most people who click don’t read. In fact, a stunning 55% spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page. The stats get a little better if you filter purely for article pages, but even then one in every three visitors spend less than 15 seconds reading articles they land on.

Articles that were clicked on and engaged with tended to be actual news.

The most clicked on but least deeply engaged-with articles had topics that were more generic.

Research across the Chartbeat network has shown that if you can hold a visitor’s attention for just three minutes they are twice as likely to return than if you only hold them for one minute.

Myth 2: The more we share the more we read

Among articles we tracked with social activity, there were only one tweet and eight Facebook likes for every 100 visitors.

We looked at 10,000 socially-shared articles and found that there is no relationship whatsoever between the amount a piece of content is shared and the amount of attention an average reader will give that content.