PageSpeed Insights vs Shopify Speed Score
If you have a Shopify store, then you can easily check your Shopify store feed by using tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights.
Shopify stores rely a lot on the use of third-party apps, but these apps can actually slow down your page speed. If you find that the app you are using takes a long time to load, then you can test its page speed using PageSpeed Insights.
Here at Embryo, we care a lot about technical SEO. Some of the most important aspects of technical SEO include improving search engine crawling and indexing, browser rendering, and your overall website hierarchy and architecture.
If you want to find out how PageSpeed Insights can help your search engine optimisations or want to know more about Shopify speed scores, then keep reading!
What are PageSpeed Insights?
First of all, you might not know what PageSpeed Insights are. Essentially, PageSpeed Insights (or PSI’s) reports on the user experience of a page on both mobile and desktop devices, and provides suggestions on how that page may be improved.
Page speed can be defined as how long it takes to display content above the fold, and how long it takes a browser to fully render the page. PSI then gives you a ‘speed score’ between 0-100, ranking how well your site loads and how speedy it is.
With Page Speed Insights, site owners can see in detail how Google understands the technical performance of their pages.
Beyond just SEO, page speed is also essential to the overall user experience. For mobile users, page load speed is considered the most important factor, even more so than finding what they are looking for or the aesthetic quality of the page.
What is a Shopify speed score?
(Source: Shopify)
Similarly to PageSpeed Insights, your Shopify speed score measures how fast your storefront loads in the Shopify test environment.
Shopify is one of the biggest online marketplaces in the world, targeting millions of customers per year, therefore it is important to understand what a speed score is and how you can improve it.
Having a slow storefront will turn potential customers away, losing out on revenue opportunities for your store and driving them straight into the arms of the competitor.
There are many things that are considered when your speed score is evaluated. The speed score is calculated on a weighted average of the Google Lighthouse performance scores for your store’s home page, your product page with the most traffic over the past 7 days, and your collection page with the most traffic over the last 7 days.
When calculating the weight of these performances, Shopify considers the relative traffic of these pages against similar stores in that industry. To ensure accuracy, they monitor this for 7 days.
A good Shopify speed score is considered to be 50, and a speed score of 70 or more is considered excellent.
The differences between the speed scores
| Google PSI speed score | Shopify speed score |
| It can be applied to any website | Specific to Shopify and its features |
| An external tool created by Google | Accessible on Shopify by the admin |
| Suggestions on how to improve, including complex technical changes | Simple changes that can be actioned by admins |
| Provides score based on the site as a whole | Comparison against other stores |
PSI has key features that provide detailed insights into your performance and what can be done to improve it. It’s a tool created by Google to analyse your site. However, the Shopify Speed Score is a built-in feature on the system that can be accessed by the admin. It’s simplified and user-friendly, making each metric digestible.
Google PSI can be applied to any website, but Shopify’s speed score is specifically for that platform and the changes relate to its features.
Which is more reliable?
Like anything in SEO, it depends…
The Shopify speed measurement can be seen as a comparison against other stores. Shopify still provides a fast e-commerce experience, so your score may look low even though it’s generally an effective load time, just not the fastest on the platform. However, it is good for shop owners to make simple changes that don’t require too much technicality. It’s also easy to digest the information it provides on the dashboard.
However, Google’s PSI speed score provides an in-depth insight with higher levels of technical implication. It also assesses your site as it is as opposed to basing it on other sites or stores.
If you want the best possible accuracy, then why not use both? Both will give you important insights about your e-commerce site that can help improve a user’s experience. You can leverage both sets of data to make the right changes.
How do I optimise my Shopify speed?
If you want to optimise the speed of your Shopify store website, here is a quick step-by-step guide on how to do it:
- Run the store through Google PadeSpeed Insights (Google’s speed testing tool that we mentioned earlier)
- Use a fast and reliable hosting provider
- Opt for a theme that is designed for better performance
- Optimise larger images to help reduce load time
- Limit the use of third-party JavaScript and Shopify apps
- Migrate tracking codes to Google tag manager
- Unblock Parser-Blocking scripts
- Use pop-ups smartly
- Avoid having too many liquid loops
- Remove broken links
What other tools are available for testing my store’s speed?
As well as PageSpeed Insights, there are various tools available for testing your Shopify store’s speed, such as:
- Shopify’s online store speed report
- GTmetrix
- Pingdom website speed test
- WebPageTest.org
Google PageSpeed Insights and Shopify Speed Scores are useful tools to measure how quickly your website is performing and loading for users.
A poor speed score can be the defining factor between regular customers, and no traffic at all. Essentially, by having a fast-performing site, you’re opening yourself up to more customers because search engines are favouring sites with quick-loading sites.
We hope that this guide has given you a better understanding of PageSpeed Insights and Shopify Speed Scores. Although different, both are important in terms of performing the speed of your website.
If you want to find out more about SEO or are eager to send an enquiry, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today!
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