What is dwell time in SEO for dwell time is more important than ever since the Google Search API leak highlighted the significance of user engagement metrics. For instance, let’s say you search for “grain free cookies” in Google. Dwell time, which is defined as the amount of time a visitor spends on a webpage before returning to the search engine results page (SERP), indicates user engagement and content relevance and affects rankings because longer dwell times suggest the content effectively meets the user’s search intent.
The first result looks like a good fit. So you click on it.
But when you get there, the site is ugly and hard to use. And the content isn’t helpful.
So after 5 seconds you click back to the results.
Your Dwell Time was 5 seconds.
And that super brief visit tells Google that you weren’t happy with that result.
Let’s say you then click on the #2 result.
This time, the content is amazing. And the site is easy to navigate.
And you spend a solid 4 minutes and 37 seconds reading every word… then click back to the results to continue your research.
That long Dwell Time tells Google that you got a lot of value from that result.
And if lots of other people also spend a long time on that page, Google will give it a rankings boost.
One thing I should mention now is:
Bounce Rate and Dwell Time are comparable. However, they are not interchangeable.
When someone goes to a page and hits the back button without clicking anything on it, it’s known as a bounce.
Whether someone spent two seconds or two hours on the page makes no difference. A bounce occurs when a user clicks back to the search results.
A association between bounce rate and first page Google ranks was discovered by our investigation of search engine ranking parameters.
However, that is most likely a case of correlation rather than causation. This is due to the fact that bounce rate provides little insight into whether or not a searcher is happy with a specific result.
However, Dwell Time does.
Why Does Dwell Time Matter?
We already know that Dwell Time is a component of the algorithm used by search engines like Bing:
The question is:
Does Google care about Dwell Time?
They’ve never publicly confirmed or denied anything related to Dwell Time.
But there are some clues and signs that Google does use Dwell Time as a ranking signal.
For example, a Google Engineer was quoted as saying:
“So when search was invented, like when Google was invented many years ago, they wrote heuristics that had figure out what the relationship between a search and the best page for that search was. And those heuristics worked pretty well and continue to work pretty well.
But Google is now integrating machine learning into that process. So then training models on when someone clicks on a page and stays on that page, when they go back or when they and trying to figure out exactly on that relationship.”
Put another way:
Google’s Machine Learning algorithm (RankBrain), pays VERY close attention to how long someone spends on a page.
(In other words, Dwell Time)
Also, some time ago Google rolled out an interesting new feature that let you hide a particular website from the SERPs.
How did they know which sites you wanted to hide?
Well, if you quickly bounced from a page, Google would prompt you to block that entire site:
That’s how strongly they feel about Dwell Time.
Last up, we have an interesting correlation study published on Moz.
Dwell Time, often known as “Time on site,” and Google rankings were found to be clearly correlated in this study.
Here is a detailed guide on how to increase your Dwell SEO Time.
Top Techniques
“The Formula for PowerPoint”
You must immediately grab visitors’ attention if you want them to stay on your website for a long time.
The PPT Formula enters the picture at this point.
It is a tried-and-true method for introducing content that is intended to lengthen dwell time.
This is how it appears:
Let’s break it down.
A succinct preview of your material should appear on the first line.
Google searchers can see from this preview that your material is exactly what they’re looking for.
(This implies that they will remain.)
You demonstrate in your second and third lines how your information might benefit them. This IMMEDIATELY demonstrates to others that your content is authentic.
See how we introduced this using proof:
Finally, use a Transition to wrap things up.
The reader is softly guided from your introduction to the following section of your content by this transition.
And that post has a time on page of 06:58, partly because of The PPT Formula (as well as the other tactics you’re going to discover).
Embed Videos
Embedding videos can significantly boost your page’s Dwell Time.
In fact, the Wistia blog increased their Dwell Time by 260% simply by adding a video to their content:
Which makes people stick on my page for 04:21 minutes on average:
Community and Comments
A Google employee once said that a community can help “a lot” with rankings:
Does community serve as a clear indicator of ranking?
Or does having a vibrant community help you rank higher in an indirect way?
They remained silent.
In any case, I’ve found that having a community definitely enhances Dwell Time.
This is the reason:
First of all, comments are genuinely interesting content.
Discussions such as this one, for instance, keep readers from hitting the back button.
Also, people that leave comments obviously spend extra time on the page… which boosts your page’s average Dwell Time.
Maximize PageSpeed
It’s no secret that people online are impatient.
And if your site takes forever to load, people are going to click away before they read the first word.
That’s why you want to make sure that your important web page’s are optimized for PageSpeed.
PageSpeed is a confirmed direct ranking signal:
And it impacts whether or not your visitors stick around.
That’s why it’s smart to do as much as you can to improve your site’s loading speed.
Break Content Into Chunks
I got comments like this at least once per week:
Is it because I’m an amazing writer? Nope.
It’s because I make my content SUPER easy to read.
Specifically, I break my content up into chunks.
We used H2 subheaders to separate each topic into distinct sections:
We also used bullets to make lots of info easy to skim:
Finally, we used A TON of visuals and screenshots.
Not only can these images aid in the implementation of the content, but However, they divide the information into manageable chunks.
Optimized for Mobile
It may seem easy, but bear with me:
People will not stay on your site if it is difficult to utilize.
Regretfully, I still come across a number of websites that aren’t responsive.
Go into the new Google Search Console to see if your page is mobile-friendly:
Hit “Core Web Vitals”.
And it’ll let you know which pages on your site Google considers a bad mobile user experience:
You even get details on what the problem is… and steps on how to fix it.
Measuring Dwell Time
How do you actually measure Dwell Time?
There’s no “Dwell Time” report in Google Analytics or the Google Search Console.
That said:
Google Analytics DOES let you know about your site’s “Average Engagement Time per Page”. This is the metric shows how long users actively engage with your content.
Which is a pretty darn close to Dwell Time.
Here’s how to do it:
First, login to Google Analytics.
And click on Reports → Engagement → Pages and screens
Then, setup a filter so you’re only looking at organic traffic, by choosing the “Session source / medium” dimension, then “exactly matches”, and then set the value to “google / organic”:
And voila!
You can see exactly how long Google searchers spend on each page of your site:
What can you do with this information?
First, see what’s working… and apply that to other pages.
For example, when I look at my Google Analytics, this post stands out:
And when I take a look at the page in detail, I can see that:
- It’s broken up into lots of different sections.
- The page contains a lot of custom visuals.
- I mentioned lots of quotes and statements from YouTube.
- I used internal linking to feature other content that people might want to read.
You can also improve pages that have a bad Dwell Time.
For example, this page from my site has a Dwell Time that’s 38.5% below my sitewide average:
I’d like to make some changes to that page.
Additionally, in some situations (such as when the page’s content does not align with the user intent of my target keyword), the content should be entirely rewritten.
A “Good” Dwell Time: What Is It?
In a nutshell, it depends.
Long response:
Numerous factors influence a “good” dwell time, such as:
Your specialty
The kind of material
The search term that users use to locate your page
Trends by season
And more
Therefore, I advise concentrating on increasing your sitewide Dwell Time utilizing the techniques you just learned about rather than worrying about an arbitrary figure.