How to Optimize a Shopify Site: Complete Guide to Faster Load Speed

by Eva Braughly Freelance Writer/Blogger

Improving the load speed of your Shopify store comes with many benefits.

For one, it can boost search engine optimization, page views, and organic traffic from Google. At the same time, it can enhance the user experience, thus augmenting your conversion rate.

With these benefits, it's important to make your Shopify store performs as quickly as it can.

To do so, you need to:

Optimize Your Images

Good photos are essential for your product pages, but they can be so heavy they affect content loading time.

While you may be tempted to upload subpar images, it's not recommended since they can affect your position in search engines.

That said, the best thing to do is image optimization. To achieve this, you should:

Compress Your Images

This helps reduce image size by removing unnecessary data.

While programs such as TinyPNG and Crush Pics end up reducing the total number of colors needed, they don't produce a noticeable visual difference.

Use the Right Format

Using the right format can make a huge difference in your store's performance.

SVG is the best for graphics as it can be scaled down without affecting the resolution. As such, it should be the format you use for icons and logos.

JPG is the next best thing for photographic files, while PNG should be used if you can't use an SVG file.

Choose a Smaller Image

The image size on the server pertains to the photos' dimensions that are downloaded to the sites.

Unfortunately, some themes use larger sizes, even if the user is viewing your products from a mobile phone.

As this can affect sites’ performance, you should edit your code to load a smaller image. You can also use the srcset code, which is readily available in Turbo themes.

Minimize Server Requests

If your store scored an F in performance, then it means you should set up lazy loading. Instead of loading the pictures immediately, they only do so once the user scrolls down.

This activity, which is also known by the keywords 'defer offscreen images,' can reduce page weight by 10 to 30%.

If your Shopify Store has an F in the number of domains, the primary issue is the unnecessary apps. While they can help you sell more products, they can delay load time.

As such, it's essential to:

●        Uninstall the apps you don't use.

●        Run the analytics of any app you've retained to determine its usefulness.

●        Make sure to check your theme to see if it still loads old app codes. You can find these in the theme.liquid file of your stylesheets and scripts.

●        Merge files, i.e., scripts or StyleSheets.

●        Conditionally load the resources in products where they are needed. As this requires you to edit HTML and liquid code, you need to test it to see if something breaks.

Minify Files

JavaScript and CSS files can affect the performance of your online store. This is why it's crucial to minify such files. That means combining styles, shortening variable names, and removing extra spaces or comments.

If you find it hard to edit code, you can always input the text data to a free File Optimizer. With this, you can minify CSS, JavaScript, and liquid files with just a few clicks.

Optimize Your Site Design

Fast-displaying product content is the key to a good user experience. This, in turn, can boost your Shopify SEO rankings.

To achieve these benefits, you should:

Utilize Heroes Above the Fold

A hero is a banner image situated at the top of your site. This often shows the company's name, products, or services.

It's better to have one image as sliders can affect your Shopify store's performance and SEO.

Limit the Usage of Carousels and Quick-View Features

With a carousel, you can display a new product or content. The downside, however, is that it can affect the performance of certain pages.

To keep your Shopify store performing optimally, limit your usage to just 1-2 carousels.

As for the quick view feature, check if it's coded well. If not, your users will end up experiencing a longer loading time.

Optimize the Technical Aspects of Your Shopify Site

While you can do these by yourself, you can also,ask an expert to perform these Shopify optimizations:

Investigate Bottlenecks

Chrome DevTools or webpagetest.org can help you see the 'waterfall' or how each data loads. Be sure to check for anomalies as they affect your pages' SEO.

Check for Server Errors

Get Chrome DevTools to check your links for server errors. While most of them are innocuous, some could make your product page appear slower.

Compress Files

The analyzer will flag you down whenever an app serves uncompressed files.

You can check each file name for anomalies by using the Gzip Compression feature. While most files are harmless, a size of 50 kB or higher can affect customers' experience and SEO.

Create Asynchronous Scripts

If your text scripts are not vital for online loading, defer them by moving them to the bottom of the page.

You can also get it to load asynchronously so the more important elements are shown to customers quickly.

Optimizing your Shopify site is indeed vital. Its benefits on SEO and Google rankings can help you attract more customers and generate more sales.

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Created on Nov 25th 2020 07:43. Viewed 362 times.

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