Dwell time: should you make an effort to increase it in your SEO strategy?

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If you're here, you're probably familiar with SEO techniques and the most common Content Marketing metrics , right? So let's get down to business, today we're going to talk about dwell time. What exactly does this metric mean?

For starters, it is a metric that is studied alongside others to determine the quality of a site based on the time people spend on it . It reflects how much a user who arrived at it as a result of a search engine query liked your site .

If your dwell time is low, specific changes may be needed to business owner database increase that number .

Dwell time affects search engine optimization (SEO), and that's what we're going to understand now.

In this post we will talk about:

What is Dwell time?
Are Dwell time and Bounce Rate the same thing?
What is the difference between Dwell time and time on page?
Dwell time vs. bounce rate vs. time on page
Why is Dwell Time Important for SEO?
How to measure your Dwell time?
Is there an average dwell time for websites?
How to improve your dwell time?
Conclusion: What is Dwell Time? Something that Matters for SEO
What is Dwell time?
Imagine you finished searching Google for the best landing page examples, clicked on our post, read the sections you wanted, and then returned to the SERPs three minutes and 55 seconds later .

That's the time spent on our page, considering this specific situation. But let's dig a little deeper into the definition of this metric:

Dwell time is the amount of time that passes from the moment a searcher clicks on a search result until the moment they return to the SERP.

In theory, a high dwell time is great for you because it means people are enjoying your content.

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Are Dwell time and Bounce Rate the same thing?
Bounce rate and dwell time have things in common, but they are certainly not the same thing.

Bounce rate is the number of visitors who visit a page on a website and leave without clicking . They may spend a long time on the site, even hours, but if they leave without clicking, it is considered a bounce.

On the other hand, Dwell time is a measure of time . Someone who spends a lot of time on a site generates a good dwell time, even if they don't click on anything.

Another important difference is that while dwell time is measured by the SERP , bounce rate is measured by users who come from other websites as well.

What is the difference between Dwell time and time on page?
Time on page measures the amount of time a user stays on a page before leaving. It's that simple.

This metric isn't just about search engine traffic, either. It measures the time spent when the surfer is coming from somewhere else. This information is useful for uncovering patterns in your web traffic as a whole.

Dwell time vs. bounce rate vs. time on page
As you can see, these three metrics reflect the quality of your page. Having the right numbers can give you a lot of valuable information about the user experience on your site.

And if you want to complement the results provided by these indicators, you can use event tracking methods that help you understand, in a reliable way, how readers spend their time on your page.

You can learn how visitors interact — not just how long they kept your page open in their browser — by giving you data on how far down the page readers scrolled, whether they played videos or clicked buttons, or whether they moved on to another page on your website.

If you don't track events, this metric will include browsers who simply had the page open and then went on to do something else.

Why is Dwell Time Important for SEO?
There are many reasons why this metric is important for SEO. For starters, it demonstrates the quality of a site and can tell us a lot about whether users are finding what they are looking for on it.

A low organic dwell time could mean that they leave disappointed. It could also mean that the web design is not very effective.

When someone returns to the search engine, it's because they want to see better results. Basically, your SEO strategy brought people to your site, but the content wasn't what they expected. So you need to make adjustments.

Maybe you improve your content so it aligns with user intent. Maybe you reconsider your keywords to better match search trends.

Search engines could be using dwell time in their algorithm – there is nothing to confirm or deny that – they could detect a low dwell time and assume that for a specific keyword your site is simply not the best choice and deserves a lower ranking.

How to measure your Dwell time?
If you're using Google Analytics , you can set up metrics to estimate your dwell time. In your Analytics account, go to "Behavior" and click on " Site Content ." Then, go to " Landing Pages " and " New Segment ."

Click on “ Organic Traffic ” and “ Apply ” so that you only get views coming in through search engines. The metric you want is called “ Average Session Duration .” It’s not dwell time, but it’s as close as you can get.

If your dwell time is high, you may be giving people what they expect when they click through to your site from the SERP. If it's low, you probably need to do some testing and tweaking to increase the rate.

You can also run your own tests by timing the amount of time you spend on sites run by your competitors. This can help you see what trends lead you to click and what content keeps you on the page the longest.

Calculate your own dwell time and record the data. You can then think about what factors influenced the length of the dwell times.


Is there an average dwell time for websites?
There isn't a single time frame you should strive for. There may be outliers who spend too little time or too much time, but the best number is the average amount of time people spend there.

➤ The length of the content on each page has a lot to do with the dwell time, as well as the overall quality of the page.

If you're facing poor dwell times, you may simply not have enough content on the page to keep people engaged for long.

➤ There are also different themes that will result in longer or shorter dwell times.

Sites that have instruction manuals for doing something can retain people longer because they need access to all the steps while doing the project.

➤ The difficulty of the content is another important factor that will influence your average time spent on the course.

➤ The density of the topic and the number of references can also affect this time.

As a general rule:

a dwell time of 30 seconds or less is not good;
A dwell time of more than two minutes is good.
But remember: these are just basic averages that cover many different topics.


How to improve your dwell time?
If you have a low dwell time, or simply want to increase your dwell time, there are techniques you can apply to retain visitors on your page for longer.

When someone visits your site for the first time, you need to grab their attention and engage with the page quickly, otherwise they may return to the search engine to see if there are better results for their query.

Charging must be fast
To get that first attention that captivates users, the page itself has to load quickly . If it takes more than two seconds to load, you've already lost visitors due to slow speed .

The design must be attractive
The design of the page should be attractive and organized so that the user can see where the content is and what the page contains. The aesthetics of the layout should be related to ease of viewing and navigation.

Advertisements should be used wisely
Content should be available to users! When you have a fast, user-friendly, and responsive page , people are more likely to spend time on the page and look at the rest of your site.

This won't happen if you are bombarded by pop-ups or have content that is hard to find because of all the ads.

The amount of content available is also important. This includes links to your other pages to generate engagement , as well as showing that you are an authority on the topic.

You can also use widgets that will tell your audience what is most popular on the site and what the most recent content is, for example.

Your website should be easy to read
Another way to help with your dwell time is to provide users with content in a way that they can quickly view, process, and understand. Few people want to read a website the same way they read a book.

Often, they just want to find a specific answer when they visit a page. While your content should be complex and long enough to be evaluated well by the algorithm , it should be structured to make it easy to read.

Shorter sentences and paragraphs can help with this factor, as can adding subheadings and using lists with bullet points. It can also be helpful to have information available in different forms so each user can choose how to consume it.

Charts, infographics , videos, and images will help visitors get the information they want without feeling like they have to deal with a lot of content.

Your content must be of quality
One of the most important factors is simply the quality of your content. When users click through to your site, the content they find has to make up for the time it takes to read it.

If the design is interesting, but the content is disappointing, you can't expect people to stay there for long. After all, they visit your site for the content, so that should be the number one priority on your site.

You need good information that is well communicated and engaging. If you're not sure what the topics of each page should be, start with keyword research to find out what terms people are using to find content like yours.