Dwell time is the time users spend on the web page before returning to the search results. Basically, page visitors decide whether the page has information they were looking for and whether it is worthy to stay and discover the content further.
Dwell time is different from other metrics like bounce rate or time on the page since a user has to start in the SERPs and end on the SERPs. In other metrics, a user can come from or go to something else as SERPs.
Dwell time may influence your SEO. If users enter a page and go back immediately, it means that that has nothing to do with their search. Consequently, search engines will think that the page is irrelevant if the dwell time is too short. However, it is not confirmed whether dwell time influences rankings.
In order to increase the dwell time, you can:
- produce longreads
- pay attention to the quality of the content
- increase loading speed
- put navigation menu or mark sections with different headings
- create responsive pages
- embed videos
However, short dwell time does not necessarily mean that the content is bad. It may also mean that the visitor could quickly find the answer which is good.
