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Increase the time visitors spend on your site...

by WillR
19 replies
  • SEO
    • |
It's a well known fact that Google looks at the amount of time the average visitor spends on your site and this forms one part of their ranking algorithm. Obviously the more time people spend on a site the more relevant that information was to the search query. So it just make sense they would use this as a measure of a sites relevance.

I visit so many sites nowadays where when you click on a banner ad or text link for an external site, those links open up in the same browser window. What this means is your visitor has now been taken to another web site and is no longer on yours and the time spent on your site has also ceased.

Why not instead have your external links open up in a new tab/window? This means your visitors can still go and visit the other website but whilst they are doing that they also remain on your own site in the background which also increases the time spent on your site.

It's also very UNLIKELY that when you send someone to an external site, they will later return to yours. But if your site is still open in the background then once they are done looking at that other site, they still have your website staring them right in the face.

Opening links in a new window is very easy to do.

A regular link looks like this:

<a href="http://www.google.com">Click Here</a>

To open the link in a new window we simply add the target tag...

<a target="_blank" href="http://www.google.com">Click Here </a>
#increase #site #spend #time #visitors
  • Profile picture of the author Dennisknows
    Dude I've been saying this for over a year now. Not for the Google reason but it definitely makes sense to keep someone on your site. sending them to an affiliate offer, they may forget about you. I want them to see my site when they close out the other sites.

    One of my sites is operating at an average of 8 minutes on-site time with around 40% bounce rate. I think that's pretty good. I have all external links opening to new pages... I see my site being an authority site soon

    But I think it's because my site offers services and I provide a lot of information...

    Great stuff though...

    Dennis
    The Marketing Menace
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by Dennisknows View Post

      One of my sites is operating at an average of 8 minutes on-site time with around 40% bounce rate. I think that's pretty good. I have all external links opening to new pages... I see my site being an authority site soon
      Dennis,

      They are definitely solid stats. 8 minutes is a good length given the attention span of the average person nowadays.

      You are obviously giving people what they want which is the key.
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  • Profile picture of the author salegurus
    Good advice Will, i have been doing it for a long time. If memory serves i picked up the tip from one of Mark Ling's earlier courses...
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  • Profile picture of the author SarahZT
    Excellent tips Will! I've been using these strategies ever since I started building affiliate sites over 10 years ago. I never wanted to 'let go' of visitors I work so hard to land on my site, so I always set external links to open in a new window
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  • Profile picture of the author mrozlat
    exactly, it's not just far average time sent on site data, but once they visit an affiliate link or an external link you want them to come back and sign up to a list or read some more articles or buy some more products
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  • Profile picture of the author icemonkey9
    I'd say that it all definitely depends on the niche and other factors. I'm definitely impressed by the fact you have a bounce rate of 40% and 8 minutes!! I felt awful that my gaming news website would have a bounce rate of 75% and an average stay of 2.5 minutes... until I did some comparisons against some other guys I knew running sites similar to mine (niche, size, traffic) and I ended up being better than all of them. It just taught me niche really can be a big factor. In the end - it's all about conversions.
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  • Profile picture of the author tofrar
    Don't forgot to have some photo on your blog. You will bee surprise to see how they can affect how long visitor stay on your website.

    I did test on post few month ago,
    Before photo less then minute
    After uploading 6 photo to article ( 700 word) 8 minute
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by tofrar View Post

      Don't forgot to have some photo on your blog. You will bee surprise to see how they can affect how long visitor stay on your website.

      I did test on post few month ago,
      Before photo less then minute
      After uploading 6 photo to article ( 700 word) 8 minute
      Yes! Photos and videos are obviously a great way to keep people engaged with a site and reduce the bounce rate. Photos evoke emotion so it's likely those photos made people want to read your article.
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  • Profile picture of the author jakejoh10
    Great advice.

    I've been doing this intuitively for a while. Like you said, if you send a visitor somewhere else, they probably won't come back.

    Jake
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  • Profile picture of the author davegarcia939
    This is one of the best way to reduce the bounce rate. I am using this target="_blank" on all of the external links in my sites. Also On-Site Linking work fine to increase average on-site time.
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  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
    Why would opening an external link in a new window decrease bounce rate?

    Assume Google is getting its stats because a person is using their Chrome web browser.

    Visitor is on your website visiting yoursite.com.

    Visitor clicks a link and is now on another site: anothersite.com

    They have still left your site even if a window to your site is still open.

    I don't see how that fools anyone. A different url has been sent to Google, in fact a different url on an active window Visitor is now browsing.


    Similarly, why not link to an external site but then pop-under another window to your site? Then you would still have an open window with your url.

    Ultimately, is there any study saying this actually works?

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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by kindsvater View Post

      Why would opening an external link in a new window decrease bounce rate?
      Please re-read the initial post.

      No one every mentioned bounce rate.

      We are talking about the time spent on a site. If you are still on a site then you are still on a site (whether in your active browser window or not). This increases the time people spend on your site, obviously.

      Originally Posted by kindsvater View Post

      I don't see how that fools anyone. A different url has been sent to Google, in fact a different url on an active window Visitor is now browsing.
      No one said anything about fooling anyone. How is this fooling anyone? It is just a smarter way of linking to external sites because you keep people on your own site whilst they view any external links. Does Facebook open their links in an external window? You bet ya, they aren't stupid. They understand this increases the time people spend on your site.

      Originally Posted by kindsvater View Post

      Similarly, why not link to an external site but then pop-under another window to your site? Then you would still have an open window with your url.
      That would be silly and pointless because it's not keeping the people on your site is it? It would be taking them away from your site and then loading your site again so the time spent on site would be refreshed. So this would not increase the time people spend on your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author ejullya
    This is good tip. Honestly, I would have thought that everyone would be using it especially with wordpress where the hyperlinking automatically asks you whether you want the links to open in a new window. But I guess not.

    I have learned about it a few years back and all my links ( except a couple of banners that I can't figure out) open in a new window. I am noticing that the average time on my site is 20 minutes and my bounce rate is under 1 minute. So perhaps this factor also contributes to my results
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  • Profile picture of the author kpoint
    Good point, keeping your visitors on your site is very important to your rankings with google. They use the amount of time spent on your site as a test of your contents relevants.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    Offer helpful articles about the topics related to your niche. Make the articles section obvious on your site, and people will stick around for a LONG time reading your helpful articles (with links back to your sales page). This is a great way to increase the amount of time that visitors and email subscribers spend on your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author dbrwn
    Personally I wouldn't want people to leave my site at all. That is why I don't place ads or links to other sites on my own sites. I want to keep the reader there for as long as possible without having them leave to another site.

    I woldn't recommend placing links to other sites, or ads on your site because of that very reason. If you want to keep the reader on your site then you must keep them engaged and interested by providing information that they will want to read, listen to or view.
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    • Profile picture of the author WillR
      Originally Posted by dbrwn View Post

      I woldn't recommend placing links to other sites, or ads on your site because of that very reason. If you want to keep the reader on your site then you must keep them engaged and interested by providing information that they will want to read, listen to or view.
      That's fine. But you'll find a lot of people create sites for the purpose of advertising revenue. You'll also find a lot of smart people who use banners and links on their sites but the sites and products those people are sent to are just other sites they own. No point keeping people on your site forever if they never make you any money.
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  • Profile picture of the author mstrmindmktg
    I totally agree with this strategy. Why purposely have people leave your site? It actually really bothers me when I am on a site and click a link and the new site replaces the one I am on. Many times I will - instead of click directly on the link - right click and choose "Open link in new tab" so I don't lose the site I'm on.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    I always open external links in a new tab/window, that way traffic can easily get back to my page.

    I don't ever recommend opening internal links in a new tab/window, that would be a bad user experience.
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