How to Speed Up Your Shopify Store (2026 Step by Step Guide)

This is a do it in order guide. If you want to understand why stores get slow in the first place, I wrote a separate post on the common causes of a slow Shopify store. This one is about the work itself, in the order that gives you the most speed for the least effort.

I run the storefront for a brand with over 2 million users, and I took one of our product pages from a GTmetrix grade D to A using this same order. Largest Contentful Paint went from 3.1 seconds to 1.4 seconds, and Total Blocking Time dropped from 973 milliseconds to 44 milliseconds. So this is not theory. It is the routine.

Work top to bottom. Test after each step so you can see what helped.

Step 0: Get your baseline first

You cannot tell if you improved anything if you never wrote down where you started. Spend ten minutes before you change a thing.

• Open Google PageSpeed Insights and test your homepage and your top product page. Use the mobile tab, not desktop.
• Do the same in GTmetrix and save the report.
• Write down four numbers for each page: the score, Largest Contentful Paint, Total Blocking Time, and Cumulative Layout Shift.

These are your scoreboard. Now you can prove every change.

Step 1: Remove apps you do not use

This is the biggest quick win in almost every store. Each app can load its own scripts on every page, even pages where it does nothing.

• Go to your apps list in the Shopify admin.
• For each app, ask: did this earn its keep in the last 90 days? If not, uninstall it.
• After uninstalling, have someone check the theme for leftover code, because some apps leave scripts behind even after you remove them.

Cutting from a pile of apps down to only the ones you truly use can shave seconds, not milliseconds.

Step 2: Fix your images

On most ecommerce pages, images are the heaviest thing on screen. This step alone often moves your LCP the most.

• Resize images to about the size they actually display, plus a little extra for sharp screens. A photo in a 600 pixel box does not need to be 4000 pixels wide.
• Serve WebP instead of JPEG or PNG. It is usually 25 to 35 percent smaller at the same quality.
• Turn on lazy loading for images below the fold so they load only when the shopper scrolls down.
• Set width and height on every image so the page stops jumping while it loads. That jump is your Cumulative Layout Shift, and it is easy to fix.

Step 3: Defer the JavaScript that is blocking the page

When a script loads too early, the browser freezes and waits for it before showing anything. That is what pushes your blocking time up and makes the page feel stuck.

• Identify scripts that do not need to run before the page appears. Tracking, chat widgets, and many app scripts fall here.
• Add defer or async so they load without blocking.
• Move work that can wait until after the first paint.

On the opal earbuds page, this single step is what took blocking time from 973 milliseconds down to 44.

Step 4: Check your theme and fonts

Now the deeper work. This usually needs someone comfortable in the theme.

• Theme age. If your theme predates Shopify Online Store 2.0, it may be slow by design. A modern theme structure renders faster.
• Fonts. Custom fonts loaded from outside links are a common hidden delay. Host them through Shopify and limit how many font weights you load.
• Render blocking CSS. Make sure the styles needed for the top of the page load first.

Step 5: Trim heavy Liquid

Liquid runs on Shopify's servers before the page reaches the shopper. Big loops over large collections on every page slow your Time to First Byte.

• Keep heavy logic out of sections that load on every page.
• Move filtering and sorting to the browser where it makes sense.
• Simplify nested loops.

This one is for developers, but it matters once the easy wins are done.

Step 6: Re test and compare

Go back to PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix. Test the same pages, on mobile, a few times each. Compare to the baseline you saved in step 0.

You should see your score climb and your LCP and blocking time fall. If a number did not move, you now know exactly where to dig next.

A realistic idea of what each step gives you

Not every step is equal. Here is the rough impact I see, most stores first:

• Removing unused apps: large, sometimes seconds.
• Fixing images: large, mainly on LCP.
• Deferring scripts: large on blocking time and how fast it feels.
• Theme and fonts: medium, but important on old themes.
• Liquid cleanup: smaller, but it adds up at scale.

If you only have one afternoon, do steps 1 and 2. They are the cheapest seconds you will ever save.

What you can do yourself and what needs a developer

You can handle the app cleanup and most of the image work without code. Steps 3 to 5 usually need someone who can edit the theme safely on a live store. There is no shame in that line. Doing theme surgery on a store that is taking orders right now is exactly where a careful developer earns their fee.

Want me to do it for you?

If you have done the easy steps and your mobile score is still low, the problem is in the theme, and that is my home turf. Send me your store URL and I will run a free speed audit, find what is holding you back, and give you a clear fix list in plain language. Get in touch here.