Are you Maximising Website Dwell Time?
SEO has a myriad of dos and don"ts.” Sometimes it"s hard to sort the important from the not so important and to find SEO optimisations which not only deliver improved SEO but an improved customer experience.
Neil Patel has recently written a super article on the Impact of Dwell Time on SEO which covers website delivery for the benefit of SEO and for your user experience.
What is Dwell Time?” In his article The 2 User Metrics that Matter for SEO, Dr Peter J Meyers says;
“Dwell time, in a sense, is an amalgam of bounce rate and time-on-site metrics – it measures how long it takes for someone to return to a SERP after clicking on a result_"_
Note; SERP = Search Engine Results Page
Dwell time is an indication to the Search Engine of how engaged a user was on your website when they visited, and whether their visit satisfied the needs which prompted the user"s initial search activity.
Dwell Time is measureable by the Search Engines but not currently by website owners as website owners don"t necessarily know the pages to which a user moves after time on their site (be it an SERP or other page).
So if Dwell Time is good for Google juice and for user engagement / activity on your site, what can you do to influence it?
Neil Patel describes four key areas to attack for your website:
- Choose Correct Keywords
- Create a Fully Functional and Usable Website
- Provide a Clear Site Layout
- Improve Page Load Time
While the above four areas are good for SEO, the latter three are also table stakes for a good customer experience and the propensity for users to “convert” on your website.
I really like Dwell Time as a website metric. It would be a great metric to calculate and surface for every website.
