slow site speed

[carlschmidt]

Hello Shopify community!! Any of you guys have any tips on how to speed up the loading times on the mobile version of your online shop website? I've had some comments saying that things are a bit slow on my site, worrying stuff!

[JoesIdeas · Accepted solution]

You can run your site through the Shopify Analyzer to see what areas of your site need optimization.

Here are some general quick tips:

1) Optimize your images (compression, scale image size responsively).

2) Implement lazy loading so images under the fold do not load until the user scrolls.

3) If you've installed and uninstalled a lot of apps, make sure no leftover app code is still loading (this can cause delays, bugs, and wasted resources).

For details on those + more, here's a complete guide to optimizing Shopify sites: https://speedboostr.com/shopify-optimization.

If you want a free analysis / recommendations on how to make your site faster, you can contact my team here: https://speedboostr.com/contact. We (Speed Boostr) are a Shopify optimization and development agency.

[AntonColenbrand]

Hi Joe

I have run the Speedboostr Analyzer for my site but most of the offending files (that need to be minified) are not actually on my site, they are Shopify files that are accessed by my site for fionts etc..

So it seems that Shopify need to do some work in reducing their file sizes?

[davidkean]

Hi,

Could you let me know your website URL? I need to check your site and Google Pagespeed Insights and GTMetrix before giving you the solutions to improve the speed of your site. Thanks!

[carlschmidt]

ladlassies.co.uk

Thank you for looking into it!

[filijana]

Here are a couple of ways in which you can speed up your Shopify store on mobile without giving up on its functionality.

Image Optimization:

Think about the images that you have uploaded previously. Forgot to optimize? Now, if you optimize the images before uploading ( there are lots of free tools to optimize images ) you will save a huge amount of data which leads to a better speed of your store. Try to avoid apps as they add unnecessary code which will slow down your site, no matter the smaller image size. 

Choose a Fast Theme

It is unfortunate, but the fact is your store’s speed depends on your theme in a large way. So, before you install a theme it is recommended to run the theme’s preview page through Google Pagespeed Insight and see what the tool complains about.

JavaScript and CSS files Optimization

If you really don’t want to remove the app that you have installed, you need to optimize that. For that, you need to merge all the stylesheets into one single file. Same thing applicable for all JavaScript files as well. Some JavaScript files depend on others to load first. So, copy and paste them in the order in which they were included in your theme. Make a backup of your theme first, so if things break after merging all files into one, you can revert to the old version.

Manage the Apps Installed

Evidently, there are a number of easily available applications that can help in increasing the functionality and capacity of your Shopify store pages by including a custom JavaScript. Improvements in functionality might include reviews, social media sharing, pop-ups, referral boxes, newsletter signups, etc.

They load JavaScript files even if you don’t use the app – as long as it is installed, it will load the files.

So, it is recommended to uninstall apps for improving your store’s performance. But obviously, please do remove the ones you are not using at a particular moment or do an A/B testing to see which ones to keep.

Use AMP

AMP is a technology by Google. It is made to unify all the experiences on mobile devices and provide seamlessly easy navigation and fast page loading. All AMPs are marked with a lightning bolt next to them in Google search results to show high performance and Google rewards them with nice positions in SERP. You can hire a developer for this or chose a solution in Shopify. The best one so far to make additional AMP pages for mobile searches and not mess up with the regular ones is AMP by AmpifyMe