Counting Conversions by "Time on Page"

[Marty Foley]

Though not always the case, there's often a correlation between conversion rates and the time a user spends on a page or website. The more time they spend, the "quality" of the visitor tends to be higher and the more likely they'll take action that benefits you.

What's more, not all conversions are easily associated with measurable actions taken in a browser.

So it can be beneficial to count conversions by "time on page." In other words, count a conversion when a user spends over a certain minimum amount of time on a given web page. (Good web analytics tools can provide "time on page" metrics for you.)

For example, it can be used to determine how many users stay on a page long enough to watch all of a video on your site (which could be counted as a conversion), versus how many bail out prematurely.

This can be especially useful if you have low levels of traffic and aren't getting a lot of users through your conversion funnel.

Marty Foley