While Shopify speed optimization can be costly, so it is essential to know how to balance expenses and benefits. Below we show a few ways to upgrade your Shopify website without any assistance and additional costs significantly.
Before diving into improving your site's performance, it’s important to understand its current store speed. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, Lighthouse, Pingdom, WebPageTest or Shopify’s Speed Report to monitor your ecommerce website performance.
Two key metrics used to evaluate website performance are the Google PageSpeed score, which shows how Google rates your site, and the actual load speed, which GTmetrix measures in detail.
Google PageSpeed Insights Tool
Google PageSpeed Insights is a website performance monitoring tool, that gives separate scores for mobile and desktop. It also provides recommendations to help improve loading times. Since its integration with Google Lighthouse, the tool now provides more detailed and accurate insights on store speed, making it even more effective for diagnosing issues.
Lighthouse
Lighthouse is an open-source tool from Google that provides a comprehensive analysis of your website’s performance. You can use the Google Chrome Lighthouse tool locally in the DevTools panel of the Audit tab. Lighthouse evaluates key aspects of your site, including performance, accessibility, SEO, and overall site speed.
GTmetrix Speed Test
GTmetrix also provides you with many reports and detailed explanations of your store performance. You can run different tests and get useful recommendations concerning waterfall charts, timings, etc. for optimizing performance.
Pingdom for E-Commerce Website Optimization
Pingdom monitors website speed and uptime, providing easy-to-read performance reports and insights to improve user experience.
WebPageTest
It offers in-depth performance tests, including the time it takes for your online store to load from different locations and on various devices.
Shopify Speed Optimization Approach
When you run Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and other tools you get a lot of recommendations. However, don't try and heed them all. Let's see how we can receive more by doing less.
Minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML with Speed Optimization Expert
Tools will offer to eliminate render-blocking resources. It means you have to move all CSS and JS to the bottom of the page. However, if you do that, the page layout will break while loading, and JS may also crash. You will probably spend a lot of time trying to fix it, so, obviously, it is not the best move.
Instead, focus on modification first. Minification removes unnecessary characters from your code without affecting its functionality. Use tools or apps to minify your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files, reducing their size and improving load times.
Leverage Browser Caching with Shopify Store Built-In Tools
Browser caching helps returning visitors load your website faster by storing elements like images, JavaScript, and CSS in their browser cache for quick retrieval. Shopify provides built-in speed optimization features to enhance caching and site performance:
Browser Caching: Shopify automatically stores some of your site’s content, such as images and code, in users’ browsers. This allows returning visitors to experience faster load times, as they don’t need to re-download the content. However, caching for third-party resources cannot be adjusted.
Content Delivery Network (CDN): Shopify uses the Fastly CDN, which distributes your site’s content across servers worldwide. By reducing the physical distance between your website and your users, the CDN ensures faster loading speeds, regardless of their location.
Integrate with Cloudflare for Advanced E-commerce Optimization
Cloudflare is a tool for protecting and accelerating websites. Cloudflare acts as a CDN and caches assets, minimizes CSS and JS, and does many other things that automatically speed up your store.
It also provides DNS management, DDoS protection, and SSL security for improved performance and reliability. The SSL certificate should be issued within 24 hours. If your store is already live, Cloudflare will provide you with natural performance growth.
Reduce Image Size for Better eCommerce Website Speed Optimization
Images can be one of the biggest culprits in slowing down a Shopify site. The size of each image should be the same as you want to load.
Product and Page Photos are the largest images on your site and can significantly impact load times. To optimize them:
Use compressed image formats (like WebP or JPEG 2000).
Resize images to the exact dimensions needed, avoiding unnecessarily large files.
Lazy load images, so they only load when visible on the screen, improving initial load time.
For Icons and Logos, you should use SVGs or font icons whenever possible. These vector-based formats are lightweight, scalable, and look sharp on any display.
For more detailed steps on image optimization, check out this guide here.
Reduce Apps and Unused Code
Most Shopify Apps load some scripts to your Shopify store. This process is usually asynchronous and does not influence the visual speed of page loading. However, each script may load more scripts, analytics, and new assets, which can decrease page rates or even freeze the page.
Review your app list and uninstall everything you haven't used for a long time. It's better to remove all the applications you can get by without, even if you use them from time to time.
Prioritize Mobile Optimization
If you’re targeting mobile users, here’s how to prioritize mobile performance:
AMP can drastically reduce the time it takes for your Shopify store to load on mobile devices. AMP delivers lightweight, mobile-optimized pages, improving the mobile experience.
Ensure your site is fully responsive, so it adapts seamlessly to different screen sizes and improves mobile usability.
Test eCommerce site speed with Google PageSpeed Insights, as Google’s mobile-first indexing prioritizes mobile performance.
Optimize Your Shopify Theme
Your Shopify theme plays a major role in your site speed. Here are the following steps on how to reduce load times:
Use a lightweight theme designed for store speed, such as Dawn.
Avoid excessive animations, videos and sliders that can impact performance, especially on mobile devices.
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Can You Achieve Optimal Site Speed Without eCommerce Optimization Services?
A faster Shopify site not only improves the user experience but also boosts your search engine rankings and conversions. No silver bullet will solve all the performance issues at once. Speed optimization is an ongoing process. Depending on your requirements, you can spend weeks working on it. But, achieving reasonable rates and page speed is possible without spending much time and resources if you know how to prioritize your work. Focusing on the most important things first is the best way for Shopify store owners to achieve e-commerce website speed optimization goals.
