In the next installment of my series of post about blog marketing, I want to discuss the frequency and timing of your posts.
Dayparting: When Will Most Readers Be Paying Attention?
Think about your audience and when they will be most receptive to reading your blog and when you’re most likely to capture their attention.
For my Videolicious.tv blog, I’ve begun a posting schedule of roughly 6 a.m., 11:45 a.m., 3 p.m., 6 p.m., and 8 p.m. These are the times of day I believe my visitors will most likely be most receptive to checking out the blog.
My 6 a.m. post is for those who want a little video before they are off to work but it also caters to those who check their feed readers first thing in the morning and/or dilly-dally a bit before they begin to actually work.
The 11:45 a.m. post is for those who eat at their desk and surf during lunch.
The 3 p.m. post is for that time of day when everyone gets a little groggy and can’t focus so they take a break for a few minutes to gather themselves before plunging back into work.
The 6 p.m. post is for those who check their email/feed readers right when they get home from work.
And the 8 p.m. post is for those who surf after dinner.
My traffic tends to start picking up about 6 a.m., peaks at noon-1 p.m., then dips gradually as the evening wears on.
This stable publishing schedule also helps to build a habit of visiting the blog or looking for new content among readers.
Toipicality: Taking Advantage Of Pre-Existing Interest
Google Trends is one of my default tabs in my browser, so when I fire up Firefox, it’s sitting there waiting for me so I can see what people are searching for right now.
If there’s breaking news or something that is of particular interest to a huge amount of people, I might post some video on that subject just to take advantage of the volume of search that interest is generating. The election dispute in Iran is a perfect example.
Posting such content makes it much more likely people will visit my blog simply because that topic is on people’s mind and I’m providing content related to it. These are great opportunities to introduce yourself to potential new readers.
Real life example: The Best Of Jaywalking.
On June 2, I posted a best-of video of Jay Leno’s Jaywalking segment for the Tonight Show.
Search traffic for information about Jay Leno was increasing as a result of his departure from the Tonight Show, and that popular segment was some of what people were searching for.
My overall traffic spiked with more than 2,000 visits on that day; it spiked again two days later with 1,700 visits and then tailed off to a low of 400 visits by that Sunday.
But the traffic spiked on June 2 not because of Jaywalking (300 people visited for that video) but because of video I posted about Bill O’Reilly and the murder of the abortion doctor, George Tiller. Controversy is a good driver of traffic.
Traffic to the Jaywalking post remained steady at about 80 visitors a day through Sunday.
But beginning the following Monday, traffic began to pick up again to the post with about 400 visitors and gradually gained steam to peak at 2,600 for that video alone last Monday. It appears as if the traffic to the Jaywalking post is beginning to taper off now.
While it was search traffic that initially drove traffic to the video the resurgence in traffic to Jaywalking was almost entirely the result of traffic from email.
The post either made it in a popular email newsletter or a bunch of people started forwarding it to their friends and it sorta gained momentum. I don’t know which.
Frequency: Giving Visitors Multiple Chances To View
Obviously, the more content you post, the more chances you have of interesting people in your content and the more traffic you’re likely to gain to your blog.
Before I screwed up, I used to post just once a day. With my new publishing schedule, I’m posting much more content so just by virtue of the increased frequency of posts, I’m going to attract more visits.
That is, of course, assuming the content is compelling enough for people to want it.
I typically post the day’s video the night before, so all I need to do during the day is post links to select bookmarking sites and my own social networks.
Finally, because so many people getting content from their news feeds, be it through a feed reader or in Facebook or on Twitter, this schedule gives me a better chance that at least some of my content will be seen before it’s cycled out of sight by other content in their feed.
What’s The Frequency, Kenneth?
Just because:
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