5 Efficient Methods to Get Users to Engage and Spend More Time on Your Website Articles

The time a visitor spends on your website, and the way he interacts with it, has a big impact on your rankings. Today I want to show you 5 methods you can use to get visitors to remain on your pages for longer. I’ve been using many of these methods for a few years and, often, they pay off. I’m also going to show you some great examples of how to implement each one.

But first, let’s see why and how time on page influences your rankings in the SERPs.

Why is Time on Page Important?

In November, Google presented in court, in a case against the U.S. Department of Justice, documents explaining some concepts about how they rank pages. One of the concepts presented was entitled “The 3 Pillars or Ranking”. According to this, ranking is based on 3 pillars:

· ‘What the document says about itself’ — or on-page optimization

· ‘What the web says about the document’ — or backlinks and EEAT

· ‘What users say about the document’ — or user interactions

User interactions can be anything from scrolls, highlights, clicks, etc. Google’s document, which you can see in the image below, also mentions ‘entering a new query’. This means that the user still has questions after reading your article, which is a bad thing.

Now that you know why time on page and how users react to your page is important, let’s look at how to improve them.

Embed Videos

Everyone loves to watch videos, so using these is a great strategy to increase your time on page.

A study by Wistia showed that pages with an embedded video have, on average, 1.4X more time on page than pages without. Plus, you also get a click, which is another one of those measured user interactions.

These don’t have to be videos shot by yourself or your brand. Just pick a video from YouTube that is connected to the topic of your article or page that provides enough useful information for your users. In time, if you see that the page gets a lot of traffic, you could consider creating a video yourself.

Infographics

The second type of element you can use to boost engagement is infographics. We live in a world where attention span is decreasing and people are more inclined to look at images rather than read a paragraph, infographics are a great way to condense all the information and give it to the user.

For example, Branton found that infographics can reduce the bounce rate by 12% and the exit rate by 40%. Moreover, one of their clients saw an increase in click-through rate by 26%.

Here is an example of a great infographic on how to recover from burnout on a personal development website. As you can see, the design is rather simple, and in less than a minute you can get all the information you need.

To create an effective infographic, you need to first define its purpose and audience. Based on that, gather all the data you want to use. Lastly, design it using compelling visuals, and don’t forget to have a clear visual hierarchy.

You too can create simple designs like this in Canva. This tool has hundreds of infographic templates to choose from. All you need to do is just change the text.

If you don’t have the time to do it, you can even hire someone on Fiverr to design it. Some people charge only $5 and they will have it ready in less than 24 hours.

Quizzes

Quizzes are probably the most effective forms of interactive content out there. Just look at how popular BuzzFeed became thanks to them. Not only that, but they are a great tool for lead generation.

When doing a quiz, users will spend time reading the questions and answers, not to mention the fact that they will click several times, thus showing Google how engaging your content is. And, once the quiz is over you can even ask the user for his or her email address, which you can later use to sell your products or services.

Here is a great example from Schwab MoneyWise Foundation. The quiz is to determine how good you are with your finances. This quiz is great for 2 reasons, in my opinion. First of all, it’s educational. Second of all, once you’re done, it tells you what to do next and it sends you to other pages of the website, thus increasing engagement further.

This website probably uses a custom Content Management System (CMS) so, unless you have that and access to a web developer, your quizzes will probably have limited functionality.

I generally work with WordPress websites, so I use a plugin to create my quizzes. The best one you can use is Thrive Quiz Builder but it costs $19/year/website. It has a lot of nice features, like A/B testing, multiple types of questions in the same quiz, and tons of analytics. Unless you plan on creating tens of quizzes per year, it’s not worth the money.

The best free choice, in my opinion, is Quiz and Survey Master. While it doesn’t have as many features, it lets you collect emails — which is ultimately what you want.

Tables of Content

The table of contents is probably the easiest element you can incorporate into your article to increase engagement and time on page.

A table of contents helps your visitors scan your article and learn what it’s all about just by reading the names of the subheadings.

I must admit that the table of contents is the first thing I look for on a page and then I use it to navigate to the section I’m interested in. And that’s probably what most users do. Thus, you can get 2 interactions from your users: once when they stop and read it and the second when they click.

Some interesting data shows that just by adding a table of content you can increase time on page by 22%.

Internal links

Lastly, you want to use internal links to guide the user to find other useful information on your website. Remember how Google said that users entering another query is one of the metrics they track?

With internal links, users won’t have to go back to search for additional information because you’ll guide them to it. In order to be efficient, these links need to be placed correctly on your page.

I always try to put my links towards the end of my articles, each of them under a different subheading. This not only makes it easier for a user to discover more information about a topic on my page, but it also helps Google. First of all, it gives the link context. Secondly, these links help you create a silo, which can boost rankings. To find out more, you can check out my guide on internal linking and building a silo.

Take advantage of Positioning

No, before we end this article, here’s one additional tip that has to do with where you place these elements.

On all my articles, I try to position these to begin close to the bottom of the screen. This way, the user, will see only part of the element and scroll down to see the full thing. You can do this with a table of contents as well since many blogs use this element. This is probably the simplest way for you to make them interact with your article.

If you want to implement this strategy, here’s how you do it.

Most searches come from mobile phones, so the first thing you need to do is find out which are the most popular phones in the country you are targeting.

Let’s take the US as an example. According to Statista, in June, the iPhone 14 was the most popular (19% of the users), followed by the iPhone 14 Pro (12%).

Here’s a screenshot of what an article from Ahrefs looks like on an iPhone 14. As you can see, the start of the table of contents appears above the fold. Now doesn’t that make you want to scroll down to read the rest of it and see what the article is about?

Now, you can even go one step further. You can try to break up all, or most of your article, this way.

Loading Speed — The Biggest Enemy of Time on Page

I’ve shared with you 5 methods to increase time on page. But you should also know that these methods won’t help you if your website has a slow loading speed. A website that loads slowly has a higher bounce rate, which means that users leave the site before engaging with than fully.

Data gathered by Section shows that, for example, a website with a 2 second load speed has a bounce rate of 9.6%, while one that loads in 7 seconds has a bounce rate of 32.3%.

To learn how to test your website loading speed, and how to optimize it, check out this guide I wrote.

Conclusion

In conclusion, these 5 strategies can help you boost user engagement and time spent on your website, crucial for enhancing search engine rankings

First, add embed videos relevant to your content, as they significantly increase time on page. Second, use infographics to visually present information, catering to the decreasing attention spans of modern users. Third, engage your audience by using interactive quizzes, and don’t forget to use them for lead generation as well. Fourth, include a table of contents in your articles, which helps users navigate your content more efficiently. Fifth, strategically place internal links to keep users on your site, reducing the need for additional queries.

Lastly, keep in mind that the positioning of these elements is vital, especially for mobile users.

However, none of these strategies will be effective if your website suffers from slow loading speeds. Prioritize improving your site’s loading time to prevent high bounce rates and ensure these engagement strategies are successful.

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