You should ask yourself that question if you haven’t already done so. “When do my visitors usually read my articles?” Why should you ask yourself that? Well, you want to satisfy your readers and have them read your posts every single day. I mean, if you know they read your blog first thing after waking up, you should probably post first thing in the morning or before.
It is important to know when your readers are able to read your blog because it can help determine what time of day you should post new content by. Also, it should determine when you set up your RSS Feed e-mail delivery time.
Think about it like this, wouldn’t you want to know when to set your RSS Feed delivery option so it’ll appear in their inbox right when they go check it? Also, what if they only get time to visit your blog once a day but when they go to visit your blog, nothing has been updated. Maybe you’ll lose a possible visit for tomorrow or even longer, who knows?
I conducted a quick survey of blog readers and asked what time of day they spend reading blogs on any given day.
Before I get to the results, this whole idea was brought up because I was having a debate with a fellow blogger about when people read blogs the most throughout the day. She was convinced that people do most of their blog reading/hopping during the middle of the day, usually at work; most of the time at lunch.
I argued that there’s a reason why people are at work, believe it or not, but to work. So, I argued they read blogs when they’re relaxed after work, probably later in the night before they’re ready for bed.
But I conducted a survey in which a lot of people were nice enough to take part and gave me their feedback on this. So before I get to the stats, I want to thank Bloggeries members, Authority Blogger Forum members, Digital Point members as well as Blogcatalog members.
I surveyed about 104 people and I broke it up into different sections of the day. You’ll see the stats next to each one. Um, that was rhetorical… you can obviously see the numbers.
- Morning before work: 22 (21%)
- Throughout the day (at work or 9am-5pm): 15 (14%)
- After work (5pm-10pm): 10 (9.6%)
- Late night (anytime after 10pm): 30 (29%)
Also, because there were a lot of people who didn’t want to choose from the above options, they simply wanted an “other” option because they read blogs throughout the day. Additionally, there were numerous people who read first thing when they wake up and last thing before they sleep. So, I added these categories below.
- People who read all day long or any time of the day (morning, noon and night – damn those addicts!): 18 (17%)
- People who read blogs morning and night but not during the day: 9 (8.6%)
I tried to categorize these as best as I could, so the stats might be slightly off. But for the most part, I would say it’s pretty good based on peoples’ responses.
So out of a possible 104 people who gave me a response, these stats leaned towards what I predicted; that a majority of people read blogs after work/night time. They made up of 38% of the total readers. And that excludes people who read throughout the entire day.
While conducting this survey and having various discussions with fellow bloggers, I was actually surprised at one stat though. Not the blog addicts who read throughout the day or even the daytime readers, but all the early birds out there! There are quite a few people who like reading blogs first thing in the morning while having their cup of coffee and scrambled eggs and bacon.
No? No bacon? Fine. Pancakes, whatever. Some time in the morning, geez!
But I hope with this information, it helps you guys in some way. If you gave yourself a deadline to post a new article for the day, these stats might guide you a little more.
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I usually post when I get home from work… That’s the time which I think that most of the people have some free time to check there e-mail, read blogs etc…
For my subscription e-mails I have set the time around 6 o’clock in the morning! This way they can check there e-mails before they go to work!
I tend to post comments and be most active while at work! This is why I like to keep a low profile of who I am and where I’m from. It’s not that I’m being rude but if my boss ever found out I was slacking this much I would seriously be dead! I think they can already find out but I surf so many WebPages for sales purposes they can’t sifter between the 200 sites I visit a day which makes me safe!
Anyways back to your blog! Sorry I’m bad for that LOL
I really like your idea about adding your rss feed on a timer! 100$% this is a must now that I think about it! Also if you do it this way you can ensure a new blog post for every rss feeds you send out… assuming you do a daily rss feed and not a blog post or new article rss feed.
Great atrticle and you have a quality blog! It’s a pleasure having you as members at blogengage.com
Cheers,
Bbrian017
Great post!
I would have to say that though out the day most people are visiting at random times. But since most of my readers are also parents I can almost tell you exactly what time the kids are put to bed…
I get most of my comments after working hours, so I assume that’s when people read my blog for the most part.
Of course, I try to post something new as soon as I’m up for the day, but that varies depending on how I’m feeling physically & how much sleep I’m getting (because I hate to stop sleeping for ANY reason, LOL.)
Great piece of information. Just to share a little from my own experience. I do most posting in the morning (Singapore) where it will be night time in (US) and generally my observation is that more people are reading the post compared to when I post it in the night time (Singapore time).
Bioteck - I kept switching my e-mail delivery from night time to late afternoon to early afternoon lol… I think I might have to set it to the morning now too!
Brian - I think we have a lot more in common than you think lol! I’m at work too doing a whole bunch of things to help out my website!
Sammy - Thanks, hope you continue to come back, maybe subscribe to my RSS Feeds?
Druu - Yeah, of course everyone is different but as you can see in the stats, a lot of people are reading blogs when their kids are asleep lol!
Angelika - Based on my stats and survey, most people have more time at night time. But like I mentioned in the post, I was definitely surprised at how many early birds there are!
BK - Do you get most of your traffic from the U.S.?
Jay
Hi Jay, you have just won a free Banner on Blogsvine.com for this post. Have a great day
saw this in blogsvine!:-) i envy this new template, well organized.:-)
Hey jay, this is actually a very valuable piece of information. I wonder if you’d go a few steps more and get some other demographic information. A while back I was curious about that. So I looked up a few things from comcast and marketing sherpa. If I remember right, these numbers you provide are pretty much the par for most surfers. I’m not on my computer at the moment so I can’t accurately ad other numbers to this comment. But off the top of my head I believe the figures run something like this 34% of surfers are in the 18-34 yr/old bracket. I was trying to find out what % of users have the highest disposable income or spend the most online. When I get back home today I’ll re-comment it’s actually interesting stuff
Shane’s last blog post..3 simple words for finding niche markets
wow. great post. thanks so much.
I agree that POSTING (whenever that happens to be, but DOING it) is most important. picking the perfect moment comes second. Interesting that most readers are at night; is that because they’re all bloggers too and just finish their posts after 10 p.m. local time?
washwordss last blog post..sometimes my blog writes itself