Posting Dates With Your Blog Posts: Pros and cons

The date on your blog posts might be a very small detail but it can have a proportionally large impact on your potential readers. More often than not, you might have left this decision on the automatic system of your blog’s post upload (there are always plugins for anything!).

In this regard, an informed decision can be much more effective for the ‘stickiness’ of your posts, in their current time and even years after their post date. The pros and cons related to posting dates with your blog posts, is enlisted here with details.

The debate over ‘dated’ and ‘timeless’

It is a basic fact of matter that most readers will automatically glance at your post dates (if you put one in), when they read your posts or even when they select it out of the search engine page. Current events or news, that concerns itself with the ‘hotness’ of the topic, should always come with date stamps.

However, many posts on the internet that have tips or suggestions do not have any bearing on the time. For instance on our discount coupon blog that features weight watchers and ediets discount deals, the discount coupons themselves are time sensitive (they might expire), but the blog posts that talk about weight loss and dieting tips are timeless content in nature.

When you put a date stamp on these types of posts, you might inadvertently pull back the readers’ attention to the ‘hotness’ factor while the ideas are ‘timeless’ enough to be considered in any period.

The choice between putting and not putting in the dates on your posts depends on your blog – Blog style, blogging frequency and the niche. However, each of these choices has some positives and negatives going for them.

Option to date or time stamp – Reasons

Blogging, like any other innovative sphere, has taken roots and now moving fast. There are so many new developments in the field, launched every day. New tools to make your blogging experience smoother, new social media sites to help you promote your posts in exciting new ways and finally there are many new events and trends in the world that directly affect your blog posts.

In the face of such a continuous shift, it might be that some of your posts can be better understood with reference to the period of its posting. The other important reason that might incline your decision towards putting in dates is that your growth as a blogger is framed in your posts from the start of your blog, till date.

The chronology of the posts might better present this growth for your readers that have been following you since your blog’s inception, as well as for readers that have just freshly caught on with your blog.

Option to (Not) Date or time stamp – Reasons:

Non news/current events related blogs do not have to put in dates. This does not mean that our blog posts are completely devoid of the time perspective. More accurately, in this case the posts do not have an expiry period. What is relevant now might change due to new principles or developments on the field, however, the foundation of the posts will remain as informative, even later.

However, even among these posts, you might find some that need to be attached with the relevant time; you can always include the date with the title of these posts.

Even when your options mainly include these two points, you are not restricted in any way by any set rules. You can just as well decide and make up your own rules for posting on dates. You can choose to post dates on particular posts while avoiding it for others. However, try to maintain certain uniformity about the action (Your readers will notice).

Instances to consider for dates on posts: You might edit the visibility of posting via your blog authorship system. You might want to just put in the dates on the newer posts while omitting it for the older ones. Readers can immediately spot that the posts are new ad the older posts escape the tag of being ‘dated’.

You can create a completely new page/category for current events posts. This way you can isolate the date stamps on just these posts while you leave the other posts un-adorned likewise. You might also consider putting in dates but on reverse-highlighting principle. Just tone down the conspicuousness by placement alterations or even color subtlety.

The best option will completely depend on your blog and you, however; the information mentioned here will definitely make the choice clearer.

Jane enjoys sharing blogging tips that she learned from her own blog. Her blog is in the diet niche. On Weight Loss Triumph she offers a Diet to Go coupon. For a Weight Watchers coupon go here. Diet to Go is a reputable meal delivery service in the US for people who want to lose weight without sacrificing on taste and food enjoyment. Weight Watchers is an award winning weight management program that teaches you a healthy way to live.