More important... time on landing pages vs time on internal pages?

[LostOne]

Time on page from search (landing page), or time on page from within the site? I’m seeing a good number of pages on one site that shows time on page from search being dismal, yet the numbers from those that find the page through the site are good.

Example: () = visitors

Blue widgets- search/landing page (88) 0:23 time spent
Blue widgets- all pages (103) 1:53 time spent

I’m almost tempted to dump some pages that show horrible user numbers from search, because we don’t have a clue what is more important, or do we?

[Robert Charlton]

After the landing pages... did visitors return to the serps, or did they move on to other pages?

[viral]

Dont just dump 301 redirect to a more relevant page!

[lucy24]

The numbers from search include the people who simply weren't looking for what's on your site, no matter how brilliant the site is. G### has been trying hard (see approximately 18,000 recent threads) but so far they can't truly read the searcher's mind.

The internal numbers will always be higher because they've filtered out the people who didn't want to be there. You could even argue that the bigger the differential, the better. Three seconds to decide whether they're on the right site; three hours to settle in and read every word.

[LostOne]

Written before Lucy…agreed Lucy…but….trying to improve…possible?

Page views work? In the original example I see 1.2 page views per visitor with those coming from search. I’m not doing 301’s but have been consolidating a number of pages that show less than 60 seconds time on landing page. Most of the consolidation makes sense but not others as I’m finding it hard to place them somewhere that is in context.

Others… Time / page views per visitor / existing visitors

0:38 - PVV 1.2 - found on site 1:58
0:43 - PVV 1.3 - found on site 2:57
0:45 - PVV 1.2 - found on site 4:00
0:47- PVV 1.4 - found on site 3:03
0:48 - PVV 1.4 - found on site 1:56
0:51 - PVV 1.7 - found on site 1:04
0:58 - PVV 1.5 - found on site 1:46

I have images visible above the fold that help in describing the page content, and they’re not general vanilla stock photos either. Most of my content deals with doing things with your hands (job sites/construction). I also use headings to organize (attract eyes) the content throughout the page. Title tags are descriptive as well.

I can see why some landing page numbers are low by study of my traffic over the last ten years. Many of these subject pages did not exist 7 or 8 years ago. But we know what’s happened since. Many armchair experts came out of the woodwork, by way of spinning content etc. I’m thinking it has to do with this..

[webmasterworld.com...]

msg:4501296

Comments?

[Zivush]

I'd try to locate images below the fold with some intro words before. It could be that readers get confused, staring at the ATF image and get stuck before bouncing off.

[LostOne]

Images float right within body of text. 250 words plus or minus above the fold

[Zivush]

OK.
Might be something with the navigation. Readers struggle to find the navigation area and leave before.

[LostOne]

Yes. Been giving that quite a bit of thought and something Robert brought to mind not long ago. Related page links in an inveted L navigation. I'll get that going and check the numbers once again. Part of many on a list I've been working on the last few weeks.

[Zivush]

Forgot to mention that the loading time could be a negative factor (especially for a new visitor versus those already on the site) - check the Time to First Byte(TTFB)?

Time to first byte (TTFB) is the time it takes for a browser to start receiving information after it has start to make the request to the server. In some situations, as much as 75% of the time spent loading a page can be taken up by waiting for the first byte of data to arrive. You can test your time to first byte by using services like Byte Check or Load Impact.


* Have you cached your site effectively?
* Have you minimized the size of the images? there are free online tools to minimize image volume without losing quality.
Look for: JPEG optimizer or PNG optimizer.

[Zivush]

P.S. - Have you cached your site effectively including expiration date for static pages such as, images, js, xml etc.

[LostOne]

That’s fairly interesting. I generally keep up on site speed, images, and so forth. Least I’m better than many I see in the industry where a few actually have 2-3 gigs of images on some of their pages. I know of several I won’t even go to anymore because I have too much difficulty viewing them on a DSL connection. They have that wow, eye candy factor. Never looked at byte check until now (normal), but I don’t think that’s the issue. It doesn’t jive with other pages, only a select few.