(maybe title should be more like 'Making your site faster')

Slower than expected site load speeds negatively affect user experience. Especially on mobile devices where fast sites that don't use up too much precious data are taken for granted these days. For eCommerce websites, sluggishness can cost potential customers, conversions and ROI. There may also be other effects. For example, results for both organic and paid ad searches now take page load speed into consideration.

If you have tested your site with a tool such as PageSpeed or WebPageTest, the report would have come back with a list of issues and suggestions for optimisation. In a nutshell, most involve ways to decrease file size, storage space use, and the amount of information that the server needs to send to each user.

Specifically for your Customer Self Service eCommerce Platform website, there are several variables that can make a difference to how fast your site loads. We have broken them up into these:

• • CSS and JavaScript use
  • Image optimisation (e.g., banners, images, etc)
  • Customisation complexity and background tasks

Some optimisation strategies are in your control. Others may require consultation to implement.  

CSS and JavaScript use

If you run a page of your site through a page speed tool, it is likely that at or near the top of the suggestion list are things like reduce unused JavaScript and CSS or 'Eliminate Render-blocking Resources'. 

This critical factor typically means take a look at the CSS and especially JavaScript resources added to the page. First though, such coding is part and parcel of how web content is created. Web page styling and functionality would not be the same without them. Especially dynamic and interactive content. However, bear in mind that each CSS and JavaScript request has to be processed by your users' browsers or the server before a page will load fully. When a browser normally finds CSS or JavaScript <script> tags, it will stop loading HTML until the scripts have been parsed, compiled and executed. And having to Do this multiple times slows down the overall page render time. 

And even even if the JavaScript is not render-blocking, it competes for bandwidth with other resources while it's downloading, which has significant performance implications. Sending unused code over the network is also wasteful for mobile users who don't have unlimited data plans.

So one of the most beneficial things you can do is to ensure your styles and (especially) scripts follow page load efficiency practices and utilise the tools the Customer Self Service eCommerce Platform has to help achieve this.   

What you can do:

• Ensure your custom styles and scripts have been written to best coding practices:
  • Efficient coding with no unnecessary elements.
• Do not add too many widgets and independent scripts on the one page
• Utilise the Scripts and styles function in the CMS where possible instead of uploading each JavaScript and referencing it in a HTML Snippet widget. Scripts and styles has been designed to maximise efficiency by:
  • bundling related scripts and styles into one widget and called as a unit instead of multiple units,
  • allowing you to disable unneeded scripts and styles by easily turning them off (just untick the checkbox next to the widget in the page layout).

What else you can do:

• If you need deeper analysis and technical expertise, book a time with Commerce Vision's Professional Services to discuss what we can do to help.
• We can also implement features we have specially created to minimise JavaScript render-blocking on your web pages so that they appear more quickly to users. 

• • Our JavaScript Defer feature defers JavaScript loading and execution (including inline script blocks) until the HTML has been parsed on a page. The solution uses our expertise to defer in an orderly way (For versions 4.17+)
  • Our JavaScript Dependency feature reduces JavaScript execution to only those a particular page needs. The solution automatically works out what JavaScript files are necessary, bundles them and provides a single link to the browser to lower resource use. (For version 4.25+) 

Content Optimisation

Think about the content especially images (and other rich media) on your pages, especially on key pages such as the home page and SEO landing pages. We file sizes to be kept to 250kb for desktop/tablet and 50kb for mobile. TIP - The home page should be priority since it is usually the first page for users and SEO search results. Find out what others are SEO landing pages on your site. Here is an article with useful tips.

What you can do:

• Minimise the use of images on key landing pages as much as possible.
• Ensure images and other rich media are optimised for online use. This means striking the right balance between quality and performance (how load speed is affected). Compression, format and size matter. Your image editing software, e.g., Photoshop, will have image optimising tools. 
• Consider the number of banners that are loaded on the one page, e.g., campaign banners. As these are usually image-based, having too many banners on your home page can slow down page loads. 
• Utilise device optimisation for banners in the CMS.

What else you can do

• Ensure Lazy Loading is enabled. The Lazy Loading feature ensures that the loading of non-critical files are delayed until they are scrolled into view (on screen or what is called 'above the fold').

  • Lazy loading of banners, images and product images is enabled by default for all websites. If you think lazy loading is not on for your site, please contact Commerce Vision Support.

• Here's an example of how lazy loading works. Suppose your home page has a slider campaign. Only one slide is viewable on your user's screen. With lazy loading enabled, an image file will not be loaded until the slide is in view.  This allows non-critical files to be delayed until needed. 

Background tasks

If your site uses third party plugins and addons such as marketing and tracking software and scripts, test that they are not adversely affecting page load speeds. 

Summary

There's quite a bit your eCommerce team can do to help increase page load speeds. Keep monitoring, testing and optimising! If you require further assistance than this, book a Professional Services consultation to assess your site and implement additional measures.