How to make sure my website is at top speed?

[Focused4ever]

Hi everyone I wonder if anybody can tell me how I can make sure that #1 my website is running at the fastest speed it can for my clients. And number two if it's not how can I help to improve that speed? Any information or any apps that anybody can recommend would be great! 

[kazi]

Hello @Focused4ever 

                                          I have optimized many shopify store speed and have good experience in this. To optimize shopify store speed i do following steps

> Check the store current speed and issues in google page speed, GTmetrix, Chrome console

> List the issues needed to be optimized

   Most of them are

> Resize the large images and convert them to webp format to load faster, make the pages lightweight

> Clean unused CSS/JS (Defer JS and inline CSS)

> Remove unnecessary app codes from theme

> Check the errors in Chrome console and try to fix them Ex: JS error, 404 links which causes pages load slow

> Lazyload images you can do it adding loading="lazy" to image tag or add lazysizes.js and lazyload them

If you google you will find many articles to follow.

[SAN_MSWEB]

Hi @Focused4ever 

I hope you are doing good and welcome to the Shopify Community!
I am San from MS Web Designer.

1. You can check your store speed score here https://pagespeed.web.dev/
2. Few Tips to Speed Up your Shopify store-
1. Use compressed images
2. Optimize use of Shopify apps
3. Implement AMP
4. Consider Professional Help
5. Use a single Hero Image
6. Minify Js/Css files

Regards,

San

[flareAI]

Hello @Focused4ever,

I am Gina from flareAI app helping Shopify merchants get $6Million+ in sales from Google Search, on autopilot. Hope you are having a good day.

Here are some general tips to help improve the speed of your Shopify website.

1. Use a Reliable Web Host
Choose a web host with reliable servers, fast speeds, and good uptime. A good web host can help ensure that your website loads quickly and is accessible to your clients.

2. Optimize Images
Compress images to reduce their file size and improve page load times. You can use image compression tools like TinyPNG to optimize your images.

3. Minimize Code
Use clean, well-structured code to minimize the size of your website files. Use minification tools like Minify to compress your CSS and JavaScript files.

4. Reduce HTTP Requests
Each time a user loads a page, their browser makes multiple HTTP requests to load all the necessary files (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, etc.). By reducing the number of HTTP requests, you can speed up page load times. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to analyze your website and identify ways to reduce HTTP requests.

5. Use a Fast Theme
Choose a lightweight, fast-loading theme for your Shopify website. Avoid themes with too many features and unnecessary code that can slow down your website.

6. Use Lazy Loading
Lazy loading is a technique that loads images only when the user scrolls down to them. This can significantly improve page load times and reduce the amount of data that needs to be downloaded by the user's browser.

7. Reduce the number of apps you use
Apps can add extra code to your site, which can slow it down. Only use the apps that are essential to your store's functionality.

By implementing these tips, you can help improve the speed and performance of your Shopify website for your clients.

Gina

[oscprofessional]

Hello @Focused4ever 

We’ve had the best success for our clients by working with our developers to implement the lazy sizes because it's quite complicated for non-technical people.

You need to work on the following points:

• Theme Upgrade if there is a scope and upgraded theme available
• Reduce JS Payload.
• Use Critical CSS.
• Replace GIFs With Static Images
• Reduce Large Image Sizes
• Migrate Tracking Codes To Google Tag Manager
• Compress Images
• Limit Third-Party JavaScript & Shopify Apps
• Preload Web Fonts. 
• I suggest limiting it to one and using a standard web font.

[Ishan_Makkar · Accepted solution]

Hi @Focused4ever 

Most websites have a low speed score for mobile devices, this is mainly caused by render blocking and excessive js execution time, while optimising images , minifying js/ css and optimizing app codes will make small improvement to mobile speed score, it will still be really slow for actual users on mobile.

Shopify has a few apps to fix this on app store and there are some external tools too.

I would recommend using https://websitespeedy.com/ , this will fix these issue and make your website fast. It also offer regular monitoring so you will know if your website speed falls later for any reason.