday, are you just as likely to see a large increase in views?
So what about you? Do you post your best content on Mondays? Do you see an increase in readers earlier in the week? If you post later in the week, do you notice a decrease? Do you even care about blogging strategy and timing your posts?
Do you find that you get a lot of traffic from other bloggers recommending your posts or is your readership mostly from loyal readers who continue to come back day after day?
{ 23 comments… read them below or add one }
i think some of my worst content is on monday. i DREAD doing a weekend recap, it is seriously my least favorite thing to do. but i realize that there is definitely a niche of non bloggers who are cleveland focused readers and enjoy seeing what i do in my city. plus all my friends want to see pictures of themselves. haha
but i usually enjoying writing my later in the week posts.
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My traffic grows from Monday onward reaching a peak on Thursday every single week. People are too busy to click around and pay attention on Mondays.
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Normally I expose myself on Saturdays when wasted at the bar.
Couldn’t resist – I don’t really rank my posts and try to push better material out on certain days. I see the most traffic on Wed / Thurs so I normally try to have a real post written and not just a list or recap. I think Mondays are too jumbled to worry about putting forth an award-winning post.
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I don’t know about the Monday thing, but I read somewhere once that, other than the weekend, the WORST time to post is a wednesday, and I generally find that to be correct!
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I echo Ben’s remarks. My lowest readership is on Mondays and Fridays (I only post M-F). Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is when I have the most readers. Mostly from a “regular” crowd with one or two newbies popping in from time to time.
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Gosh, I just post whatever I want whenever I feel like it. I didn’t even consider ’saving’ something for a ‘better traffic’ day.
As for my readership? Mostly loyal readers (yay! I heart them) but I do get some link love sometimes.
But to tell you the truth, my blogging strategy is this:
Just write.
I don’t know if it works or not, but that’s it.
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I get this theory, but I don’t write the kind of blog that’s going to get Dugg or anything (and goodness I hope I never get unwittingly put on Reddit again.) I do make sure never to put anything I consider important up on a Friday. I feel like that’s when everyone sort of checks out for the week. Also, I think the time of day is important. If something comes through my reader at 3:00 PM, maybe I’ll open the window to read the post, but I might not get to it, because I actually have work to do. If I don’t, I close the tab at 5:00 and maybe I don’t comment, or read it really carefully. So I like to impose a “post before lunch” rule on myself with that in mind. I think most of my readers came from me reading blogs first and then coming to them. Although sometimes I get new readers when I leave a good comment, not a long ass one like the one I just wrote.
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I knew that was Narm! Gross.
Re: this post
I post every weekday, so I just post whatever I am ready to write about, if I try and decide if something is better than something else, I’d never get anything written.
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I have to say, I’m with Hope. I blog because I feel like it (having a bit of a blog moment at present so am writing lots of things to post throughout next week when, no doubt I won’t be arsed)
Visitors? I think I get regulars (love) and some linkage (mainly from my regulars) and then when I go out searching and commenting, I get links back that way.
It’s all a bit random. Since I’m not actually doing this for money, it doesn’t seem to matter who’s looking at my stuff, when. All that matters to me is that I manage to get it all out of my head, onto “paper” and it’s always an added bonus when a conversation starts because of it.
Blimey, an essay. Sorry.
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i sort of just post as i go and don’t really think about the day all that much, haha.
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I usually just post as I go too. Probably should give it a little more thought though.
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I do not have a blogging strategy. I don’t really think about the content either… perhaps I should start? (Perhaps thinking of content would cut down on my love of memes??) I remember talking to a blogger who was telling me about the best time to blog so you could hit both coasts… the idea of putting that sort of thought into blogging was not something I had ever considered.
With that said, I do notice my lowest day is a Monday. Seriously. Even my Sundays beat my Mondays.
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I don’t really choose the days so much, outside of avoiding putting my best stuff late on Friday or on Saturday, because then it gets neglected. The funny thing is, I often get just as many hits on a later Friday post– I just think people may not comment because they don’t want others to think they read blogs on weekends (even though I totally do!)
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I don’t pay enough attention to follow a schedule or be able to apply a theory to my blogging. I just take it one day at a time
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Mine is pretty much loyal readers. I don’t get that much linkage but when I do, I appreciate it.
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I read this article too and have been pondering the “best material published on Mondays” idea all weekend. I do find that I get the most traffic Tuesdays to Thursdays so I try to publish the posts I am most proud of on those days. I actually have another idea I have been thinking about, sort of going back to my Make a Difference Monday posts I used to do, but a little different.
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I can’t judge, really, because of the Testament thing. Clearly, days when I post one of those I get more traffic, so Mondays and Thursdays are my busy days. Hooray for guest posts!
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I agree with Ben. It seems like people are just too busy on Mondays. I find that I get the most traffic on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
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I knew I should have learned something about statistics. You ARE talking about that wiggly line on my Wordpress dashboard, right?
)
In all seriousness – I don’t know if the day of the week matters, but my posts that get the most hits and comments are always the sad/angry/bitter ones. Or the one that got a link on LOLcats. That rocked.
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I find that I get more traffic on Mondays, but with my work schedule being so crazy, I never know if I’ll be able to write then or another day. *shrugs*
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Hmm, my posting depends on two factors – I’d like to write whenever I like it, but I also have to find a time no one is looking over my shoulder. Of course I’d love more readers, but I think if I start thinking too much about creating a strategy, the integrity of my posts will suffer.
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Wow that is very interesting. I tend to post on Sunday nights and about every other night until Thursdays when I post late so people can read at work on Friday. I get very low traffic on the weekend so I use that to get myself ready for another week.
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oh wow. you learn something new every day! love the new look of the blog!
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