The Perspective #28

The Need for Speed

Welcome to the 28th edition of The Perspective by Oddit!

In this edition 🗞:

  • Essentials of Shopify speed optimization.

  • Introducing Rise: Turbocharge your site speed.

  • Winning strategies in the eCom world.

  • Classifieds for the discerning.

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If you missed our last editions, you can read them here!

The Ultimate Guide To Shopify Speed Optimization ⚡ 

Why You Should Optimize and The Potential Revenue Loss of Not Optimizing Your Site

Your website speed is a critical factor that directly impacts user experience, search engine rankings, and revenue. Slow-loading websites can cost retailers significant amounts in lost sales each year. According to Forbes, retailers in the UK alone lose around £1.73 billion ($2.6 billion) annually due to slow-loading sites. Additionally, every second of load time can lead to a drop of approximately 4.42% in website conversion rates. This means that even a delay of a few seconds can cause potential customers to abandon their shopping carts and move on to competitors with faster websites.

What Causes a Slow Site

Several factors can contribute to a slow-loading Shopify website. One of the most common culprits is using a poorly optimized or bloated theme. To check if your theme is causing the issue, you can use the theme store and copy the demo link into a page speed testing tool to assess its performance.

What is a Good Shopify Speed Score and How to Measure Your Speed

A good Shopify speed score can vary depending on the complexity of your website, but as a general guideline, a score of 50 or above is considered good. Still, a higher score of 80 is usually more desirable. You can use various online tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Pingdom to measure your website's speed. These tools provide detailed insights into your website's performance, highlighting areas that need improvement.

What Can The Average Store Manager Do

As a store manager, there are several actions you can take to optimize your Shopify site and improve its speed:

  1. Compress Images: Large image files can significantly slow down your website. Use tools like TinyIMG to compress and optimize images without sacrificing quality.

  2. Audit Your Shopify Apps: Review the apps installed on your website and identify those not actively used. Removing unnecessary apps can enhance site performance and even save you money on subscription costs.

  3. Revise Your Theme Selection: If your current theme is causing performance issues, consider switching to a more lightweight and optimized theme that suits your needs.

  4. Minimize Redirects and Broken Links: Too many redirects and broken links can lead to longer load times. Regularly check and fix any broken links on your website, and reduce the number of unnecessary redirects.

  5. Swap Slides for Hero Images: Sliders can increase page load times, so consider using static hero images instead to improve speed. Static hero images ensure faster load times by using just one image, require less code for smoother rendering, and offer a consistent, undistracted user experience. They're mobile-optimized and more SEO-friendly than sliders, which can appear dynamic but often slow down and clutter a website's performance.

  6. Implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP): If applicable to your content and website, AMP can drastically enhance mobile loading speeds.

Why Your Speed Is Still Below 80 Even If You Do The Above

For more advanced speed optimization, involving a developer can lead to significant improvements:

  1. Eliminate Render-Blocking JavaScript and CSS: Your developer can optimize code and resources to minimize the time it takes for your website to load.

  2. Minify HTML and JavaScript: By removing unnecessary white spaces, comments, and code, your developer can reduce the size of HTML and JavaScript files, resulting in faster loading times.

  3. Remove Leftover Scripts and Code: After uninstalling apps, your developer should review the website's codebase and ensure no unused scripts or fragments remain.

Done For You Option: Introducing Rise Speed

If you're looking for someone to help you optimize your site speed by digging into your apps, assets, and content, our sister company, RISE, is giving The Perspective readers 20% off their site speed optimization by clicking the link below!

Rise Speed guarantees to speed your Shopify site up by a minimum of 30% in two weeks or your money back! 

After Rise, anything else?

Rise optimizes the foundation of your site so you’re fresh and clean with blazing fast speeds. These necessary steps drive great results – but especially with more complex sites it can feel like digging a hole in concrete with the end of a spoon. That’s where companies like Nostra come in, blasting away full seconds of load time in the blink of an eye.

Deloitte underscores that “latency is the primary reason US consumers abandon mobile sites.” A microsecond faster, and bam! More products viewed, more added to carts, and more 'buy' clicks. To kickstart your speed optimization:

Enter Nostra…

After you’re done with RISE, a great next step is chatting with Nostra. More than just a tweak, think of it as an upgrade. Nostra’s Edge Delivery Engine blasts away load times — an advantage usually reserved for the eCom elites. Better still, they get you onboarded in under a day. Book a session with Nostra and experience the shift.

Classifieds 🔎

🚨 We’ve been building high converting landing pages behind the scenes for a minute. Pumped to share they’ll be open to everyone soon, reserve your spot and join the waitlist here.

🎯 2023 is changing the DTC game! Explore how the economic landscape is reshaping retail strategies in this article.

🔵 5 high-growth brands to watch this year: Behold, Sakuraco, Lovevery, by Humankind, Rowing Blazers

Don’t just take our word for it! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Ramp up conversions. Let our team dial-in your customer journey for a higher-converting site. Receive your report and full Figma design.
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The Perspective is written by Shaun Brandt, Taylor Davies, and Sarah Fernandez!

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