You've probably heard many times before that if you want to create and sustain a successful blog, there's a lot you need to do. You've got to create exceptional content. You've got to optimize your posts for search engines. You also have to create catchy titles, inspire social shares, and determine the best times for publishing your posts, among a thousand other things.
Actually putting all of those best practices into, well ... practice ... can feel daunting. What exactly makes a title attractive? When are the best times to post? How often should you be posting? How can you inspire social shares?
Recently, we came across TrackMaven's recent Colossal Content Marketing Report because our VP of Content is an advisor. In the report, they analyzed 4,618 blogs, 1.2 million blog posts, and almost 2 billion social shares. The result: some very telling statistics that can help answer the questions above and give you insights into how you should optimize your own blog. Check out some of the highlights from the report below.
15 Tweetable Blog Optimization Stats From TrackMaven
1) Of the 1.2 million blog posts analyzed, 87% were published during the workweek. (Tweet this stat)
2) Tuesday and Wednesday are the most popular days for publishing blog posts. (Tweet this stat)
3) The 13% of blog posts published on the weekend collected the most social shares. (Tweet this stat)
4) While only 6.3% of the blog posts analyzed were published on Saturdays, they received 18% of the total social shares. (Tweet this stat)
5) The most popular time to publish blog posts is between 11 a.m. - 12 p.m. EST on weekdays, with 6.53% of posts published during that time period. (Tweet this stat)
6) Posting frequency steadily declines throughout the day, but then spikes again at 12 a.m. - 1 a.m. EST, with 3.17% of posts published at that time. (Tweet this stat)
7) The standard for title length is 40 characters. (Tweet this stat)
8) Titles containing 60 characters received the most social shares. (Tweet this stat)
9) Titles that included a single question mark have 46.30% social shares, nearly double that for titles without question marks. (Tweet this stat)
10) The peak for social shares correlates with standard title capitalization. (Tweet this stat)
11) Virality is achieved only by a small minority of blog posts. (Tweet this stat)
12) The majority of social shares were on Facebook and Twitter. (Tweet this stat)
13) Tweets accounted for 38.6% of the total social shares, while Facebook Likes account for 33.8% of the total shares. (Tweet this stat)
14) Content consumers were more likely to "like" a blog post on Facebook than to "share" it. (Tweet this stat)
15) Pinterest pins were slightly more frequent than LinkedIn shares at 0.5% and 0.4% respectively. (Tweet this stat)
Which of these stats was most surprising to you?
