Bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who leave your web page without taking any action – clicking a link on it, or making any purchase<\/strong>. What’s even worse is that this experience sticks, and they are unlikely to ever return to this web page. So keeping your bounce rates low is crucial for all of the following reasons:<\/p>\n\n\n\n A high bounce rate usually means that your website\u2019s content and\/or design is not relevant or appealing to your users, which will ultimately hurt your online business goals. Here are some of the main things that can lead to higher bounce rates on your website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The average bounce rate depends on the industry and type of website that you have. According to Custom Media Labs, here are the benchmarks for high-low bounce rates:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can monitor and analyze your bounce rates and other important statistics by using tools like Google Analytics. You can even migrate to Google Analytics 4<\/a> in order to be in line with the latest version.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There’s an important distinction between bounce rate and exit rate. Exit rate is the percentage of people who leave your website from a certain web page, after they have visited a number of pages on your website. For instance, a visitor may land on a blog post article on your site, in which case they click an internal link in that blog post that leads them to another blog post. Then, they exit that second blog post, which will increase this blog page\u2019s exit rate. On the contrary, bounce rate will mean that a visitor closed that same page they\u2019ve initially landed on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A high exit rate isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing. There are two main factors to consider when making conclusions about your exit rate \u2013 the type of web page and the average time on the web page. For instance, if you have an online store and your \u201cThank you\u201d page (the one appearing to your visitors, after they\u2019ve made a purchase) has a high exit rate \u2013 that\u2019s good, because it means that many people have completed a purchase. If it\u2019s another type of page, e.g. a landing page with your products and visitors still spend lots of time on it, but the exit rate is high \u2013 this could mean that you have some UX design issues on this particular page. If a blog post page exit rate is high, but average time on page is high too \u2013 this means visitors are engaged with your content and it\u2019s still a good sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A high bounce rate, however, is something you need to worry about, and take action to keep as low as possible. Let\u2019s explore what you, as a website owner, can do to reduce your bounce rates:<\/p>\n\n\n\n If your website takes more than 3 seconds to start loading, chances are that your visitors won\u2019t wait for it \u2013 they\u2019ll leave and move on to another website. To avoid that, you should make sure your website loads as fast as possible. Here are some basic, plus advanced tips on how you can optimize your website performance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use a CDN<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Enabling a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is an important factor that can speed up your website. A CDN keeps copies of your website on servers in different locations around the world. Then, when a user requests to view your website, the CDN makes sure that the content is served to your visitors from a server that\u2019s close to them. This makes it possible for your website to load faster upon user\u2019s request, especially for your international visitors. Enable Website Caching<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Caching is a powerful technology that can speed up your website. It stores copies of your data in the server memory which then serves this content to your users faster. In this way, your users can access your website and files much faster, as it won\u2019t be necessary to fetch them anew, but rather take them from this cached memory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SiteGround clients leverage our powerful caching technology<\/a>, built in-house on three levels \u2013 NGINX Direct Delivery for caching static content, Dynamic Cache for caching dynamic content and Memcached for object caching (caching database queries). All three in power can speed up websites up to 5 times!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Optimize your website code and media<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n To further speed up your website, you can consider a few other techniques as well. First, compress large images and videos (without compromising their quality). This will make your web pages load faster and improve your overall website performance. Next, make sure to combine (combine multiple files into one to reduce number of requests) and minify (remove all unnecessary characters) CSS and JavaScript files. Thirdly, remove all unnecessary plugins on your website, as they slow it down. Even if they\u2019re just deactivated, they can still cause slow loading times, so make sure to delete them completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Use fast MySQL setup<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you have a growing database on your website, your website will need to handle a number of requests to fetch data from this database upon users\u2019 requests. This could cause heavy MySQL queries which significantly slow down your TTFB (Time to First Byte) and affect your overall website performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All SiteGround clients benefit from our custom MySQL setup<\/a>, enabled by default, which allows for the simultaneous processing of a large number of requests which in turn brings down the number of slow queries between 10 and 20 times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Make sure your PHP is fast<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s crucial that your website runs on the latest and fastest PHP version. Not only that, but you also need to make sure that your web server is handling that PHP version in the most efficient way in order to improve your overall website performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n SiteGround clients have the advantage of our custom ultrafast PHP setup<\/a> (available on GrowBig and GoGeek plans) that uses less server memory, which in turn allows the server to process a bigger number of queries faster. In this way, our ultrafast PHP setup cuts TTFB and makes web pages load 30% faster on average, compared to a standard PHP setup. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep tabs on your website speed <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last but not least, it\u2019s important to keep an eye on your website speed on a regular basis. Run regular speed tests on your websites with online tools at least once a month. When you see some worrying results, take immediate action to improve the relevant areas. However, given the fact that this is yet another thing you need to take care of, keep in mind that it might take you much time, effort and money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SiteGround clients have the unique opportunity to receive free monthly performance reports<\/a>, straight into their inboxes. Our monthly performance reports provide our clients with useful information about their website speed status in different categories (e.g. cache ratio, CDN usage, WordPress optimization, etc.) in an easy-to-read format, including actionable tips for areas that might need improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In case your website is WordPress-based, there are some extra steps that you can take to ensure your WordPress application runs as fast as possible. We’ve summarized the best WordPress Website Speed Optimization Tips and Tricks<\/a>, and added some more expert tips on optimizing your WordPress website<\/a> on our blog.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can check off most of the tips and tricks outlined in both of these articles with a single plugin – the SiteGround Speed Optimizer plugin<\/a>, free and available for all WordPress users, regardless of your hosting platform. The plugin provides you with multiple features, divided into the most important categories for your website \u2013 powerful caching (to reduce your site TTFB), frontend optimizations (to keep your website HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files and fonts optimized), media optimizations (to optimize your site media without compromising on quality), and environment optimizations (to manage your site resource usage and save bandwidth).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another important step you need to take is making your website mobile-friendly. A lot of the traffic to your site will come from mobile devices, so you need to make sure that your site is responsive. Check whether fonts, large images and videos, and other important elements work well on mobile. Your website\u2019s mobile version should be easy to navigate from your users, giving them the content or information they need quickly and concisely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Landing pages are the first thing users see when they land on your website. Make them catchy, appealing and engaging. Keep your landing pages straight to the point, with focused content, and clear CTAs. They should be navigable and readable. Include appealing and appropriate visuals, such as images and short videos. Make your landing pages correspond with the needs of your audience. If your audience is diverse, make sure to create multiple landing pages for different groups of users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/span>What factors influence your website bounce rate<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>What is a good bounce rate and how to figure out yours<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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<\/span>Bounce rate vs. Exit rate<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>How to reduce your website bounce rate<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>1. Improve your web page load speed<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
SiteGround has its own, in-house developed SiteGround CDN<\/a> which comes with free and premium plans, it\u2019s easy-to-use and navigate, and ensures blazingly-fast page loading times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/academy.siteground.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/CDN_1480x580-1024x374.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/academy.siteground.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/Hosting_1480x580-1024x475.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\nSpeed up your WordPress website<\/h4>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/academy.siteground.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/08\/Speed_1480x580-1024x401.jpg\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/span>2. Optimize your website for mobile<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>3. Design appealing landing pages<\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n