Tips to Improve Shopify store speed

In the world of online shopping, speed matters!

Customers expect a smooth experience, whether they're shopping on their computer or phone.

Gone are the days of slow internet. Nowadays, people want websites to load quickly, especially on mobile devices.

That's why it's crucial for Shopify store owners to optimize their website speed.

Why is Shopify store speed score important?

Your Shopify speed score directly affects how Google and, more importantly, your customers view your store's performance.

How does it work?

• The Shopify speed report gives you a clear picture of your website's speed based on Google Lighthouse analytics.
  
• Since mobile devices make up 60% of Shopify transactions, the report focuses on how well your store performs on mobile devices. This shows how well your Shopify store is optimized for mobile browsing.
  
• A high Shopify speed score means all customers can access your store quickly, no matter what device or internet connection they have.
  
• Your online shop stands a better chance of keeping potential customers if it loads fast. This boosts the chances of making sales on Shopify.

Why Shopify store might be running slowly

The main reasons for a sluggish Shopify store usually come down to these key factors:

1. Unoptimized Images and Videos: If you have large images or too many videos on your site, it can seriously slow down your store's speed. It's crucial to optimize the size of your images and limit the number of videos you use.
   
2. Unused or Unnecessary Apps: Every app you add to your store impacts its loading speed. If you have apps that you're not using or don't need, it's best to remove them to improve performance.
3. Heavy Fonts and Themes: Using complex fonts or themes with a lot of code can also make your store load slowly. When a user's browser has to process a lot of intricate code or special fonts, it takes longer for your site to load.

By addressing these issues, you can help speed up your Shopify store and provide a better experience for your customers.

Tips of improve Shopify store’s speed

1) Use a fast responsive Theme

When you're selling on Shopify, the theme you choose is super important. It's like the front door of your online store, inviting customers to come in and explore. 

So, it's crucial to pick a theme that matches your brand's style, message, products, and audience.

Look for themes that make your website load fast. Fancy features like sliders, flashy animations, and complex navigation can slow down your site. And as more elements are added, your site may take longer to load.

We strongly recommend testing the theme's preview using Google Page Speed Insights before making your final decision. 

This tool will evaluate your website's performance and give you tips to speed up loading times and improve the overall user experience.

2) Use system font

Many of us have our favorite fonts that we'd love to use on our store. But here's something to consider if your favorite fonts aren't commonly used, it could slow down your store.

When someone visits your site and doesn't have the font you've chosen installed on their device, their device has to download it. 

This can slow down how quickly your pages load, even if it's just for a few milliseconds. To speed up your Shopify store's loading time, you might want to stick with using system fonts. 

These fonts are already installed on most devices worldwide, so there's no need for visitors to download anything extra. This helps your pages load faster and provides a smoother experience for your customers.

3) Remove unnecessary Shopify Apps

It's time to declutter your Shopify apps. Sure, apps can enhance your store with cool features and improvements, but having too many can slow things down.

Think about it: Do you really need all those apps you've installed? Some might just be adding extra weight without adding real value.

Take a moment to identify the essential apps that truly benefit your business. As for the ones that are just adding bells and whistles, it might be time to bid them farewell. It's all about keeping your store running smoothly and efficiently.

4) Optimize image

Improve your Shopify store's image sizes for better performance and presentation. While images play a crucial role in showcasing your products, they can also slow down your website if not optimized properly.

To ensure your customers get the best viewing experience without compromising website speed, focus on optimizing your images. Shopify helps by providing WebP images, which are lighter and load faster when supported by browsers.

To optimize Shopify images effectively:

1. Use the right image sizes to maintain proper proportions.
2. Compress images to reduce file size without sacrificing quality.
3. Ensure your store loads quickly with visually appealing graphics.

By following these steps, you can enhance your store's performance while presenting your products in the best possible light.

5) Avoid Broken links and Redirects

Redirects are like signposts that guide users to a different webpage than the one they clicked on or typed in originally.

You might use redirects when you're combining similar web pages, removing a page, moving your website to a new domain, or shifting a page to a new URL. They can also help you link new content to sites that already rank high on search engines.

However, too many redirects can slow down your store, which isn't ideal. Similarly, having lots of broken links can also affect your site's speed. 

To make sure your website loads quickly and efficiently, it's important to fix any broken links and keep redirects to a minimum.

6) Select the Hero layout carousels and sliders

Opt for a static Hero layout instead of using sliders or carousels on your website's homepage.

While sliders and carousels might seem like a good way to showcase multiple products or elements, they often don't work as well as expected.

Here's why you should avoid sliders and carousels:

1. They tend to have low click-through rates, meaning users are less likely to interact with them.
2. Having multiple images and transitions can slow down the loading time of your website, especially on mobile devices.

Instead, consider using a single, high-resolution image with a clear call to action. This will help your homepage load faster and may even lead to better conversion rates

7) Using lazy loading

You might want to enhance the look of your store even more. To speed up your Shopify store, you can add Shopify lazy loading along with compressing image sizes.

Lazy loading basically means that your customers will only see what they're looking at right now and it will load quickly for them.

Usually, lazy loading is used for showing lower-quality images below the part of the page you can see. Then, as you scroll down, it switches to higher-quality images.

8) AMP implement

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages, a project initially created by Google to speed up and improve mobile web browsing. If you want to make your Shopify site load faster, you have two options:

Use custom coding to create AMP

Creating AMP with custom code is quite complex and requires strong technical skills. You can find more information on implementing alternate liquid templates in Shopify Theme Development. If you're not comfortable with technical tasks, you can hire a freelance developer or Shopify Expert to help you out.

Use an AMP Shopify app

Another simpler option is to use a Shopify app. By using an AMP app, you can boost your store's speed and meet Core Web Vitals requirements without the need for complex coding.

You can’t control Shopify site speed

You can't control everything when it comes to the speed of your Shopify store. There are factors that you simply can't change:

1. Your client's device and internet connection. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about that.
   
2. Content Delivery Network, or CDN. Luckily, Shopify uses a great CDN service called Fastly, which helps with speed.
3. Both server-side and local cache. These are out of your hands.

While this might seem like a downside, it's also a good reason to focus on what you can control and do your best to optimize your Shopify store as much as possible.

Conclusion

Shopify store owners must optimize their website speed to meet these expectations. The Shopify speed score, based on Google Lighthouse analytics, directly impacts how Google and customers perceive a store's performance. Common speed issues include unoptimized images, unused apps, and heavy themes. Optimizing images, avoiding broken links, and selecting efficient layout options further enhance speed. At Tameta Tech, we prioritize store speed to create better shopping experiences for your customers.