The speed of your Shopify website makes visitors fully engaged until they leave your site. They remain engaged with your website only when it loads quickly. A faster Shopify website can reduce bounce rates, increase conversion rates, and generate more sales.
One of the biggest advantages of a faster website is that it can easily rank on Google. Hence, it is imperative to improve the speed of your website as fast as possible.
Now the question is, how to increase the speed? Is there any solution to it? Yes, we have come up with the proven tactics that we will discuss in this blog in detail.
Top 8 Strategies to Boost Your Shopify Website
Remove Unnecessary Apps:
With every app installation, additional scripts are added to your Shopify website. While they are important for the site, they can affect the performance. So, remove unnecessary apps to maintain the speed of your site. Moreover, choose the Shopify app that has multifunctionality and can fix all issues single-handedly.
Solution:
- To remove apps, access Shopify's Settings, then proceed to Apps and sales channels.
- Find out the app you want to uninstall, click on the three dots next to it, and select Uninstall.
Shopify Images Optimization:
When it comes to blog posts and product images, Shopify suggests using JPEG, whereas PNG is preferred for logos and borders. Moreover, Shopify offers the option to serve smaller files in WebP format if supported by browsers, and this can be conveniently done using a free WebP converter.
Additionally, with image compression, you can reduce storage requirements and website performance. There is a tool available like Photoshop used to compress images manually or you can do it automatically using the SpeedBoostr app.
Poorly optimized GIFs can also bring your website speed down. Compress GIFs with lossy compression. Try to convert them into HTML 5 or MP4 files. You have another option to replace them with other images.
Enable Lazy Loading:
In Lazy loading only the visible page elements load initially, while additional parts load when users require them. Loading low-quality images below the fold is the best method to implement lazy loading. So, what happens, when someone scrolls down, high-quality images soon replace the poor ones.
Solution:
- You can add code to it manually by downloading the LazySizes JS file and making changes to the code accordingly.
- You can also use third-party apps like SpeedBoostr to enable lazy loading and improve your site’s speed.
Theme Optimization:
Put a full stop to over-customization. Keep your site away from unnecessary custom changes as it requires more resources and affects theme performance. Moreover, keep your theme always up to date.
Solution:
- Use CSS or HTML to run your theme's basic functionality.
- There are free online minifiers like Minifier.org or Toptal that you can use to optimize codes.
- Avoid using JavaScript and use Toptal to use unnecessary code without affecting performance
Use System Fonts:
Although custom-designed fonts may seem promising and unique in style, they can slow down website loading times as browsers must download them. So if you want to get rid of a website's fonts, you can switch to system fonts as they are safe for your site. Moreover, they are already pre-installed and you don't need to download them again which doesn't slow down your site’s speed.
Solution:
- Navigate from the Shopify Admin dashboard to the Online Store, go to Themes, and then select Customize.
- Click on Theme Settings and then click on Typography.
- Click on Change to adjust text types, select a font, press Select, and then Save.
Resolve Redirects Chain and Loops:
Redirects occur when search engines are instructed to direct users to a URL other than the one they initially wanted to visit. Their usage involves either merging duplicate content pages or guiding users away from outdated content.
However, you may face website speed issues in case of inappropriate management of redirects. Redirects that lead users to additional redirects create redirect chains, whereas two URLs referring to each other result in redirect loops.
You can use ScreamingFrog’s SEO Spider tool to detect redirects chains and loops.
Solution:
- You need to download and install this program which offers roughly 500 free URLs.
- Then, make sure you insert your website URLs and click on the Start button.
- After the analysis finishes, click on Response Codes, then head to the Redirection (3xx) tab.
- To detect redirect chains and loops, you can export the report. Go to Reports, then, Redirects, and choose the All Redirects report.
- After identifying the errors, you can easily manage redirects and update the URLs to lead them to the correct destinations.
Fix Broken Links:
Broken links are one of the reasons behind the slow-loading website. If you don’t fix 404 errors it can further affect your website performance. This issue happens when you delete or remove the page without managing redirects properly.
Solution:
- Identify the page link that contains broken URLs and redirect it to an alternative page. This will improve user experience and accelerate your site speed.
Lessen HTTP Request Count:
HTTP requests work as the communication channel between browsers and web servers whenever visitors visit your site. The more HTTP requests come with site speed issues.
Solution:
- Eliminate redundant or heavy plug-ins and files.
- Remove unnecessary images and optimize those essential for your site.
- Delete unnecessary buttons that affect your site.
- Remove videos that do not add value to your content.
Final Thought:
A website with fast speed can offer a lot of benefits to your business including enhanced user engagement, conversion rates, and lower bounce rates. Therefore, it is important to put efforts continuously to enhance the speed of your Shopify website. The above-mentioned tactics will help you boost your site speed.
