What is Dwell Time?

Dwell time is that metric which runs through the search engine results pages or SERPs. It is the total time you spend reading those web pages before you go back to the search engine to check the other results. You might have done this innumerable times, most likely. Dwell time is that brief moment you take to evaluate the website you just clicked to visit. It either immediately provided you the required answer or was a complete failure so that you press the back button instantly. If you make use of search engines then you are racking up dwell time without even knowing about it. The significance of this metric to a search engine is obvious as more is the time users spend on the page they clicked to visit, higher will be the possibility that page satisfied their needs.

Some Misconceptions about Dwell Time

Dwell time is one of the metrics which often gets referenced in articles, conference presentations and on social media but sadly, it is misunderstood by some professionals in the SEO community. Here are some points which will clear the misconceptions about dwell time:

• Dwell Time Is NOT Bounce Rate

A bounce occurs when a user views only one webpage and leaves your website.

• Dwell Time Is NOT Average Time on Page

Average time on page means the average amount of time the users spend on a single webpage.

• Dwell Time Is NOT Session Duration

Session duration is a metric that measures how long the users spend on your website.

• Dwell Time Is NOT Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate is the total percentage of users who clicked the link to your page out of all the users who saw that SERP.

• Dwell Time Is NOT RankBrain

RankBrain is a metric which gathers data from the interactions of users with the search results, not the interaction they have with the piece of content.

Hopefully, you might have understood by now what dwell time is and what it is not. You cannot measure dwell time with any third-party tool. Only the search engines are capable of accessing dwell time.

Benefits of Tracking Dwell Time

• Dwell time can show the marketers if their pages are capturing user attention and satisfying the needs of browsers. This metric has the potential to guide you on what to avoid and what to include on the web pages.
• It can lead to clues about enhancing UX. For instance, if your webpage has slow loading time, it is reflected in dwell time metrics. The users might exit your webpage when it takes too long to load.
• Dwell time is correlated with other important metrics such as bounce rate and time on site. By improving your dwell time, you can decrease your bounce rate and increase the average time on site. Thus, this metric can lead to important decisions you take for your site in order to improve your ranking.

How to Increase Dwell Time?

Here are some factors that can help to improve the dwell time:

• Focus on quality web content by including in-depth articles and blogs which tell everything about the topics
• Use interactive slides, videos and showcase studies
• Adopt better tactics of user engagement
• Use logical internal linking
• Focus on online presence

You know, there is nothing much clarified about which metrics do search engines take into consideration but if there is a metric which it is considering to qualify your content quality then it will be dwell time. Thus, dwell time is one of the most essential metrics which need to be tracked when it comes to SEO or content sharing on social network.

The post Dwell Time- An Important SEO Metric that You Need to Track appeared first on Digital Marketing Trends.

So, what is the secret to winning at Search engine optimization in 2020?

If you want to outrank your competition, here, in this blog, we are discussing some important tips that you can consider:

1. 1. Focus on creating content for your website

Whether you are focussing on Search engine optimization, pay-per-click or other such digital marketing strategies to attract potential visitors to your website, both the quality as well as the number of your content matters. Fresh content on your site will make your site more appealing for the search engines as well as for the visitors who read your pages. Good quality content may lead to viral sharing that can increase the external backlinks which point at your website, thus, further boosting your SEO.

2. 2. Keywords should be targeted strategically

While planning the content writing for your business, pay proper attention to the keywords that you are targeting. To know which keywords are effective and which can be ceded to the competitors, you can look at the traffic data for various search queries with the help of Google Analytics or Webmaster Tools program. You may also use advanced tools such as Raven Tools to determine the keywords which are producing the most conversions.

3. 3. Be up-to-date about best SEO practices and latest SEO news

It is a field that is constantly changing. If you catch hold of a new SEO technique or an emerging trend before your competitors, you will be capable of cementing your lead in the natural search results. Thus, it is advised to monitor SEO news on the major blogs and websites to keep updated about the latest trends and techniques in Search Engine Optimization. If you find any major changes in SEO best practices, you can take appropriate action right away and prevent your website from falling behind in the search ranking.

4. Keep Track of your competitors’ backlink profile

Along with monitoring your own site’s backlink profiles to avert any negative SEO attacks, you must also keep a close eye on the backlinks your competitors are building. This will help you in identifying potential linking partners for your website and find any new linking strategies which your competitors might be using to beat you.

5. 5. Monitor the on-site SEO activities of your competitors

You must monitor your competitors’ on-site SEO efforts. If any of your competitors change their SEO activities, there can be one of two scenarios; they may have found some new ways to optimize their webpages in the search results or they are simply updating their webpages in response to a penalty given by the search engines.

Either way, it will be a great idea to keep your eye on the competitors’ tag structures, keyword-optimized headers and other such SEO activities.

6. 6. Technical Audit

Errors can be troublesome no matter how and where you encounter them. Your users would never appreciate it if you let your site go due to some petty error.

Some common issues on your site can be:

• Broken links
• Broken redirects
• Broken images
• Missing meta tags
• Server errors
• Crawling issues
• Indexing issues
• Dead-end pages
• Orphaned pages
• Schema mark-up errors

You cannot keep an eye on your website every hour, thus, some fully automated tools are available for such tasks. They can be used to detect the common technical issues with your website and then you can simply fix them.

Whether it’s out-working your competitors or simply persisting longer than them, you can follow the above SEO tips and make this next decade one of your biggest triumphs.

The post SEO Strategies to Outrank Your Competitors in 2020 appeared first on Digital Marketing Trends.