Optimize Shopify Store Speed

Serve scaled images:

There are two things in images that matter 一 dimension and quality. Hence, prioritize the exact image dimensions. If your home page banner dimension is 1500x500 px, stick to this dimension only.

Shopify recommends 2048x2048 px images to use for product images. The dimension helps prevent blur and haziness from images when zoomed.
But, the downside is it affects the page speed because it increases the memory size. Take note; you can avoid pixel-perfect images if you do not need to showcase every minute detail, and a product page image of 800x800 px will work perfectly.

Also, if it is possible, you can prefer to limit the number of images on the home page and collection pages.

For Shopify merchants, it is not unusual to use third-party apps. But, what is concerning is that many of the apps affect page speed as they run scripts on the pages. Some methods are there to reduce the impacts of those apps.

Delete all the apps you are not using.

Your Shopify store may contain some apps which are not necessarily crucial for you. Measure page speed with or without these apps and check if you can go without them.

Your store pages may fetch some elements by default from some apps. Allow these elements for the pages you need. For say, floating trust badges may be visible throughout your store; however, you can only put them across your product page.

Furthermore, you can also find some ways to speed up your Shopify site you should try first.

Seeking professional help?

Until now, we talked about DIY tips. But, some issues are so grave that they need professional help to solve.

Here are some critical things that need professional help: 

Remove render-blocking Javascript in the above-the-fold webpage portion. 

Before a webpage can load, a browser needs to render a page by detecting HTML. But, blocking JavaScript and external scripts forces the browser to wait until the rendering takes place, triggering a delay for the page to load.

It is a prevalent issue associated with JavaScript or CSS-heavy websites. If the above-the-fold portion of your webpage is unable to load correctly due to these render-blocking JavaScript and CSS, you are likely to receive a warning.

If you want to improve loading time, avoid and reduce the use of these render-blocking JavaScript and CSS elements.

To minify HTML and JavaScript:

Website rendering ingests a lot of elements, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The problem starts with these files, as they occupy a lot of space and block delimiters and comments, affecting loading time. Minifying HTML, JavaScript, and CSS can help eliminate the use of space, save data, and as a result, improve website speed.

If you think this is out of your scope, a developer or professional help is necessary to reduce this trouble.

Wrapping up

Shopify speed optimization or, in a broader perspective, page speed optimization is not a one-time process. To achieve a consistent Shopify store speed, you must regularly check your store performance. DIY processes are easy to apply. If these steps do not help, do not hesitate to ask for professional help. HulkApps Shopify experts give you practical ways to tap Shopify speed optimization services. Get in touch with us to know more about your options.