Shopify Tips: Getting Familiar with 5 Crucial Metrics To Improve Site Speed

As a storeowner, one of your top priorities should be ensuring that customers are getting the best shopping experience when they do business with your shop. But accomplishing it is something that can’t be done with just a single step or with a single formula. There are things that you need to make sure you’re doing so your online shop reaches the next level of growth and eventually ends up on the pinnacle of success.

So in this article, we’re going to look into 5 specific metrics and glean some insights from each one which can be used for improving your site’s loading speeds. Keeping watch of such metrics really matters especially if you’re trying to leave a positive first impression to every customer especially those prospective ones. So without further ado, let’s go directly to the first metric:

1. The Page Response Time

Page response time refers to the amount of time that it takes for the very first response to be received coming from a server that’s being targeted by a particular request. If the response time is slow, the number of customers that will bounce from the site is going to be high. Ideal page response time according to experts is 200ms. There are several things that you can do to ensure that your site’s page response time remains within the ideal value and we’re going to talk about them further in our next tutorial.

2. The Time It Takes for DNS Lookup

Domain Name System or DNS is another metric that you need to keep an eye on since it also affects your website’s overall page loading time. Lookup time in this metric would actually refer to the time it takes for the DNS provider of your website to translate your domain name into an IP address. Yes! Every domain name is assigned an IP address for easier mapping and access. If your shop’s domain name takes too long to load, it could mean that your site or any other page that you are trying to open and launch actually has several DNS lookups.

A good example for this are those social media share buttons that you mostly find in blogs and other websites but you need to know that such links and buttons actually adds DNS lookup to a particular page on your website and thereby cause it to load slower. Solving this is easy though because you simply need to choose reputable DNS providers or even those premium ones as they are more secured and definitely works faster than free versions.

3. The Time It Takes for a Page To Load

Next, you will also need to look into the page load time and be sure to do it for every page especially those that customers spend most of their time on. To explain what this metric is in very simple terms, it is actually the time it takes for a webpage to show all of its contents to site visitors. We’ve listed some of the things that would actually affect page load times:

- Too many redirects

- Conflict between codes and scripts like CSS and HTML.

- The use of high-quality unoptimized and uncompressed images in different website pages or product description section

Thoroughly check these particular aspects of your site and be sure to follow the tips that we’ve shared in our previous tutorials so that your website runs smoother and loads faster than any other competitor out there.

4. Connection Time to TCP

In simple words, TCP or Transmission Control Protocol refers to the amount of time it would take for your website to communicate and be connected with a particular server. There are several factors that can have adverse effects on TCP that is why you need to pay close attention to this metrics and get familiar to every factor that can cause trouble and slow website loading speeds.

For example, TCP will be affected by the presence of bots and increased traffic to your site. Another factor is when a website is made accessible even to people coming from different geographic locations. You may consider using CDN or a server that will assist in caching so you can be sure that your website performs great in this metric.

5. TTFB or Time to First Byte

The name of this metric itself suggests what it is all about. In layman’s terms, Time To First Byte is the amount of time it would take for your site to fully load on many different devices. It refers to the time it takes for the very first byte of data or response coming from your site’s web server to reach users and site visitors which submitted a request for viewing or loading a URL. This includes the requests coming from usual desktop computer, smartphones, and other devices and gadgets that can access the Internet. Below are three crucial TTFB components:

- The time that is needed to send HTTP requests

- The time it takes for a web server to process a particular request

- The time required for sending back files including that precious first byte from the server to the user who requested it.

If your site has codes that are not written efficiently or the database itself is slow in processing and sending back response for particular queries, your website will surely load slower. Another cause of delayed TTFB values are servers that are not configured properly. Knowing and identifying issues that affect TTFB is crucial if you are to make your website run faster and better.

Conclusion

Making your site work faster and load pages at lightning speeds really is a challenge especially if you’ve already built your online shop and you’ve already put things in place, installed apps, and did some other things that are aimed at improving your shop’s performance. Poorly written codes, conflict between scripts and as well as the items we have listed above are some of the metrics that you need to watch out for and pay attention to. They not only keep you warned about possible pitfalls but they also keep you informed about your overall site status.

Keep an eye on these metrics and observe! Discover how one is related to the other and think of strategies or learn some methods on how you can improve them. An improvement of one will surely bring change and an improvement in all is going to be a resounding success especially when you start seeing progress and overall growth in your business.

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