Small ecommerce brands can compete with enterprise budgets when it comes to site speed. They just need frontend performance optimization.
Here’s the issue…
While most small stores limp along on bloated themes overloaded with unnecessary code, slow scripts and oversized images. Big brands have deep pockets they are investing in site performance… and Google is handing out ranking bonuses for it.
The result? Smaller brands fall further down the search rankings as enterprise grade stores begin to monopolise page 1.
Luckily frontend performance optimization offers a fighting chance for small brands. Better yet? It’s easier than you think.
Today you’re going to learn:
- Why Site Speed Is More Important Than Ever Before
- What Slows Most Small Stores Down?
- Top 5 Frontend Performance Optimization Tips To Turbocharge Site Speed
- How To Track Performance Improvements
Why Site Speed Is Important to Your Online Store (+ Updated Core Web Vitals)
If there’s one thing 2023 has taught Google developers it’s this – site speed is important. In fact Google has made it clear site speed is now officially a ranking factor.
Why? Site speed matters because it affects conversions.
It doesn’t just annoy visitors, a slow loading ecommerce site pushes visitors to your competitors. According to Google Consumer Insights over 50% of mobile consumers will abandon a mobile website that takes more than 3 seconds to load.
Yikes.
But here’s the crazy part, research conducted by Deloitte and Google actually discovered that every 0.1 second improvement in load speed can increase retail conversion rates by up to 8.4%.
Imagine what yours could be if you fine tune your sites speed?
Industry leaders like Amazon know this. That’s why they are working overtime to load sites in 2 seconds or less.
Many are doing this by increasing budgets to help improve everything from frontend performance optimisation to backend and hosting infrastructure.
But here’s the thing, you can get the same results. Frontend performance optimisation is the foundation and the first place you should be focusing.
Cleaning up your sites frontend by switching to a lightweight, performance-first theme is one of the best moves any ecommerce store can make.
Take Magento stores for example. Many ecommerce stores choose Hyvä themes as they offer lightning-fast load times straight out of the box. There is no pesky bloatware bloating your speed.
That level of frontend performance optimization is what gives small stores a fighting chance against the ecommerce giants.
3 Common Speed Issues Small Stores Face
You know what’s slowing your site down. Now let’s jump into what you can do about it.
Here are the biggest performance killers for small ecommerce sites…
- Bloated themes and plugins
- Oversized, unoptimised images
- Too many 3rd party scripts/widgets
Hosting can also cause speed issues, but we’ll touch on that later.
This is a good place to start though.
5 Frontend Performance Optimization Tips Every Store Should Implement
Ok so what can you actually do about it?
Here are five frontend speed optimization tips guaranteed to give your ecommerce site a competitive edge.
Optimise Your Theme For Performance
We already touched on this, but your theme makes the biggest difference.
Most store owners overlook their theme. They don’t realise how much it impacts their frontend performance.
Optimising your theme starts with ditching any templates overloaded with bloated code. Custom themes are great, but make sure you clean up any unnecessary code that comes with it.
If you aren’t ready to build your own, find a lightweight theme that was built with speed in mind. Here’s why…
Your theme dictates how much CSS, JavaScript and HTML code your browser needs to load on every page visit. The more code it needs to process the slower your page load speeds will be.
Switching to a lightweight theme will improve your core web vitals score.
Compress Images Before Uploading
Images are vital to any ecommerce store but guess what? They don’t need to be 5MB each.
Make sure you compress all images before uploading them to your site. Better yet, use modern image formats like WebP. Enabling explicit width and height dimensions is also important. This drastically improves your CLS score by preventing layout shifts.
Audit Your Third-Party Scripts
Animations, pop-ups, chat widgets, tracking pixels. Oh my!
Did you know 3rd party scripts add up to half the total weight of your ecommerce site?
Take a look at yours. Chances are it’s your number one reason your site loads slowly.
Your ecommerce site loads faster without them. Each request adds latency.
Audit every script that loads on your site. Be ruthless. Ask yourself if you need it. Stick to scripts that absolutely contribute to conversions.
Every byte helps.
Use Caching To Improve Load Times
Caching is like giving your website a short-term memory.
It stores a version of each page so that when a repeat visitor comes to your site they instantly see a cached version. Speeding up load time dramatically.
There are 3 main types of caching every ecommerce site should utilise.
- Browser caching
- Server side caching
- CDN caching
All of these work together to serve your stores content from nearby locations making load times faster.
Setting up caching is quick, easy and one of the most inexpensive wins any store can make. Most ecommerce platforms have caching built-in that require little to no configuration.
Focus On Mobile Performance
Want to know what Google cares about?
Mobile performance.
Google switched to mobile-first indexing in 2018. This means Google cares most about mobile performance when determining search rankings.
Make sure to audit your mobile experience frequently. Google PageSpeed Insights is a great place to start. Sites that pass the full complement of core web vitals have visitors that are 24% less likely to abandon their site while waiting for page load.
That’s huge!
How To Track Your Site Speed Improvements
Numbers make optimizations feel real. Here are the best tools for tracking frontend performance:
- Google PageSpeed Insights (lab & real user data)
- Google Search Console (tracks your entire sites core web vitals scores)
- WebPageTest.io (great for testing individual pages)
Run these before and after frontend performance optimisation to measure how your site has improved.
Bonus points for screenshotting each report so there’s something to compare to down the road.
Remember speed is something you have to stay on top of. It’s never really done.
Wrapping Things Up
Site speed isn’t something you should ignore.
If you want to compete with ecommerce giants you have to give yourself every advantage.
Optimising your sites frontend is the easiest, most cost-effective way to do that right now.
Here’s your checklist:
- Themes slow you down. Choose a lightweight alternative.
- Image sizes slow you down. Optimize image sizes and upgrade to modern formats like WebP.
- 3rd party scripts slow you down. Audit and remove any that don’t serve value.
- Not using caching? Make it a priority.
- Speed up your mobile load times. Mobile is Google’s number one priority.
Small ecommerce sites that take site speed seriously outrank their competition and win.
