How can I increase my website speed score to 70 for Google Merchant approval?

[Jayjey192]

Hello,

I am looking to have my speed score to at least 70 as google merchant center will only approve my products at that score or higher. I did delete some of the sales channel apps I had that I did not use. I also retook pictures for my products on my website to see if that would help as well. Any advice/help on what I can do? I 

Thanks

[kazi]

Hello @Jayjey192 

                                    Can you share your store URL?

[Kitana]

Hey @Jayjey192, great question.

Great to hear you already got rid of some of the apps you're not using, some other things you can do include changing your theme to a lightweight simple Shopify Theme, reduce your image sizes, remove any unnecessary coding, and more. Check out our help doc about improving your speed score.

For more personalized help, feel free to share your store URL so myself and some other forum members can take a look and offer some suggestions. 

[EmmanuelFlossie]

Please note that there is no policy that requires a specific speed score, while Google does require a fast website, don't assume a suspension is purely related to website speed.

But also things such as landing page requirements.

Footer links

Contact transperency 

etc

I just want to share this.

[Marc_Mayr]

Hi @Jayjey192 I believe it's not true that products get declined just based on the speed of the website. Would you be so kind and share a screenshot of the error so I can have a look and maybe provide guidance?

If you're simply looking to improve the page speed, apps like Flash Speed might help https://apps.shopify.com/pagespeed-javascript

[SEOKart]

Hello Jayjey192,

Here are some tips for you:

1. Compress Large Images: You can use SEO tools, like SEOKart, to reduce the file size of the images, without hampering their visual qualities to reduce their loading time on the website and increase the overall speed of the website.
2. Remove Dead JavaScript and CSS: When you remove the apps or software from the website, they leave some residue in the form of JavaScript and CSS, which is unused. So, remove such JavaScript and CSS from the website to improve its page speed.
3. Minify JavaScript and CSS: Compress scripting on the website to increase its page speed by removing extra whitespace, and using GZIP file format.
4. Reduce Redirects: The number of redirects for the links increases the waiting time for the users; thus, removing too many redirects on the website.
5. Implement AMP: AMP or Accelerated Mobile Pages is an open-source HTML framework, which enables Google to store the cached versions of the pages on mobile servers to reduce the loading time of the pages on mobile devices.
6. Implement Lazy Loading: This is a technique utilized to identify various resources on the website and increase their waiting time to load to allow other resources on the website to load quickly.
7. Compress Large Fonts: Sometimes, large fonts take too long to load, so you can compress the fonts by reducing their file size and removing unnecessary glyphs.
8. Utilize CDN: Content Delivery Network can be utilized to create proxy servers across the globe, which can significantly help in reducing the distance between servers and user browsers; thus, can help in decreasing the waiting time for the users.
9. Enable Browser Caching: This can help the browsers store the cached versions of the pages of the website and reduce their loading time on that browser.
10. Use PageSpeed Insights: It is a free tool, which can help users to check the speed and performance of the website on desktop and mobile devices and identify various opportunities for improving the speed of the website.

Hope it helps!

Leesha

SEOKart