I've been putting them as fast as I can, but I don't have enough jets to cover different continents. So I figured that I'd cover all of Europe first with satellite coverage, then move on to another continent.
It's annoying to see people in the U.S. panicking, when I kill some aliens in China. Don't they have a military or something to blow up a couple random aliens, while I'm busy fighting the good fight elsewhere?
I guess I just don't like that game mechanic. I pick 1 out of 3, I always go for the one in the region that's most going insane, and in the end I end up the loser. Bleh.
It's much better to focus on the regions you want to protect and give up on the rest, rather than attempting to keep panic down everywhere. You can lose 7 nations IIRC without losing the game.
Satellite spam is a good reliable strategy (though far from the only one, even on higher difficulties). To do it optimally, you want to be launching 3-4 satellites in each of the first two months, focused on 2-3 continents (depending on which one's you've gone for). That said, on anything under impossible, this is probably overkill, and you've got longer to get them online, but if going for a sattelite based strategy, I'd certainly want 8 online by the end of month 3.
Back this up with your choice of abduction missions - if you're about to send a satellite to a nation/continent, don't worry about doing a mission there. Add in the fact that satellited nations don't get abductions, and, after the initial couple of abductions where the rewards are arguably the most important (need more engineers), you should be focusing on one, maybe two continents that you don't intend to satellite soon.
I my current game (C/I, going for the achievement where you never increase squad size), I'm coming to the end of month 3. I've got NA, SA and Africa covered in satellites (started NA) with 2 laser equipped interceptors in each. 3/4 of Europe has been lost. I could satellite Asia too, but that can wait as I'm spending my cash elsewhere and I can easily keep the panic in one continent down. And this is certainly not with the most optimal plays.