Read the information below to find out more!

What is Shopify Speed Score?

The loading time of your website is defined as site speed. Google recommends that this loading time should be under one second, but any page loading under 3 seconds is also impressive. Unfortunately, anything more than that can increase the bounce rate by 32% according to statistics.

Your Shopify speed score is a number from 1 to 100 powered by Google Lighthouse using different performance metrics. This tool measures your loading speed to most visitors and allows you to understand your site performance while equipping you with the tools to improve your user experience: https://pagespeed.web.dev/

You can also get some insights by testing your speed score with GTMetrix or Pingdom.

What Shopify Speed Score is considered good?

There are different opinions all across the internet, which can lead to confusion. Some say you need a speed score over 80 in order for your store to load fast enough, but that isn’t always true. This score is calculated and varies from store to store by multiple factors. Generally speaking, if your store speed score is above 50, you’re in a good place, while if you’re above 70, you should probably stop reading this right now.

What slows down your Shopify Store?

  1. Unoptimized images.

This is one of the major speed killers and it’s something anybody can control with a bit of information. Generally, banner images that are used on the homepage shouldn’t exceed 1200 x 600px and shouldn’t go over 200KB. Product images should also be under 200KB.

But how do you optimize them without losing image quality? The answer to that is pretty simple, you can use either SEOAnt ‑ Image Optimizer&Speed or Tiny:SEO Image optimizer,Speed to optimize your images. They have free plans and you will keep the quality of your images, that’s a promise!

The same thing goes for videos, but here you have the easier option. You can upload your videos to either YouTube or other streaming websites and embed them on your page. In this way, you’re not affecting your Shopify Speed Score.

  1. Apps

When it comes to an eCommerce store, we all want the best functionalities for user experience. However, apps are another major problem when it comes to our Shopify Speed Score, so we need to be careful while installing them. The more you add, the more your Shopify speed score is reduced. This is because there are some apps that take longer to communicate with Shopify’s API while others rely on communication with not-so-speedy servers.

It’s important to make sure you remove any app that’s no longer of use to you.

  1. Is your theme up to date?

Always be sure you’re keeping your theme up to date and also be sure the theme is compatible with your website. Otherwise, it will affect your Shopify Speed Score.

An Important Thing to Note

Sometimes the most important features of your website can be the reason for a low Shopify Speed Score. For example, a dynamic checkout button is notorious for decreasing site speed but it’s an amazing feature for your customers. As the store owner, it’s important to prioritize the most important features of your website over increasing the Shopify Speed Score. A quarter-second faster loading time won’t make the difference if your customers will lose the features that make your website stand out from your competitors in the first place.

Still worried about your Shopify store speed score? Reach out to us for a complete audit with recommendations and let’s see what is the best solution for your eCommerce website.