When to post a New Moon or Full Moon Post

October 15, 2016 at 2:16 pm | Posted in 2016, 2016-Lunations, Astrology, Editorial, Lunations, Special Days | 9 Comments
Tags: 2016, 2016-10, 2016-W42, Astrology, blog, blogging, blogs, FullMoon, FullMoons, lunation, Lunations, Traffic

Most of my content, for about the past two years, has been reblogged.  Through a near “accident” (wondering what WordPress could do and testing different options) I transformed my blog into a “content aggregator blog.”  The decision was the correct one for me though it requires hours a day to maintain.

That said, I see a huge variety in the timing of posts for a lunation (Full Moon or New Moon).  Having watched this process for about 50 lunations or more, I have some observations:

1.  If you are not interested in “click through” from reblogs by someone like me, time your posts for 24 to 48 hours before the lunation.  Less than 24 hours, and you have lost your audience.  They have gone out to play, and they are no longer interested in what you have to say.
2. If you want the benefit of reblogs, as well as the full attention of your audience, time your posts about 48 to 72 hours out.  You will capture about 24 to 48 hours of audience, and my reblogs will capture the rest.  Your click through rate will tell you how interested people are in your particular way of analyzing and describing the upcoming lunation (as well as providing useful solutions to the many who seek those).
3. From my vantage point, I can see clear “winners” and “losers” in terms of who gets readership.  If you want to see who the top five were for this Full Moon (October 15/16), check the links at the bottom of my page for the Full Moon.  The order has been randomized to obscure who was “#1” and who was “#2” and so forth.  But these five had nearly as much traffic as everyone else combined.  (OK, my page did well, too.  But I am taking myself out of the mix since I cannot evaluate myself neutrally.)  See, also: Full Moon of October 2016.

As an example, here are my stats leading up to the Full Moon of October 15/16 (Saturday night, and weekend Full Moons are almost always the busiest in terms of traffic):

[Click Image to Enlarge]

Note how *SLOW* the “day of” the Full Moon traffic is compared to the previous two days!