How Does Dwell Time Affect SEO?

SEO is constantly changing and evolving.

As search engines get smarter, they can weed out low-quality websites and give better rankings to those that provide a great user experience.

One of the factors that SEOs are now taking into account is dwell time. If you can keep your visitors engaged and interested, you can be rewarded with better rankings!

Do you want to know how?

Let's get started.

Content:

• What Is Dwell Time?
• Why Is Dwell Time Important for SEO?
• Dwell Time VS Bounce Rate
• How to Measure Dwell Time?
• What’s a Good Dwell Time?
• Improving Dwell Time: SEO Strategies

What Is Dwell Time?

__Dwell time __is the amount of time a visitor spends on your website, after clicking through your SERP link, before returning to the search result page.

The goal is to keep your dwell time as high as possible!

A high dwell time indicates to search engines that your website is providing valuable and interesting content, which will help to improve your SEO ranking.

Source

Why Is Dwell Time Important for SEO?

Search engines want to provide their users with the best possible experience.

If searchers click on a result and then quickly return to the SERP, it indicates that they didn't find what they were looking for. This tells search engines that perhaps your website isn't as relevant or useful as the other results on the page, and your SEO ranking will suffer as a result.

On the other hand, if searchers click on your result and spend a significant amount of time on your website before returning to the SERP, it tells search engines that they found your site helpful and informative.

The longer users stay on your site, the better!

Source

So, what is the official position of major search engines about dwell time?

Bing made an official statement in an April 2012 blog entry, saying that "it's a signal we're paying attention to". They also claimed that its search engine is “mostly ahead” of the competition. Because Bing offered similar features for years without implementing them in 2010. I believe this implies that they were unwilling or unable to integrate them as well into their own platform. This means consumers are left with no viable alternative if significant changes are implemented in Bing's privacy policy.

Google, however, has been more tight-lipped about the matter. __Experts say __that dwell time is one of the user interaction ranking factors that Google takes into account.

User signals are generated every time a searcher interacts with your website. This includes everything from dwell time and click-through rate to pogo-sticking and pages per session.
Google looks at all of these signals to try and determine how useful and relevant your website is for the searcher's query. The more user signals you can generate, the better!

To make a point, we can't say for sure if dwell time is a ranking factor, but it's definitely something to keep in mind as you work on improving your website!

Think about that for a minute.

If users stay on your websites, let's say, for a couple of minutes, it's a good sign that they find your content valuable. This is the kind of signal that Google and other search engines are looking for when they're trying to determine which websites should rank higher in the SERP.

On the other hand, if a visitor lands on your website and then leaves after a few seconds, it's a clear sign that your website is not relevant or helpful to them.

Dwell Time VS Bounce Rate

It's important to note that dwell time and bounce rate are not the same thing!

Bounce rateis the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page.

While dwell time is the amount of time a visitor spends on your website after clicking through from the SERP. A high dwell time is a good thing, as it indicates that visitors are finding your website helpful and informative.

A high bounce rate, on the other hand, is not necessarily a bad thing. It could simply mean that the visitor found exactly what they were looking for on your website and didn't need to view any other pages. Of course, a high bounce rate could also indicate that your website is not relevant or useful to visitors, but it's important to look at the context of the situation before drawing any conclusions.

How to Measure Dwell Time?

Unfortunately, there's no surefire way to measure dwell time.

However, there are a few methods you can use to try and get an accurate picture, such as:

• Checking your Google Analytics data
• Using heat maps
• Conducting user testing
  

Let's take a closer look at each of these methods.

Checking your Google Analytics data

One way to measure dwell time is to check your average session duration in the old version of Google Analytics. This metric will give you a good idea of how long visitors are spending on your website on average.

In the new GA4, the metric you want to look at is called "engagement".

To find this metric, simply go to your GA dashboard and select "engagement" from the list of options.

You can then see how long visitors are spending on your website on average, as well as the average session duration for each page on your website.

This data can be extremely useful in helping you to understand which pages on your website are engaging visitors and which ones are causing them to leave.

Using Heat Maps

Another way to measure dwell time is to use a heat map tool.

Heat maps are visual representations of where visitors are clicking on your website.

They can help you understand which areas of your website are holding people's attention and which ones are causing them to leave. There are a number of different heat map tools available, such as Hotjar and Crazy Egg.

Conducting User Testing

User testing is another great way to measure dwell time.

Basically, you ask a group of people to test out your website and give you feedback on their experience. As part of the user testing process, you can ask participants how long they spent on each page of your website and what they thought of the content.

This feedback can be extremely valuable in helping you to understand which pages on your website are engaging and informative, and which ones are causing people to leave.

What’s a Good Dwell Time?

There is no magic number when it comes to dwell time.

However, as a general rule of thumb, you should aim for a dwell time of more than two minutes, as reported by SemRush:

Of course, this will vary depending on the type of website you have and the kind of content you offer.

For example, if you have a page with only 600 words of content, it's unlikely that visitors will spend more than two minutes reading it.

On the other hand, if you have a long-form article with 3000 words, it's more likely that people will spend a long time on the page. It's also worth noting that the average dwell time for websites in different industries will vary.

For example, the average dwell time for news websites is much lower than the average dwell time for eCommerce websites. This is to be expected, as people tend to spend less time reading news articles than they do browsing products in an online store.

The important thing is to make sure that your dwell time is in line with the average for your industry. If it's not, then you may need to take a closer look at your website and see what you can do to improve the dwell time.

Improving Dwell Time: SEO Strategies

There are a number of different SEO strategies you can use to improve the dwell time on your website.

Some of the most effective ones include:

• Creating Long-form Content
• Improving The User Experience
• Making Your Content More Engaging
  

Let's take a closer look at each of them.

Creating Long-Form Content

One of the best ways to improve dwell time is to create long-form content.

As we mentioned before, people tend to spend more time on pages with a lot of content. So, if you want people to stick around on your website, you need to give them something to read.

Ideally, you should aim for articles that are at least 2000 words long.

Not only will this help to improve the dwell time on your website, but it will also help you to earn more backlinks and rank higher in the search engines.

According to a study by Backlinko, on average, long-form content receives 77.2% more links than shorter articles.

Improving The User Experience

Another SEO strategy you can use to improve dwell time is to focus on improving the user experience.

There are a number of different factors that contribute to the user experience, such as website speed, navigation, and design. If you want people to stick around your website, you need to make sure that it's easy for them to use.

That means having a fast website that is easy to navigate and has a clean, user-friendly design.

To speed up your pages, you can use a CDN, optimize your images, and minify your code.

You can also improve your website's navigation by using clear and concise menus and internal linking.

And finally, you can make sure your website has a good design by using a responsive theme and high-quality visuals.

Making Your Content More Engaging

Finally, you can also improve the dwell time on your website by making your content more engaging. Engaging content is the kind of content that people want to read. It's interesting, informative, and well-written.

If you want people to stick around your website, you need to make sure that your content is engaging. One way to do this is to add images, videos, and infographics to your articles. Another way to make your content more engaging is to write in a conversational tone.

This will make it more enjoyable for people to read and will encourage them to stick around your website for longer.

Also, you can use __micro-interactions __to improve the engagement of your content. Microinteractions are small, interactive elements that you can add to your articles to make them more engaging.

For example, you could add a quiz or a poll to your article.

This would give people something to do while they're reading and would encourage them to stick around for longer.

Conclusion

Understanding and improving dwell time is essential for your website's success. There are a number of different SEO strategies you can use, including creating long-form content, improving the user experience, and making your content more engaging.

So, if you want to improve the dwell time on your website, start by implementing some of these SEO strategies today.

How do you feel about your site's dwell time?

Let us know in the comments below.

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Thanks for reading!