In today’s digital landscape, capturing and retaining reader attention is more challenging than ever.

How challenging?

Consider that a Chartbeat analysis of more than 300 million first-time visits across news and media sites showed that 86% of new visitors don’t return in the next seven days.

While that may be a startling statistic, the data is also clear about the good news: deeper, more engaged visits lead to higher return rates.

To help you develop a clearer understanding of the audience behaviours that result in repeat visits, let’s unpack the signals that matter — number of pages viewed, scroll depth, engaged time, and content type — and review tactical ways to turn casual visitors into loyal readers.

Encourage deeper visits

While engagement is our North Star at Chartbeat, when it comes to returning visitors, pages viewed is the most influential metric.

Those who view just one page on their first visit return at a rate of just 8%. For visitors who viewed an additional page, however, their return rate jumps up to 22%, making them 2.75x likelier to come back. Beyond two pages, return rates continue to increase, but the relative change in return rate starts to plateau after this mark.

Two ways to encourage deeper visits

1. A/B test headlines and images to find winning combinations. On average, testing headlines and images together increases quality clicks 3x more than testing headlines alone.
2. Take cues from high recirculation pages on your Web site. Other industries may also offer inspiration as previous research shows that financial and sports content has higher recirculation than news and media or arts and entertainment.

Increase engagement

Increased engaged time is another metric that corresponds to increased return rate.

Compared to pages viewed, the effect is more linear but less immediate. To match the 22% return rate from viewing just two pages, for example, users need to stay for 2.5 minutes. That’s a lot to ask on the first visit, considering the average engaged time in the first quarter of 2025 was just 28 seconds, but there are additional benefits to increasing reader engagement.

Two ways to increase engaged time

1. Use real-time data to see which stories drive quality views and which don’t. Give better positioning and promotional resources to the stories proven to engage new readers.
2. Research shows that engagement increases as word count increases, especially from zero to 2,000 words. If certain topics are underperforming, try a more in-depth approach that incorporates previous coverage to provide greater context to the current event.

Promote deeper scrolling

In general, deeper scrolling also equates to a higher return rate. Those who scroll 25%-35% of the total page return at around our benchmark rate of 14%, but the relative change on return rate diminishes quickly past this point.

Because we know that scrolling deeply on one page can limit time spent on additional pages, let’s also look at scroll ratio in conjunction with pages per session. Even with a minimal amount of scrolling, one additional pageview increases the return rate from 5% to 15%. At five pages, this jumps up to 28%.

Two ways to increase scroll depth

1. Optimise for mobile. Three out of four articles are now read on mobile devices. Make sure that formatting appropriately accounts for these smaller screens.
2. Experiment with layout. Move images and reformat headlines to make it easier for readers to reach the body text.

Diversify content formats

When we analyse return rate by the type of content a visitor lands on first, it’s clear the home page is the best place to send new visitors. Forty-six percent of those who land here first return within seven days. Other content types with high rates of return are games (39%) and section pages (35%).

Two ways to use different content formats to your advantage

1. Optimise experiences for continued engagement beyond the home page. Now that we’ve confirmed the importance of the home page, that doesn’t mean you should drive all traffic there and call it a day. It means optimising story position in real time to make sure new visitors are visiting additional pages and becoming even likelier to return.
2. Use live blogs to entice new visitors to return. This format is a great vehicle for acquiring traffic, and getting these readers to view one additional page increases their likelihood of returning to 59%.

The playbook for increasing return visits

Already thinking of ways to incorporate this information in your newsroom?

Here’s a recap of the four most important findings:

• Increasing pages per visit is our strongest indicator of return. Visiting two pages increases the return rate from 9% to 22%.

• Of visitors who engage for 25 seconds, only 9% return. At 75 seconds, 14% return. And, at 125 seconds, the return rate is 22%.

• Visitors who scroll through the first third of a page are more likely to return than those who don’t.

• Forty-six percent of first-time visitors who enter on the home page return within seven days.

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