Ways to Boost the Speed of Your Shopify Store

1. Introduction

Users don’t have much time to wait for your website to fully load, therefore, increasing its performance is critical. To attract user attention, you must optimize your website with the greatest tactics.

The platform you use also has an impact on the of your website speed . Shopify is a rising ecommerce platform that assists websites in developing their brand presence and improving their performance.

As a result, in this blog, we will go over all of the top website speed optimization tactics for your Shopify store. So, let us begin with the techniques.

2. Methods for Increasing Shopify Store Speed

These are the ways for Shopify store speed optimization.

Consider using a Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A content delivery network is a collection of web servers spread across several geographical regions that offer online content to end users based on their location. When a website is hosted on a single server, all user requests are directed to the same hardware.

As a result, the time required to process each request grows. Furthermore, load time rises when users are physically distant from the server. The CDN routes user requests to the closest server. As a result, consumers receive content more fast, and websites work more swiftly. This is a costly, yet very successful, method of optimizing load time.

Minimize the image resolution on your website

Everyone appreciates visually appealing visuals. Images are critical components of successful eCommerce sites. A large number of photographs, images, and graphics on your product pages increase interaction. The disadvantage of using images is that they are typically huge files that slow down a website.

Compressing photos with programs like ImageOptim, JPEGmini, or Kraken is the best option to minimize image size without sacrificing quality. The procedure may take some time, but it is definitely worth the wait. Another method is to utilize the HTML responsive image’s secret and size attributes, which modify image size depending on user display characteristics.

Limit the amount of plugins

Plugins are essential components of every website. They include features offered by third parties. Unfortunately, as more plugins are added, more resources are required to execute them.

In such, the website may perform slower and there may be security hazards. As time passes, the number of plugins rises, while some are no longer used. We recommend going through all of the plugins you have installed and removing those that are no longer needed.

First, run the speed tests on your page to determine which plugins are causing your website to slow down. Not only does the amount of installed plugins affect website speed, but so does their quality. Avoid plugins that load a large number of scripts and styles or make a large number of database requests. The ideal answer is to preserve only those that are really required and to keep them up to date.

Reduce the number of JavaScript and CSS files used

If your website has a significant number of JavaScript and CSS files, your website users will make a huge number of HTTP requests to access certain files. These requests are handled separately by the visitor’s browser, slowing down the website’s performance.

Decreasing the number of JavaScript and CSS files on your website will undoubtedly enhance its performance. Try to combine all JavaScript and CSS files into a single file. The overall number of HTTP requests is reduced as a result. A variety of tools are accessible to swiftly minify HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files.

Make use of webpage caching

When a large number of users view the website at the same time, servers function slowly and take longer to deliver the web page to each user. Caching is the technique of saving the most recent version of your website on hosting and displaying it until it is updated. This means the web page is not produced several times for each user. When a cached web page is browsed, no database queries are required.

Website caching strategies vary based on the platform on which your website is created. If you use a VPS or a dedicated server, you may enable caching under the general settings. In the event of a shared server, webpage caching is typically not accessible.

Use Gzip compression

Gzip compression is an effective way to reduce file size. It decreases the number of HTTP requests and the server response time. Before transmitting the files to the browser, Gzip compresses them.

A browser unzips the files and displays the contents to the user. This method applies to all of the documents on your web page. Gzip may be enabled on your website by adding a few lines of code or by using a program called Gzip.

CMS database optimization

Database optimization is an efficient approach to boost performance. When you utilize a content management system (CMS) with several complicated plugins, the database size grows and your website becomes slower.

For example, the WordPress CMS keeps comments, blog entries, and other information that consumes a lot of storage space. Each CMS has its own set of optimization strategies, as well as a set of particular plugins.

Limit your usage of online fonts

Web fonts have grown in popularity in website design. However, the use of web fonts has a negative impact on the speed of website display. Web fonts cause extra HTTP requests to other websites. It increases the time your website takes to load.

Identify 404 errors

A 404 error indicates that a “page could not be found.” When the accessed content of a page no longer exists, the hosting provider sends this notification to browsers or search engines. You may use error detection tools and plugins to detect and repair 404 errors. As previously said, extra plugins might slow down your website, thus we recommend running the resource through external error detection tools.

Once you’ve identified all 404 errors, you must evaluate the traffic they produce. If these dead links no longer generate any traffic and hence never require server resources, you may leave them alone. If traffic to these pages continues, consider redirecting external links and altering internal link addresses.

Reduce the number of redirects

Website redirection generates additional HTTP requests, which degrade speed. We recommend limiting or eliminating them totally. Perform a site scan first to find any redirects on your website. Screaming Frog can assist you in quickly identifying redirection. Then you must determine whether they are required and just keep the crucial ones.

Make use of prefetching methods

Prefetching is the process of reading and executing instructions before they are initiated by the user. The method is rather widespread. It works well if you can anticipate user activities and, for example, pre-load certain material or links.

Prefetching is usually enabled by default in current browsers since they presume user behavior patterns. UX professionals and engineers, on the other hand, are more likely to understand user behavior and provide “hints” for browsers to undertake prefetching work.

Now, we will move towards the importance of Core Web Vitals in improving website speed.

3. How Core Web Vitals Function

Core Web Vitals are a collection of variables that make up Google’s Page Experience score, a ranking signal that will be implemented in 2021. Let’s take a deeper look at the metrics that comprise Shopify Core Web Vitals:

LCP stands for Largest Contentful Paint. This evaluates how long it takes for visitors to see your key content. It evaluates how fast the major items, such as photos and videos, load.

FID stands for First Input Delay. This statistic examines how long it takes a user’s browser to start processing event handlers in response to their interaction. In other words, it assesses the responsiveness of your web pages the first time people engage with them.

CLS stands for Cumulative Layout Shift. This is the amount of time it takes for your web page to become visually steady. Your site’s parts may not all load at the same time, and some may move throughout the loading process. CLS determines if any items on the website impact user experience.

INP stands for Interaction to Next Paint, an important measure that makes your website more faster. It basically examines the response time of your website when the user interacts with it, such as by clicking a button or filling out a form. To improve INP, you need to simplify your website code and make it responsive.

Conclusion

Therefore, in this blog, we have explained the ways to optimize the website speed. Additionally, we introduced Core Web Vitals to improve the overall performance of your Shopify store.

Additionally, the process of Shopify store speed optimization is not easy and simple. But to do this without encountering any issues, you need to opt for a tool that boosts website speed like Website Speedy. As per its name, Website Speedy is the best SaaS-based speed optimization tool that performs multiple tasks and enhances ecommerce website speed.