On line Publishing by Time Zones

"A time zone is a region on Earth that has a uniform standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. It is convenient for areas in close commercial or other communication to keep the same time, so time zones tend to follow the boundaries of countries and their subdivisions.

Most of the time zones on land are offset from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by a whole number of hours (UTC−12 to UTC+14), but a few are offset by 30 or 45 minutes (for example: Nepal Standard Time, NPT). Some higher latitude countries use daylight saving time for part of the year, typically by changing clocks by an hour. Many land time zones are skewed toward the west of the corresponding nautical time zones. This also creates a permanent daylight saving time effect." Wikipedia

I have commented on several occasions that I find that publishing an article depends on luck, on how well it is written, the topic, competition and many other factors. One method that I have noticed tends to help most articles gain viewership is to publish it at a time when the majority or at least a good proportion of visitors or viewers may find it and spend some time reading through it.

For example, a large portion of my readers come from Europe and Asia. Since they are going through the early morning hours when I usually published to see if the time had any effect on the amount of visits. I started tracking visits to my sites and carefully annotating the times for these visits. After doing some calculating I came up with the premium publishing time so far as it's related to my sites.

For about an 8 month period I have been carefully choosing the times when I publish. My results were analysed in order to create an optimum time for my writing so keep in mind that this is strictly personal and biased for me.

I have reached the conclusion that my publication times actually fall within three different hours and each hour is directly aimed at a particular country/continent. This is reckoning that European countries where a large portion of my audience comes from are about 5 to 7 hours ahead and some Asian countries are about 8 to 10 hours ahead plus the times are geared towards the afternoon and evening audiences.

So far I have found that when I publish from 11:00 am to 11:30 am I obtained a 20% percent increase from Asian countries and India and when I publish from 12:00 pm to 12:30:00 pm I gained about a 15% increase from England and other European countries. This constitutes a total net of 35% which is not bad so far as I am concerned.

For the American continent I have noticed that when I publish from approximately 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm Florida time I gain about a 9% increase from States to the East of my location.

Since most online contributors share viewership from all parts of the world it makes sense to have at least several time/region specific publishing times with each aimed at a particular country or region, depending on your viewership and target audience.

So based on my finalized analysis these are what I consider to be my optimum publishing times (my time) per targeted region: American continent 6:00 pm, Asia/India 11:30 am, England 12:00 pm, Europe 1:00 pm.

Another sub-routine that I have found to be effective for me is to publish at 11:30 am and to post it on Facebook, Tweeter, Pinterest and Scoop-it at 6:00 pm.

This is not as easy as it may appear since you have to take into account some variables like holidays, seasonal changes, and economic turns nor is this a "catch all" solution or this is to say that publishing according to time zones will be 100 % effective all of the time in gaining you viewers and in increasing the amount of repeat visitors.

We often get so cozy with our own routines that we forget to address our readers. We have to remember that our time may not be convenient for them. We also get so involved in ourselves as to think that we do not depend on anyone else "if readers want to read my articles, then they have to do so when I'm ready" mentality is not a good customer service approach but sadly is more prevalent among authors than anyone may realize.

Nothing beats a well written article on a topic that readers are searching for and that should be your ultimate goal.

This is just one more suggestion or rather strategy in an effort to increase your chances of attracting readers that will hopefully come back time after time.

This is not a new strategy nor is it a novel topic. Strategists from many fields have been using time zones to optimize their work, gains etc.

There have been comprehensive research papers and studies detailing this same strategy while keeping in mind that for example the stock market operates in 24 hours cycles and most major markets all over the planet have them.

As more and more the online market becomes competitive and saturated it is imperative for everyone to put in place as many operational strategies in order to increase their market share. It is not just as simply as writing well.

Our writing competes with countless numbers of other writings all vying for the same attention from costumers and every little bit and every advantage helps.

On a separate topic, we often forget that the rest of the world and each country independently competes against the United States and everyone else.

We can get so lost in our daily routines that we do not have time to think of anything else. The rest of the world has not only caught up to the US in many fields but has actually surpassed the US in others which can make us feel nothing but shame.

I found this video to not only be very eye opening but a must watch too and as a parent, I worry that when my kids enter the job market they may face more competition from abroad that at any previous time in our history and the sad thing is that the competition may be better prepared and educated than us.