Optimizing page speed

The America template is no longer being maintained and is not available for new stores. All new design is done using the design builder.

This article explains how to optimize the speed of an online store that uses the Rio or Santiago design templates.

Pagespeed

When discussing pagespeed, remember that a good online store is more than just that.

The number of content elements (images, scripts, customizations, banners, etc.) and whether they are optimized will affect the speed and can give you a low pagespeed score. See Google's PageSpeed Insights to learn more about website speed.

A large online store with high turnover is not always synonymous with a fast online store. Several large online stores do not score particularly well on pagespeed. This may be because they prioritize other customizations and measures that they consider important to provide a good customer experience. Speed is therefore not something to look at exclusively to give customers a good experience. It may be more important to focus on how fast you can make the online store based on the functions you consider important to be good at.

Faster America template

Acendy has aimed to make the America template one of the fastest on the market. In this work, we have looked at how the different content elements in the template are presented and function together.

Among other things, we have identified superfluous code that has been removed or changed. We have also worked to optimize which content the template displays first, what is displayed in the first screen image, and ensured that browsers can build this content in a correct and structured way.

We have also made a whole host of other, more technical adjustments. The principles we have worked according to can be read more about at web.dev/vitals.

The preliminary results from the work we have done are very positive. We have done tests, which for some of the online stores on the America template, show great progress towards a very good pagespeed score.

How to make your online store faster

To maximize the benefits of the work we have done, we encourage everyone who uses the America template to take action. This includes, for example, images and other settings that have been added under the template's design settings.

Optimize images

Here's how to optimize your images:

Set the size of banner images as indicated in the design settings. If a banner allows you to enter a custom size for mobile, use it.
Use jpeg or jpg instead of PNG. This applies above all to product images where there is no need to use PNG.
Use a compressor of images to make them optimized. You can, for example, use https://imagecompressor.com/ or https://tinypng.com
Do not use more than 3 images for banner A slider. Remember that some customers only see the first one anyway. If you only have one banner, the page will load faster.
If you have "free shipping countdown" turned on in the store, this can help increase the page's loading speed.

Which settings should I activate in design settings?

Note!

If you have had a lot of special adaptations done in your online store, we recommend that you contact kundeservice@acendy.no before you start working on changing the design settings mentioned below.

There are several things and settings that can be used to make the online store faster. You will find some of these under Design settings > Advanced settings > Speed optimization. Here you will find various settings that can be activated.

Activate "Enable theme optimization" under Design settings > Advanced settings > Speed optimization. This setting restructures the code and gives you the new update.
Activate "Use Native Lazy Load" and "Use lazy load on product box images" under Design settings > Advanced settings > Speed optimization.