If you are following my earlier advice about using the WordPress Timestamp feature to publish your articles you might want to pay attention here.

If you are using the Post Timestamp feature to write all of your posts (or at least a majority) at one time and scheduling them to appear throughout the day you need to keep something in mind; when do your readers read?

I'm on the East coast of the USA. I have server logs that I can look at to determine when people are coming to my blog via direct links as opposed to Google searches. Using this data I can time my new posts to publish right before my high traffic periods.

Yes, I know the web is world wide but, the majority of my traffic (direct link) still comes from the USA.

There are some problems with writing your content at 4:00AM everyday but I'm not going to cover that in this article as you can always write another article mid-day or later.

After loking at my server logs I have noticed that I get high direct link traffic about four times a day:

    High traffic

  • 6:00 AM - the breakfast crowd.
  • 10:00 AM - the morning break crowd.
  • 12:01 PM - the lunch crowd.
  • 5:00 PM - the just got home from work crowd.

I try to publish between three and four articles every day. Typically I write them when I get up in the morning before I get in the shower. This does not always work in my favor as some sites I use for news services are in later timezones so I can't pull from them. This is why I try to rely more on original content than writing about what others are writing about.

Another key timing issue is in regards to original news content. For example, I have run some articles on stock email scams. These items work best if published on a Sunday evening. Why? Because the people who are looking for that content will likely use a search engine Monday morning when they get ready to follow those awesome tips. By giving a good 24 hour lead time the search engines will have time to find my article and index it, increasing the chances hat those people will find my article when they do their web search.

Not just time of day but also time of week plays an important role in timing your posts. My weekend traffic is far heavier in Nintendo and Pokemon searches than my weekday traffic. My blog almost does a 180 degree traffic shift on weekends!

Know your blog and know your audience for that is the secret to success.