Why Is My Shopify Store Slow? Troubleshooting Site Speed Issues

Why Is My Shopify Store Slow? Troubleshooting Site Speed Issues

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If you’re asking yourself, “Why is my Shopify store slow?”, you’re not alone. Site speed is a critical factor in the success of any online business, and Shopify stores are no exception. When your site lags, potential customers may lose patience and abandon their carts, directly impacting your sales. Slow Shopify site speed also affects your SEO rankings, making it harder for customers to find you on search engines like Google.

A slow Shopify store can be caused by various factors, ranging from bulky themes and resource-hungry apps to unoptimized images and inefficient code. So, how to make your Shopify store faster?, this guide will provide you with practical steps to address these issues and make your Shopify store faster, improving user experience and boosting your chances of converting visitors into paying customers.

Table of Contents

Understanding Shopify Store Speed

Before we jump into the troubleshooting and optimization process, it’s important to understand what factors contribute to a slow Shopify store. Understanding these elements will help you approach the problem strategically and implement the right solutions.

Here are the most common culprits behind a sluggish Shopify store:

  • Theme: Your Shopify theme is the foundation of your store’s design and functionality. Some themes are more complex and demanding in terms of resources than others. A heavy theme, with excessive code or large file sizes, can significantly impact your store’s loading speed.
  • Apps: Shopify apps are a fantastic way to add features and extend your store’s capabilities. However, they come with a cost. Each app introduces additional code and scripts that need to be loaded by the browser, contributing to slower loading times. The more apps you install, the greater the potential impact on your store’s speed.
  • Images & Videos: Large image and video files are notorious for slowing down websites. High-resolution images, especially those directly uploaded from DSLRs without optimization, can drastically increase page load times.
  • Third-Party Code: This includes external scripts, tracking pixels, social media widgets, and other integrations. While these tools provide valuable functionalities, they also add extra code that your browser needs to process, potentially slowing down your store.
  • Server Response Time: Shopify is known for its fast and reliable servers. However, external factors beyond your control, such as high server load or issues with your hosting provider, can sometimes affect your store’s response time.

How to Diagnose Your Shopify Store’s Speed

Now that you have a better understanding of the potential causes of a slow Shopify store, let’s see how you can pinpoint the specific issues affecting your site. A Shopify store speed test is essential to guide your optimization efforts.

Several tools can help you conduct a Shopify store speed test:

  • PageSpeed Insights: Developed by Google, PageSpeed Insights is a free and widely used tool for analyzing website performance. It provides a comprehensive report, scoring your site based on Core Web Vitals, critical metrics that measure loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. PageSpeed Insights also offers detailed suggestions on how to address identified issues.
  • GTmetrix: Another powerful and free tool, GTmetrix provides an in-depth analysis of your site’s loading process. It breaks down the loading sequence into various stages, highlighting bottlenecks and offering actionable recommendations to improve performance. GTmetrix is particularly valuable for understanding the technical aspects affecting your store’s speed.
  • Shopify’s Web Performance Dashboard: Some Shopify plans provide access to the Web Performance Dashboard, which offers insights into your store’s speed based on actual user data. This dashboard can be helpful for understanding how real customers experience your store’s performance.

Interpreting Test Results:

Each tool uses different metrics and scoring systems. It’s crucial to understand what constitutes a good or bad score for each tool and how to interpret the results.

Generally, a score above 90 is considered excellent, while scores below 50 indicate that your store needs optimization. Focus on the specific issues highlighted in the reports and prioritize addressing the most impactful problems first.

Step-by-Step Guide to Fixing Shopify Store Speed Issues

Armed with the insights from your Shopify speed test, you can start implementing solutions to make your Shopify store faster. This section will guide you through the optimization process with actionable steps.

1. Evaluate and Minimize App Usage

As we discussed earlier, each app you install adds extra weight to your store, impacting its performance. To make your Shopify store faster, it’s crucial to evaluate the necessity of every app you have installed:

  • Audit your apps: Go through your installed apps and scrutinize their value. If an app is not directly contributing to conversions or user experience, consider removing it. For instance, you might have multiple apps with overlapping functionalities; choose the most efficient one and uninstall the rest.
  • Remove residual code: Uninstalling an app doesn’t always mean all its code is removed. Often, residual code from uninstalled apps remains in your theme files. These remnants can clutter your code and negatively impact your store’s speed. To clean up this residual code, check files like theme.liquid, head.liquid, and footer.liquid for any references to uninstalled apps and remove them.

2. Clean Up Redundant Assets

Similar to residual app code, your Shopify store might contain redundant assets from old plugins, outdated theme features, or previous customizations you no longer use.

To address this issue:

  • Review your theme code: Carefully examine files like theme.liquid, head.liquid, and footer.liquid. Identify and remove any scripts, style tags, or other assets that are no longer needed or related to unused features or plugins.
  • Clean up your code: Removing unnecessary elements from your theme code can significantly improve your store’s speed. This process involves going through your code and removing any elements that are not essential for the functionality or design of your store.

3. Compress and Optimize Images

Images are often the largest files loaded on a webpage, and unoptimized images are a common cause of slow Shopify stores. To ensure your images are lean and fast-loading:

  • Compress your images: Before uploading images to your Shopify store, compress them to reduce file sizes. Aim for images to be under 1MB whenever possible. You can use online tools or dedicated image compression software for this task.
  • Use the right file format: JPEGs generally offer better compression than PNGs, so prioritize JPEGs unless transparency is needed.
  • Consider image optimization apps: Many Shopify apps can automate image compression and optimization. These apps can be helpful for bulk image optimization, saving you time and effort.

4. Implement Lazy Loading

Lazy loading is a technique that delays the loading of images and videos until they are needed, improving your Shopify site speed by prioritizing the loading of above-the-fold content. This technique ensures that your visitors see the most important content first, making your store feel faster and more responsive.

Here are the key steps to implement lazy loading:

  • Use preload="none": For videos, use this property in your HTML5 video tag to prevent them from loading immediately. This prevents the video from blocking the loading of other elements and improves your store’s initial loading time.
  • Apply loading="lazy": For images, use this attribute in your <img> tag to instruct the browser to load the image only when it’s about to enter the user’s viewport. This prevents images below the fold from slowing down the initial page load.
  • Consider a lazy loading plugin: If you’re not comfortable with manually implementing lazy loading, various plugins, like “Lazysizes,” can automate the process for you. They handle browser compatibility issues and ensure a consistent experience across different devices. Just remember to exclude essential images, like your hero image or primary product images, from lazy loading, as you want these elements to load immediately.

5. Optimize Font Loading

Custom fonts can elevate your store’s design and brand identity, but they can also be resource-intensive, impacting load times.

To optimize your font loading:

  • Check your CSS: Examine the @font-face rules in your CSS files, which define how your custom fonts are loaded. Ensure that you are not loading more font variations than necessary. For instance, if you only use regular and bold weights of a font, don’t load italic or other weights.
  • Use font-display: swap;: This crucial CSS property tells the browser to display a fallback font while your custom font is downloading. This prevents a blank screen effect and ensures that your content is visible while the custom font loads, improving the user experience.

6. Defer Unnecessary Scripts

Scripts play a vital role in your store’s functionality, but not all scripts need to be loaded immediately. Some scripts, such as those for analytics, social media widgets, or certain app functions, can be deferred without affecting the core functionality of your store. Deferring these scripts can significantly improve your Shopify site speed.

Here’s how you can defer non-critical scripts:

  • Identify deferrable scripts: Examine the scripts loaded in your theme.liquid file and determine which ones are not critical for the initial page rendering.
  • Use defer="defer": Add this attribute to your script tags to instruct the browser to load the script after the main HTML document has finished loading. This ensures that your store’s core content is displayed first.
  • Consider async loading: For scripts that can be loaded independently without affecting other elements, you can use the async attribute. This allows the script to be downloaded and executed without blocking the rendering of the page.

7. Load Scripts on Human Interaction

This technique is a more advanced approach to script optimization, suitable for experienced developers. The idea is to initially load your Shopify store and its essential assets without any scripts from apps or plugins. These scripts are then loaded only when the user interacts with specific elements, such as clicking a button or scrolling to a certain section of the page.

This technique can significantly improve perceived performance. Your store will load incredibly fast, and any app functionalities will be loaded only when the user actually needs them. However, this method requires custom development and is best implemented with the help of a Shopify Expert or a qualified developer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do Shopify speed optimization apps really work?

While many “shopify speed optimization apps” are available, they are not a magic bullet for fixing site speed issues. These apps often employ techniques like pre-loading or caching, which can be beneficial for returning visitors, making the page load faster on subsequent visits. However, they usually don’t address the fundamental causes of slowness. If your store is inherently slow due to bulky themes, inefficient code, or unoptimized images, these apps might provide only a marginal improvement.

It’s crucial to focus on tackling the root causes of your store’s slowness by implementing the optimization techniques outlined above. Consider apps as a supplementary tool, not a primary solution.

How do I know if my theme is affecting my store’s speed?

If you suspect your theme is dragging down your store’s performance, you can compare your current theme’s speed with other themes. Shopify provides resources like theme performance data, where you can see how various themes perform on average.

You can also use tools like PageSpeed Insights or GTmetrix to run tests with different themes installed. This will give you a clear picture of how your theme choice impacts your store’s loading speed. If you find that your theme is a major contributor to your site’s slowness, consider switching to a more performance-optimized theme.

I’m not a developer. What should I do?

If you’re not comfortable implementing the more technical aspects of speed optimization, don’t worry. You can always seek help from Shopify Experts or qualified developers. They can assist you with various tasks, including:

  • Code cleanup: They can review your theme files and remove redundant assets or inefficient code.
  • Image optimization: They can ensure your images are appropriately compressed and optimized for the web.
  • Lazy loading implementation: They can seamlessly implement lazy loading for your images and videos.
  • Advanced script optimization: They can implement techniques like loading scripts on human interaction.

Shopify’s Partner Directory is a great resource for finding Experts who specialize in speed optimization. You can also seek recommendations from other Shopify merchants or search for reputable Shopify development agencies.