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Semalt: Get Better Ratings Through CTR And Dwell Time 


Were you thinking of giving up? Or you're frustrated that your website isn't doing great. On the journey to success, this is normal. As a company, Semalt has seen many clients walk into our doors or create accounts on our website frustrated because their websites aren't doing great.  

With a few words of encouragement from our team and a couple of weeks on our packages, they experience significant changes in their opinion of the internet. Then they come back with great smiles, all happy because they trusted us.  

So do you have a problem with getting the internet to notice your website? It will surprise you that not every site has been discovered by Google. This means that those websites will never be found on a search engine, except the user knows the specific website. Now you don't want that to be you.

You want your website to be on the first page, graciously carrying the crown of first place when your keywords are searched. This sounds great, but getting it isn't easy. You will need a professional like Semalt to help you get there. One of the ways we do this is by improving your CTR and Dwell time. 

The CTR


Figuring out why you aren't getting clicks can be tricky. After all, there are so many things that could be wrong. Your competition then reminds you that hiding a dead body is on Google's second page, and that's where your website falls. It is painful. Well, one of the reasons why this could be happening is because of your CTR.

What are click-through rates (CTR)

Click-Through Rate is used to show the ratio of users who click on a specific link to the number of users who view that page. This can also apply to clicks on an ad or email. CTR is used to evaluate how successful your advertising campaign is going. As a result, better ranking pages have better Click-Through Rates. But bear in mind that this isn't the only factor that attracts links. If you take a tour of the Semalt website, you will find other factors that affect the traffic on your website.  

Why are CTRs important?

Search engines place good Click-Through Rates close to their heart. The reason for this covers many factors, but many believe it because these engines have begun running paid traffic. What this means is that websites buy their spot on the first page. However, this isn't advisable because many times, once you run out of cash to fund the paid ranking, your website has no other option than to revert to organic SEO. So you're likely to find your website ranking low again. CTRs are important to these search engines because they run a pay per click model. This means that the more users click, the more money the search engine makes. 

So if our Semalt ad had 1,000 impressions and it has one click, that means you have 0.1% CTR. This result shows you how effectively your advertisement is going. You will know whether or not your target audience is finding your ads to be relevant. 
  • A high CTR means your ads are considered highly relevant by your audience. 
  • Low CTR means your audience finds your ads to be less relevant. 
The goal of any ad campaign is to get qualified and interested users to come to your website and perform certain functions. If you own an online store, you want your visitors to make purchases or fill out registration forms. 

In improving your CTR, the first thing you need to do is improve your ad relevance. To do this, you need to look at the location of these ads and your target audience. 

Having a good CTR

We've mentioned what high CTR means, but is that the same as having a good CTR? This question is very common and valid if you plan on learning as much as you can. At Semalt, we believe that information is power, so we encourage you to ask us questions when you feel left in the dark. After all, we are in this together.

The answer, however, depends on some factors such as
  • Your industry 
  • The set of keywords you're bidding on 
  • Individual campaigns 
To have a good CTR, you need to have a relevant ad campaign that carries meaning to your intended viewers. Inevitably this results in high CTR rates, which are great. Also, you should remember that having a low CTR rate means your quality score will be low, and Google wouldn't give you the benefit of the doubt, even with new ad campaigns. 

This is why you need to hire professionals to help you get good CTR and high scores. This is very important because when Google notices that your conversion rates are high, it automatically places your ads high when keywords are searched. 

Dwell time 


As a website owner, you don't just want to see your website on the first page, you also need it to be good enough your readers actually stay to see the content you've created. At Semalt, we like to believe that dwell time is the truth serum of your website's performance. Putting aside how much traffic you get, Dwell time shows you whether or not your content is relevant. 

This is arguable the most important feature many web analysts fail to measure. Simply put, dwell time is the actual length of time a visitor spends on your page. This data is important because it shows you the website owner whether or not the visitor stayed long enough to consume the content on the page before leaving or performing another action on the site.  

Now you may be getting confused because if you've read our article on bounce rate, you may think there's a contradiction somewhere. Well, we are not. To make you understand the difference, we will be explaining the difference between bounce rate and actual bounce rate.

For Google analytics to know the exact time spent on a page, it needs two clicks, the entry click, and the exit click. However, if a visitor enters a page and spends 5 seconds then goes out, it is considered an actual bounce rate. This is because it's clear that the window of time is too little to consume the information that was on that page. Which means the visitor knew that the page wasn't what he or she wanted. 

However, if a visitor spends 25 minutes on a webpage with very long content, it is not an actual bounce. This is because the visitor is considered to have been reading the content during that time, and when they leave, they leave delighted and not angry like in the case of actual bounce. 

This is one of the reasons why dwell time is so important. It works well in showing the quality of content your webpage has.

Is Dwell time a ranking signal? 

This question has been debated at length since the beginning of SEOs. In an effort not to tip the scale in any direction, Google has remained tightly lipped about any specific metric or algorithm in its system that uses this data. However, the removal and introduction of some features indicate that dwell time indeed matters.  

How to increase dwell time

The simple answer to this is hiring Semalt. The more complex answer is you should hire Semalt to provide you with top quality content. There is no magic bullet or internet hack when it comes to increasing your dwell time, but we have some techniques that could help your visitors find your website more appealing.  

Produce better content


Like we've said, your content is the best way to get your viewers to stay. The fact is nobody will stay to read what you have if its crap. 
Whatever your website displays, it should be 
  • Useful 
  • Entertaining 
  • Accessible 
Once your content meets all these conditions, you can expect your viewers to hang around longer.

Use stronger and more logical internal links.

Since dwell time is measured between the time a user logs in a site and the time they leave, you can make them stay longer by viewing different contents on your website. By placing links for additional action, your visitors experience a better time and stay longer. Internal linking also ensures that search engine crawlers find every page on your website. 

Adopt better engagement tactics 

If your viewers arrive only to leave in a short while, it's probably because your engagement tactics aren't so great. By suggesting relevant videos, or content, you're providing them with a strong incentive to remain on your site. This tactic is very effective if implemented accurately. Your dwell time depends on your ability to keep your audience scrolling through your website. It all boils down to how well you carry your audience along. Sometimes, you can have not so great content but because your engagement tactic is so great, your audience hangs on longer.

Well, Semalt does this to help your reader's not just stay longer, but scroll through as many pages as you're willing to have on your site.