The truth behind Online Speed Tests

Online Speed Tests just provide general information about web pages without considering their purpose or even if they are e-commerce stores or not. They just show general advice that can be useful for web developers but that it is not relevant for store owners.

Why the final score is not so relevant?

On one hand, you can see that a very simple store, with only product names, descriptions and small product pictures (without videos, apps or any other feature), has a high score. That store will score high but it won't be useful for their potential customers and probably won't have a high conversion. Usually, high scores just mean simple stores.

Potential customers will find value in high-quality images and videos of your products, but that will affect your score. Which is more important, attracting your potential customers or getting a high score for no reason?

On the other hand, if you have a video on your home page, an upsell app on your product pages, or a chat to communicate with your customers, your store’s score will be lower.

It is time to think whether you prefer to have a successful store using apps that may help to improve your conversion and customer satisfaction or have a simpler store with just the basics.

Successful stores do not focus on speed reports

Below you can see a table with very successful businesses, which actually have quite low scores from Google PageSpeed Insights (the tool used by Shopify's Online Speed report):

If your home page is not heavy and shows its main content in a few seconds, you do not need to worry about your score, your store is working perfectly fine!
Just browse your store as a potential customer. Does it feel nice? Is the content displayed relevant? Does it look good? That is way more important than a high score.

The Unnofficial Shopify Podcast by Ethercycle dedicated one of their episodes to discuss the real importance of the scores obtained in Google PageSpeed Insights, that it is actually the tool used by Shopify on its Online Store Speed report. In this episode they openly talk about this topic, you can have a look at it here.

Summary

• Speed reports are general tools, not relevant for store owners
• If your store has less content or fewer features, its score will be higher (but that is not good for your business)
• Focus on providing good content and features for your potential customers
• If your store loads swiftly, looks nice and feels good, you are all set