Engagement Metrics Replace Pageviews, Uniques

All traffic is not created equal; click data tell you if your headlines are enticing, but fall short of measuring actual engagement (1/3 of visitors leave without any signs of engagement). Visitors who do engage with content for at least three minutes return twice as often as those who read for just one minute. The figure below by Chartbeat shows the relationship between the maximum amount of time visitors spent reading articles one day and if they returned to the site the following week:

Measuring quality of content across the Web tells publishers if people are reading, not simply clicking.