How can I improve my website's speed and user experience?

Technical Q&A

Topic summary

A Shopify store owner reports significant speed degradation after adding YouTube videos and a popup plugin to their homepage, resulting in declining organic traffic and sales. Their Shopify speed score dropped noticeably, and a hired freelancer was unable to resolve the optimization issues.

Key recommendations provided:

  • Video optimization: Implement deferred video loading techniques or use lazy-loaded thumbnails instead of full embeds to eliminate load penalties
  • Score vs. actual speed: The Shopify speed score (based on Google PageSpeed Insights) heavily penalizes apps and doesn’t directly equal real-world loading speed
  • Technical improvements: Remove unused app code, minify CSS/JS files, compress images, apply lazy loading, replace GIFs with static images, and use system fonts
  • Analysis tools: Use Shopify-specific analyzers and SEO tools like SEMRush to track actual performance impact
  • App management: Uninstall unused apps and consider lightweight alternatives for popups

Additional considerations:

  • Short-term traffic fluctuations are normal; longer observation periods needed for accurate assessment
  • Features that increase conversions may justify some performance tradeoff
  • Multiple experts offered free audits and optimization services

The discussion remains open with the store owner seeking professional help for optimization.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Good day, Community!

My website has a low user experience after a few tweaks I did recently to improve it. I inserted YouTube videos on the home page and added a plugin to show popups, however my website’s speed plummeted as a result. Despite the fact that I paid a freelancer for it, it was all for naught because she was unable to optimize owing to her lack of knowledge.

I’m looking for advice from professionals on what I should do next. Because of the slow speed, my organic traffic has decreased, and sales are decreasing day by day.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Carnot

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1 Like
2

@Carnot23 I wouldn’t blame the freelancer you hired - if you add more elements to your page then it’s going to take longer to load, and performance optimization is both art + science, a regular web developer may not be savvy on the nuances.

Performance is important but assuming that your #1 goal on an online store is to make sales, then adding features that increase conversions is a good tradeoff in my opinion.

That being said, you should optimize as much as you can.

Couple tips:

  • You can eliminate load speed penalties of videos using a tactic we call Deferred Video Loading. Guide here: https://speedboostr.com/deferred-video-loading

  • You said your speed plummeted, but your screenshot shows the Shopify speed “score”. Score is not equal to speed, this score is based on Google PSI (which penalizes heavily for apps and is a general performance recommendation engine, not geared specifically for template sites that use 3rd party apps)

  • Start by running your site through the Shopify Analyzer, that’s a Shopify focused analysis tool (free for Shopify store owners) that gives actionable insights for Shopify sites.

  • You mentioned a drop in traffic and sales, this sounds like a recent edit so sharing some insight on data analysis: you will always have short term swings that could go either way, unless your site is doing 10k visits a day I would wait at least a couple weeks to make analyses on changes to your site. Organic traffic takes time to change based on site changes. A Google Analytics expert could give you insights on this specifically for your site / traffic volume (if you need a recommendation PM me), but personally I would just focus on best practices first (the Shopify Analyzer will reveal those) before diving deep into the analytics.

  • It’s hard to track organic rankings unless you’re using an SEO tool. If you are, then nice well done, way ahead of the pack. If not, I like SEMRush.

Couple references:

The tool and guides were created collaboratively by our team (Speed Boostr , Shopify performance optimization experts), but they might be boring if you’re not into it hehe if you need help or just want your performance done for you feel free to contact speedboostr.com/contact.

Good luck on your optimization journey, if you ever need help with optimization or dev work feel free to reach out.

3

@Carnot23 ,

Hi ,

Welcome here.

Share your store link via email. We will give you the result which may decrease your site speed

You can connect me on vial or skype and What’s App.

We will create free audit report for you.

And we will guide you with best suggestions.

4

Hello @Carnot23 ,

The faster your site is, the more users you are likely to convert.

By following below steps, you can significantly speed up your Shopify store:

  1. Removing unused app code is a best practice that avoids running code for unused features, and makes your theme code easier to read.
  2. Use a theme which is optimized for performance
  3. Themes contain CSS, JS, HTML which can increase and affect your store speed. So disable theme features you don’t use.
  4. Loading extra data your customers aren’t using can impact your store speed without adding value.
  5. If you are using slideshows, keep slideshows of featured images to 2-3 slides, or use one featured image.
  6. Use a System font which is a font that is already installed on most computers. For example: Segoe UI, Times New Roman. If you use a font that does not yet exist on your customer’s computer, then the font has to be downloaded before your text can be displayed. This impacts the time that your store takes to load.
  7. Reduce the use of large-sized images and also compress images without losing the quality
    Image compression is important and a necessity for faster loading web pages. Make sure your images are of good quality and do not add too many images on a single page.
  8. Use minified CSS and JS files.
  9. Replace GIFs with static images
  10. To reduce the initial load time, you can use Lazyload technique
  11. Remove third-party JS scripts and Shopify App which you are no longer using
  12. Minimize HTTP requests. For example: Combine & inline your CSS scripts
  13. Avoid unnecessary redirects and fix broken links

You will lose traffic and sales if your store is loading too slowly. A fast-loading website is essential to welcome massive traffic to the website. In the case of eCommerce stores, speed and page loading time play a pivotal role in the success and growth of businesses. When your customers search on Google, your product can be found only if Google has indexed the page. Note that once a URL gets indexed, customers will start finding your store through organic searches, you will start getting order conversions for virtually zero cost. Making it sustainable business growth. flareAI helps to get your new products found on Google. flareAI works every day for you. Get sales from Google and 20+ world’s largest free sales channels, Single click start!

I hope that the above list’s tips will help you decrease the load on your web pages and increase the Shopify website speed.

Gina
Add flareAI Shopify App today!

5

Hi Oscprofessional

Thank you for your kind response. I have send details to your given email and hope so you’ll guide me with best knowledge. One more question, can you optimize the website. I own a blog that speed is not up to mark and I want 95+ speed on mobile and desktop. BTW, you may check the link: https://weldempire.com/

6

Hi @Carnot23

I am Alex From MS Web Designer (Top Rated Shopify Certified Experts and eCommerce Consultant from Singapore ) I helped 1000+ Shopify Store owners to Optimize their website loading speed for both mobile and desktop and increase their conversion rate.

Here are some proven steps that will improve your website speed dramatically for both mobile and desktop.

  • Select a light Weight Shopify Theme ( OS 2.0 Compatible )
  • Remove all Unwanted Shopify App ( That you have installed, but not using)
  • Minify Javascript, CSS
  • Reduce the Large Image Size
  • Eliminating the halting problem in Javascript
  • Apply Lazy loading per section wherever required
  • Replace Gifs with the Static Images
  • Resize Products images using Shopify App ( for Bulk )
  • Check Page Speed by Google page Insight and GTmetrix.

By fixing these issues, your website speed score can definitely improve
If you want a Free complete Website Optimization Audit Report ( All the Actionable steps for your store ), let me know

If you have any concerns feel free to ask me!

Good Luck!

Regards,
Alex

7

Hi , thank you for visiting the Shopify Forum

We can help you at least 3X that speed or we offer 100% money back guaranteed

Happy Sales,

~ Lanzi ~

PD: If this answer helped you please accept it

8

Hello Lanzi!!
Your confidence shows that you are really an expert one. I have a stitching website with almost 30 pages. The speed of the whole website is fine but one page is going below my satisfaction and I have wasted many dollars on its optimization.
I believe you can do something about it. But this time I’m more careful to spend money, so you must extensively view the website and after tell me if it’s possible for you to optimize.
Here is the link for the page, if you can do, inform me, so we can make a better deal about it.
https://stitchingpure.com/best-sewing-and-embroidery-machine/

Thanks!!

Regards,
AmberSmith.

1 Like
9

Your site speed likely dropped due to the YouTube embeds and popup plugin. These changes should help boost performance and recover traffic:

  1. Use lazy-loaded thumbnails instead of full video embeds.
  2. Switch to a lightweight popup plugin or remove it.
  3. Run your site through Google PageSpeed Insights and thecarbonfootprint.ai to spot performance and efficiency issues.
  4. Enable caching and consider a CDN.