A slow-loading Shopify website will lose 45% of your potential online shoppers. Most online shoppers browse dozens of products, compare prices, and read peer reviews before making a purchase. It is also irritating and stressful to navigate a slow-loading website. Fortunately, there are a few simple optimization steps you can take to speed up your Shopify site. Here are some best practices to improve page speed. Keep reading to learn more about how you can improve your page speed on Shopify.
First, delete unnecessary apps. While some apps are useful, others only serve to add clutter and increase page load time. To improve your shopify page speed, delete apps you no longer use. These apps often generate JS and CSS files in the background that can slow your site. To test how quickly your store loads without these apps, disable or remove them from your store. For example, if your shop sells a live chat app, you should disable this feature from your store to see how fast it loads.
Optimize your store’s image and video content. Using huge images and videos will slow your store’s load time. You should use a thumbnail-based slider instead of a full-width slider. You should also deactivate any apps you don’t use TinyJPG or TinyPNG for large images. By minimizing the number of these files, your store can run faster than ever.
Test your theme. You can use free tools like GTmetrix to perform a website speed test. This site analyzes 23 parameters to determine the speed of your Shopify store. You can also try PSI, a tool that collects lab data in a controlled environment. This tool is incredibly useful for debugging performance problems. While user experience data is not as reliable, it helps you define errors and improve your store’s speed.
Use Google Tag Manager to manage your tags. This tool organizes and manages all of your tags and external scripts, making them load in a single request. Additionally, updating your Shopify theme is important for page speed optimization. Older themes contain outdated JS libraries and methods that may slow down your site. Updates are frequently released by Shopify and add new features and bug fixes. They also boost page speed by reducing the number of redirects that your site makes to your website.
If your store is mainly mobile, you should try to use AMP. Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) allow web pages to load faster on mobile devices. In addition to these two benefits, AMP also improves page speed on smartphones. It also reduces the size and weight of web pages. AMP helps you optimize your mobile website for Google’s mobile-friendly standards. These improvements will boost your page speed and improve your site’s ranking in search engines.
Shopify page speed optimization is important for both SEO and for conversion rate. The faster your Shopify store loads, the more potential customers it will attract. With improved speed, visitors will be more likely to purchase your products. Also, faster loading sites will improve your site’s ranking in search engines. So, get started today with Shopify page speed optimization and see the benefits for your business. It will take time and effort, but the payoff will be substantial.