How to Improve the Performance of a BigCommerce Website

Introduction

BigCommerce is a strong tool for online stores. Just like any other tool, how well it works can affect how happy your customers are and how much you sell. A fast and smooth website is important to keep customers and get more sales. This guide will show you simple ways to BigCommerce performance optimization and strategies to improve loading speed.

Why is Page Speed Important for BigCommerce Stores?

Page speed is very important for any online store, especially for those using BigCommerce. If pages load slowly, it can cause people to leave the site quickly, fewer sales, and unhappy customers.

Google also uses page speed to decide how to rank websites, so a slow site can hurt your search rankings. In the competitive world of eCommerce, every millisecond matters. Faster page loads can improve your search rankings, make users happier, and increase sales.

Analyzing Your BigCommerce Website Performance

Before boosting website speed, you need to see how it is doing now. You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Website Speedy for this. These tools will give you detailed reports about different parts of your website’s speed and performance, such as how long it takes to load pages, any elements that slow down the rendering, and how quickly your server responds.

Key Factors to Optimize Your BigCommerce Store Performance

Making Images Load Faster

Images can be big files and make your website slow if they aren’t optimized. Here’s how to make your images better to improve BigCommerce performance:

• Compress Images: Use tools like TinyPNG or JPEG-Optimizer to make the files smaller without losing quality.
• Choose the Right Format: Use JPEG for photos, PNG for images with transparent backgrounds, and SVG for logos and icons.
• Use Lazy Loading: Only load images when they are about to be seen by the user. You can do this with tools like Website Speedy.

Using Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) can make your website load much faster by spreading content across many servers around the world. When someone visits your BigCommerce store, the CDN sends the content from the server closest to them, which speeds up the loading time. Some well-known CDNs are Cloudflare, Fastly, and Amazon CloudFront.

Minifying CSS, JavaScript, and HTML

Minifying means taking out unnecessary characters from your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files without changing how they work. Additionally, fixing BigCommerce core web vitals issues is also vital for BigCommerce conversion rate optimization.

This makes the files smaller and helps your website load faster. You can use tools like UglifyJS for JavaScript, CSSNano for CSS, and HTMLMinifier for HTML to do this easily.

Using Browser Caching

Browser caching lets you save certain files on a user’s device so they don’t have to be downloaded again each time the user visits your site. This is crucial for BigCommerce performance optimization and bringing customers back to your store. To do this, you need to set up your server to allow browser caching and set how long different files should be stored.

Reducing Initial Server Response Time

The initial server response time is how long it takes for your server to reply when someone visits your site. If this takes too long, your website will load slowly, and users might get frustrated. Here are some ways to make your server respond faster:

• Optimize your server: Use a fast server and make sure it is set up properly.
• Use a reliable hosting provider: Pick a hosting provider known for being fast and dependable.
• Implement caching: Using server-side caching can lessen the work your server has to do and make it respond quicker.

Reducing the Impact of Render-Blocking Resources

Some resources, like CSS and JavaScript files, can make your web pages load more slowly. Here’s how to fix that:

• Include Essential CSS Directly in the HTML: Put the CSS needed for the content you see first (above-the-fold content) directly in the HTML file.
• Delay Non-Essential JavaScript: Use the defer attribute to load JavaScript files that aren’t needed right away after the HTML has been loaded.
• Load CSS and JavaScript Asynchronously: Load these files in a way that doesn’t block the page from rendering.

Enabling Lazy Loading

To Boost website speed, lazy loading is a method that delays the loading of non-essential resources, like images and videos, until they are needed. This helps your page load faster and gives users a better experience. Tools like Website Speedy can help you easily set up lazy loading on your BigCommerce store.

How Website Speedy Improves BigCommerce Performance?

Website Speedy is a SaaS-based tool for website speed optimization . It helps to boost BigCommerce store speed and improve user experience. It has many features that help your website load quickly and work efficiently. Here are some key benefits of using Website Speedy:

• Lazy Loading: Only loads images and other resources when they are needed, which speeds up the initial loading time.
• Eliminating Render-Blocking Resources: Makes sure your web pages load quickly by removing delays caused by unnecessary resources.
• Reducing Server Response Time: Improves your server’s performance so it can respond to requests faster.
• Image Optimization: Compresses and optimizes images to make them load faster without losing quality.

Website Speedy is an excellent solution for fixing BigCommerce core web vital issues and increasing the speed of BigCommerce websites. Using Website Speedy ensures your BigCommerce store runs smoothly and gives your customers a great experience.

Using AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages)

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a project that helps web pages load faster on mobile devices. When you use AMP, your web pages become lighter and open quickly on phones and tablets. This makes users happy and can help your site show up higher in mobile search results. Thus, for BigCommerce performance optimization, integrating AMP is crucial.

Keeping Your Website Fast

Boosting BigCommerce website speed is something you need to work on all the time. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights , GTmetrix , and Website Speedy to check how well your site is performing. Find what needs fixing and make changes to keep your website fast and efficient.

Conclusion

It’s really important to make your BigCommerce website work better, this helps people using it have a better time, makes more people buy things, and makes sure your site shows up well in search engines.

To do this, you can follow practices like making sure your pictures load faster, using CDNs to speed up how quickly your site shows up, making your CSS, JavaScript, and HTML files smaller, storing things in people’s browsers to make them load faster next time, make sure your server responds quickly, and use tools like Website Speedy to help you.

It’s also important to keep checking how your website is doing and keep making it better. This helps you keep your site running well and do better than other websites.

FAQs on BigCommerce Store Speed Optimization

What is the ideal page load time for a BigCommerce store?

The ideal page load time for a BigCommerce store is less than 3 seconds. Faster load times make customers happier and can help increase sales.

How can I make images load faster on my BigCommerce store?

You can make images load faster by making them smaller without losing quality, using formats like JPEG or PNG, and using lazy loading so images load when users scroll down.

What is lazy loading, and how does it help my BigCommerce store?

Lazy loading is when images and videos only load when a user scrolls down to them. It helps your store load faster initially, which makes customers happier because they see things quicker.

How does Website Speedy improve my BigCommerce store?

Website Speedy helps with BigCommerce speed optimization by doing things like making sure images load quickly, fixing issues with how things load, and making the whole store faster.

What are render-blocking resources, and how do I fix them?

Render-blocking resources are things that slow down how fast your store appears. You can fix them by making sure important things load first and delaying less important things.

Why is it important to make the server respond quickly?

If your server responds quickly, your store loads faster. Customers like fast websites, so they are more likely to stay and buy something.

What is a Content Delivery Network (CDN), and how does it help my store?

A CDN is a group of servers around the world that store your website’s files. It helps customers in different places see your website faster because it uses the closest server to them.

How do I use browser caching for my BigCommerce store?

You can use browser caching by telling the browser to keep certain files for a while so it doesn’t have to reload them every time someone visits your store. It makes things load faster.

What is AMP, and why should I use it for my store?

AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) makes your store load faster on mobile phones. Customers like fast websites on their phones, and Google may show your store higher in search results if it loads quickly.

How often should I check how fast my store is?

It’s good to check how fast your store is regularly using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or others. It helps you see if anything is slowing it down and makes sure your store stays fast for customers.