Average Time On Site Is A Very Important Metric
January 16, 2008 – 10:18 amIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
These days, Google knows as much about a website as its’ creator, or close to. If you have your website in Google Analytics, Google tracks every minute detail they can about your website’s visitors. To Google, certain factors mean a website is quality, and I’m sure one that is becoming progressively important as the web moves to Ajax is Average Time On Site.
The nice thing about Average Time On Site is it’s an easy metric to understand. The longer you can extend the time spent, the better it will be for you website, overall. This is one way to know that your users are engaged with your website. They are actively doing something, or researching, or whatever the point of the site is. They are consuming your website with interest.
If your Average Time on Site numbers are low, you can take steps to involve users more. Offer them more information, related links, or whatever it is that will make them stay for a few more visits.
Essentially, you know Google cares about this analytic metric, because they track it. Therefore, it makes no sense to ignore it as potential ranking factor, either. It certainly makes common sense. If I were to rank the quality of a website, I’d wonder if they had active and engaged users or whether everybody was a “one hit wonder”. But more importantly than Google, even, you want to extend the Average Time on Site because it means users are finding your website worthwhile and using it.
In the end, having a content base of visitors who come back is always a good thing.
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4 Responses to “Average Time On Site Is A Very Important Metric”
OK, so what is considered poor, good and excellent time spent on a web site from the perspective of the web site owner? My average is almost five minutes. How would that rate?
By will daly on Jan 21, 2008
Good questions, Will. It definitely depends on the nature of the website. A forum will have a much longer average times than many other websites. 5 minutes on a static website would probably be considered a very decent time. Couple that with a good number of pageviews, and it shows your audience is engaged.
By Darren McLaughlin on Jan 21, 2008
Nice post. I wonder how we can get out hands on this metric, to check to see how long our visitors are on our site for. Is this information readily available. I’ve just found my PR has jumped to 4, which I’m excited about, would love to get it to a 5!
By Shelley on Jan 21, 2008
Thanks Shelley. This metric is contained in your Google Analytics account. There is a wealth of other info in there, as well. Congrats on your PageRank increase.
By Darren McLaughlin on Jan 21, 2008