What Is Time-On-Page For SEO? 

Time-on-page is the time it takes for a visitor to stay on a website. This is different from the bounce rate which is the percentage of visitors who leave a site without taking any action. While bounce rate is important, it is irrelevant in SEO.
The time-on-page refers to how long a visitor stays on a page, whether it is your own or another website. In most cases, dwell time affects the ranking of a website.

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Average time on page 

Average time on a page is a metric used to measure how long people spend on a page. Similarly, to bounce rate, time on page is an important metric to measure as it gives you an idea of how relevant your content is. If your page isn’t helping visitors find what they’re looking for, they’ll leave and go somewhere else. 

Average time on page is used to identify problem pages by determining how long visitors spend on each page. For example, if you have a webpage that has a high average time on the page, you may want to make that page more engaging and update it accordingly. However, if your average time on the page is low, this may not be the case. 

The average time on the page is different for every page. A page’s average time on a page can vary dramatically if the page is a landing page, a bridge page, or a password reset page. In general, the average time on the page is greater than the average session duration. Google Analytics offers several reports for measuring time on a page, including the Behavior Overview Report and All Pages Report. 

Bounce rate 

In SEO, bounce rate is one of the most important metrics. Having a high bounce rate may be a sign of issues with your page, including the usability of the content. For instance, your page may not have enough internal links, or the user might feel as though they’re not invited to stay any longer. In this case, you should work to improve the bounce rate by adding relevant content. 

A high bounce rate may be a sign of poor optimization, which means that the site takes too long to load. The ideal loading speed for a website is two seconds or less, and ideally, under three seconds. A website’s page speed is one of the most important ranking factors in Google, so making it as fast as possible will reduce your bounce rate. 

Bounce rate is measured as the percentage of a website’s visitors that leave without viewing another page. The higher the bounce rate, the more it detracts from a website’s ranking on search engines. Although this is an important SEO metric, not all SEO techniques consider it. However, Google uses the bounce rate as a quality test of your website, which means that a high bounce rate is a big negative signal. 

Average session duration 

The average session duration (also known as time on page) of a website’s visitors can provide valuable insights into the behavior of your website visitors. This metric measures the number of time visitors spend on a single page and the effectiveness of the content you create. The longer a user spends on your website, the better because this reflects how well the content is working for them. 

The average session duration varies with each device, but it generally varies between two to four minutes. A typical mobile device user spends about four minutes and 24 seconds on a website, while a tablet user spends six minutes and 38 seconds on a website. According to a recent digital benchmark report published by Contentsquare, average session durations rarely exceed 10 minutes. 

When considering the average session duration, it is important to consider the nature of your website and what you’re trying to accomplish. By understanding your audience’s behavior and the nature of your site, you’ll be able to develop an effective strategy. For example, if your average session duration is high, that indicates your content is engaging and relevant to its audience. On the other hand, if your average session duration is low, your users are not finding your content or engaging with it, which can hurt your SEO efforts.