We are fairly used to terminology that involves the words short and long, such as short haul and long haul flights. Long haul flights mean different things to different people. If you are travelling business class or first class it may mean a champagne dinner followed by a comfy sleep, if you are sat with everyone else it can be a long nightmare. So what does short and long click mean?
Basically it is the duration of time someone spends on your website. The basic principle being that if someone lands on your website and they choose to stay there (long click), this must mean your site has content that is of value to the user. In contrast, if after arriving at your site the user quickly clicks onto another site (short click) they must have assessed your site as fairly irrelevant to their needs.
Google loves long clicks
Having understood the meaning of short and long clicks it is not difficult to see why Google favour long clicks. So then the challenge is how to keep people on your site once they arrive. There are no real short cuts. The basic truth is that you need meaningful and valuable content. The catch 22 of this is that if you have a lot of content on your site that is just text heavy, then even though the content is valuable it could put the user off by appearing boring. So the overall solution must draw on many techniques so as to appeal to the user.
One really good technique you may want to give consideration to is including videos on your website. If a picture speaks a 1000 words, imagine what a video can do. Short, meaningful and attractive videos can really serve you and your website. Plus they can help to convert some of those users who land on your site to becoming long clicks. This is good new for your website!