Can you time your blog for maximum readership? Maybe.

I've always been a numbers guy since I started in business.  Feed me raw data and I can make sense of the market, business cycles and where things are heading.  I love it.  That's one of the reasons I really enjoy Dick Greenburg's market reports.  He has great data in his reports, and he couples that with some pretty cool charts too.  For someone like me, it's all I need to make decisions. 

In March of 2011, I was a total blogging virgin.  I had absolutely no idea of how or what to do, but the Active Rain site helped me get started and many of the seasoned bloggers emailed ideas that pushed me further along.  It was great, but there was on thing missing.  Data. 

There was data missing that would help me know how to get the most out of my blogging efforts.   So, I did an experiment with my AR blog to find out the reading and commenting habits of the community.  I assumed that there would be some similarities with the buying/selling public.  I won't go into detail on what I did or what I found, but I'd like to share some of the data I discovered.

RE Technology posted a great blog this morning called, "Mastering your blog timing."  In the blog, Dan Zarrella followed much of the study I did last year, but his research was done over a 2-3 year study.  What I was trying to determine was:

• What time of day to most readers read my blog?
• What is the make up of the readers? Male? Female?
• What day or days of the week are blogs most likely to be read?
• When do blogs attract the most comments?
• Is it necessary to blog daily?  Or, will random submissions work as well?  Remember, I was a total novice.
  

What I learned in my research was that blog readership comes in waves.  On the East coast, blog reading starts around 6 am and stays strong until about 8 am, and then it drops off until around 10 am and that wave carries through 12 pm.  The West coast follows the same pattern for its western bloggers, but for us on the East coast we see an uptick in readers at 9 am from West coast readers.  In that way, eastern bloggers get to ride the wave of West coast bloggers coming online.  There is also a rise in readership at around 11 pm on both coasts.

Zarrella's study also found that more women read blogs in the morning, and more men read at night.  There is a dip in readership on the weekends, but readers are more likely to comment on the weekends.

The Zarrella study also found that you are more likely to receive the most weekday comments from 7 - 8 am.  Most bloggers post their blogs between 8 - 9 am.  His recommendation is to do your blog reading between 6 - 7 am to help get inspiration for your own blogging efforts.  Monday is the most active blogging day.  He also encourages daily blogging over random submissions.  The more often you blog throughout the week the higher your rankings are likely to be.