Dwell time is an SEO metric that mesures the time a user spends on your page before clicking back to the search results.
If a page has low dwell time, it signifies that the page doesn’t match search intent and doesn’t offer enough value.
Dwell time is used to understand the relevance and quality of content from your audience’s perspective.
Your aim should be to increase the dwell time on your website pages. This is especially true for pages that generate sales and leads for your business!
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What Will I Learn?
An example of dwell time is when you search Google.
You click on a page in the search results and read it for 1 minute and 32 seconds. Then, you click back to the Google search results from the page.
In this example, your dwell time is 1 minute and 32 seconds.
Dwell time is not a confirmed Google ranking factor. But most SEOs believe that it indirectly influences your search rankings.
Let me explain:
Think of dwell time as a signal of user engagement and content relevancy.
We know that Google already uses a range of user engagement metrics to measure user experience.
That means that increasing dwell time will likely lead to higher rankings and more organic traffic.
Dwell Time is different from Bounce Rate and Time on Page.
Here is a breakdown of each:
Here’s what you should do…
Use all three of these metrics together to better understand user engagement on your website.
You can even go as far as optimising important pages to increase user engagement over time.
Dwell Time is calculated by measuring the time between when a user clicks on a search result to your website page and when they click back to the search results.
The best way to calculate dwell time is using the “Average Session Duration” metric in Google Analytics.
Average Session Duration measures the average time a user spends on a page on your website.
Here’s how to find it on Google Analytics for free:
Login to Google Analytics.
Click on “Reports” > “Engagement” > “Pages & Screens”.
Click on the pencil icon in the top right, click “Metrics” and then add the “Average Session Duration” metric.
Click “Apply” and that’s it! You’ll be able to accurately measure dwell time on each page of your website.
Here’s how to increase dwell time on your website with 7 effective strategies:
Your content should be the best piece of content online.
That means you want to answer the search intent quickly while also covering the topic comprehensively.
Create a content outline before you start writing and ensure it’s well-researched.
Slow websites have high bounce rates.
Most people won’t wait longer than 3-5 seconds for a page to load.
The faster your page loads, the quicker you can engage the user.
Increase website speed to improve user experience and help your readers quickly find what they are looking for.
A visitor to your website is looking for specific information.
That means they DON’T want to read your entire article just to find the information they are looking for.
What does that mean for you?
Your pages should be structured well and broken up into short paragraphs. Include bullet points to break up text and make the content easier to skim.
This will help each user find the information they want while also increasing their dwell time on your page.
63% of all Google searches are done on a mobile device.
That means about 2 out of 3 Google website visitors are on mobile and your content needs to look great on mobile.
This is coupled with the fact that Google indexes the mobile version of your website first!
When designing your web pages, you should consider the mobile version.
This will ensure that you provide a good user experience for mobile users and ultimately maximise dwell time.
Images and videos do three things:
Great SEO content is more than written text.
You should add relevant videos, graphics and images to break up the text and make your content more digestible.
Want to take your website up a level?
Add interactive elements to your page such as:
And more! Getting people to engage with these elements will significantly increase dwell time!
Don’t add too many ads or pop-ups to your website.
They disrupt the flow of the page and annoy the user. This will only make them click away from your website quickly.
This is especially important for mobile.
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