Optimising Advice Please: Very Slow Site Speed 13 - 22

Victoria_S
Tourist
3 0 0

Hi Guys

Hope you’re keeping safe & well.

So the title pretty much says it all!

I know we use a lot of apps so we’re on a mission to remove any that we possibly can. However, a fair few are back end & they all have a valid purpose so we’re weighing up if we can achieve the same without an app.

In terms of front end apps, our options are:

  1. Look to edit liquid code to show prices with & without tax so we can remove the dual price app we use
  2. Use Metafields to add related items on product pages rather than the app we currently use (our related items are manually chosen)

Realistically, how much do you think this would this help?

And, in your experiences, what else can we do to improve our site speed? I don’t think the majority of our image sizes are too bad.

Thanks so much for any advice & suggestions.

Best Wishes

Victoria

Replies 3 (3)

JoesIdeas
Shopify Expert
2195 201 588

Hi @Victoria_S you have the right mindset on hardcoding features directly into your theme. On how much it will help depends on how much those apps are contributing to resources and how fast their servers are.

I have a 3 part strategy I think would be good for your case:

1) Optimize what you can in your theme and assets. 
You can use the Shopify Analyzer to see if your site has any optimization issues + how to correct them. That's a free tool my team (Speed Boostr) built for the Shopify community. It's geared specifically for Shopify sites - the scoring / recommendations are based on data from 1,000+ Shopify sites we've optimized.

If you need help with optimization you can contact us at https://speedboostr.com/contact and ask for a free analysis, or if you prefer to handle it in-house you can use the Shopify Analyzer + follow our complete Shopify optimization guide: https://speedboostr.com/shopify-optimization.

2) Check for any old app code being loaded on your site (when you delete an app, it loses access to your shop, so if it injected code into your theme you need to manually remove that).

You can usually find this code by reading your common theme files (theme.liquid, product.liquid and its subsidiaries are the most common places).

3) Code your app features into your theme
Common workflow for this is to reach out to a developer to get a quote on the project (my team can do this if you'd like), then weigh the cost of development with the cost of the app. Coding directly into the theme will give a performance gain, so if the price is ok, then it's an automatic go in my opinion.

To see how much those apps are contributing, we like using tools.pingdom.com to see a breakdown of file weight and loading pattern (the waterfall). If you see those apps are contributing significant lag and resources, it's a good sign to hardcode them, if not, then it may not give you a significant gain (but still should give some gain, because you'll be loading from your own server instead of 3rd party).

Last point, a score in the 20's is pretty common with that tool. You may or may not see an increase by making your site faster. What we've seen through analysis is that the score is largely based on apps used, so that being said your score may increase by removing 3rd party resources (reference: https://speedboostr.com/shopify-speed-tool/)

• Creator of Order Automator (automate tagging, fulfillment, Amazon, notifications + more)
• Shopify developer for 10+ years, store owner for 7 years
• I also make guides like Shopify Automation Tips and How to Deal with Fraud / Chargebacks
Victoria_S
Tourist
3 0 0

Hi @JoesIdeas 

Thanks so much for your reply.

I am going to take a look at your Analyzer app right now. 🙂

We're in the wedding industry so, with COVID rules not permitting / severely restricting weddings in the UK, I thought it would be a good time to look at areas that need improving while business is so quiet. We also have CLS & LCP issues (although there's a fair bit of fluctuation in the Search Console atm) - is this something your developers could help us resolve too? 

Thanks again for your advice. 

Best Wishes

Victoria

 

JoesIdeas
Shopify Expert
2195 201 588

@Victoria_S ah dang ya tough break for wedding biz! Sorry to hear about the negative effects of governing rules, but I like your mindset on using the time wisely to try and optimize your business.

For your question, it will depend on what you mean by "have CLS & LCP issues". If there's an actual issue, like a code customization implemented improperly that's causing a break in layout or a lag time, then our developers can help solve it. If it's just a general warning given by a tool, referencing a 3rd party app, then there's probably not much we can do about it.

If you need help with a specific issue on a specific tool you can reach out to our team at speedboostr.com/contact with your website and a link / description of the issue. We have analysis services we can do for 3rd party tools where one of our developers dives in to investigate the issue. I would start with any optimization warnings in the Shopify Analyzer (this covers most of what can / should be optimized on a Shopify site), then if you still see issues, at that point you can get a deeper analysis with the specific issue. 

• Creator of Order Automator (automate tagging, fulfillment, Amazon, notifications + more)
• Shopify developer for 10+ years, store owner for 7 years
• I also make guides like Shopify Automation Tips and How to Deal with Fraud / Chargebacks