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Pacifica Beauty - Site Speed Audit

Brought to you by
Roadrunner
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- Shopify Site Speed Experts

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Website:
https://www.pacificabeauty.com/
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Link to PageSpeed Test Results
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Summary

There are 3 metrics to pay attention to when testing a website’s load time & performance:
First Contentful Paint (FCP) time: how long it takes for the first pixels to load
Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) time: how long it takes for the largest image & text to load on the site. This is the most common way of measuring how long it takes for a site to be fully loaded for a visitor.
Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): this is a measure of how “stable” the website is when loading (i.e. do images load in and stay in place or do they shift up/down when loading in the website)

Together FCP, LCP, and CLS have a strong impact a website’s conversion rate, organic ranking, paid marketing performance, and overall customer experience.

Here are the results of the audit:
The Pacifica Beauty site has an good CLS on mobile and desktop devices.
The Pacifica Beauty site has a poor FCP time on mobile and desktop devices.
The Pacifica Beauty site has a poor LCP time on mobile and desktop devices.

The recommended FCP time is mobile and desktop is <1.8 seconds. Pacifica Beauty has an FCP time of:
3.7 seconds on mobile
3.2 seconds on desktop

The recommended LCP time on mobile and desktop is <2.5 seconds. Pacific Beauty has an LCP time of:
4.3 seconds on mobile
4.1 seconds on desktop

This means that the Pacifica Beauty website is taking longer to fully load on mobile and desktop devices than what is recommended for ecommerce sites.

The extra load time might seem minimal; however, ecommerce is a game of milliseconds. Research shows that every additional millisecond of website load time will have negative effects on conversion rates:
53% of visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load on mobile (
Google
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)

Based on the site speed audit results, there are a handful of technical issues slowing down the website.
Most notably, the site is being slowed down by to excess Javascript, HTML, and CSS code present in the site. This is a the most common occurrence in ecommerce sites hosted on Shopify. Every app installed, theme change, and third party script (i.e. Facebook Pixel, Google Analytics, etc.) injects code into the site. Even if the app/theme is removed, the code stays behind, accumulating over time.
The best way to improve Pacifica Beauty’s load time is by optimizing the codebase. During this process, necessary code is compressed to run more efficiently, and excess/unused code is deleted altogether.

Optimizing the codebase (as well as enabling lazy loading, preloading website elements, and other optimization techniques) will decrease the website’s load time, which will have positive effects on conversion rates.
1 second improvement in page load time will increase mobile CVR by up to 27% (
Shopify
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)
Every 0.1 second improvement in page load time will increase overall CVR by up to 8% (
Deloitte
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)

I started
Roadrunner
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to help ecommerce companies maximize their conversion rate through proper site speed optimization. To date, we’ve helped more than a dozen Shopify sites increase their CVR by 20-50% through site speed optimization.

If you’d like to learn more about our site speed optimization services:
Click here to contact me on LinkedIn
(or)
Send me an email
kris@tryroadrunner.com
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Mobile Page Speed Audit

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image.png
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Results

First Contentful Paint: 3.7 seconds
Explanation: First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures how long it takes for content to start appearing on a website. This is typically an empty box or plain text. It’s the first pixels rendered in for the site.
Optimal time for ecommerce sites is < 1.8 seconds.
Largest Contentful Paint: 4.3 seconds
Explanation: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for a website to display its biggest single content element. It's one of the most common ways to measure page load time.
Optimal time for ecommerce sites is < 2.5 seconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.04
Explanation: Cumulative Layout Shift is a measure of how “stable” your website it after it first renders. A website that has content shift down as more object load will have a higher score. Cumulative Layout Shift is one of the core ranking factors for Google.
Optimal score for ecommerce sites is < 0.1.


Technical Issues
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image.png
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Reduce Javascript Execution Time / Reduce unused Javascript & CSS
In short, this means that there is a substantial amount Javascript, HTML, and CSS code that the browser has to process every time the site is loaded. There are four ways that Javascript code can accumulate on your site: when you connect a new Shopify app, when you use certain themes, when you use third-party scripts such as Facebook Pixel or Google Analytics, and if you have custom code on your site. The biggest culprit is Shopify apps. Each app “injects” a bit of code into your site. Even if the app is deleted, the code it injects stays behind. Over time, this code will slow down your site’s load time.
Minimize main-thread work
Main thread overload happens when too many tasks, like heavy JavaScript execution, complex CSS code, and third-party scripts, are processed simultaneously. This slows down the site’s load time. The best way to fix this is to delete unused Javascript, compress essential Javascript code, and remove unnecessary third party scripts.
Optimize Largest Contentful Paint (LCP)
The LCP takes up a considerable amount of main thread resources when loading. As a result, it needs to be optimized through image compression, preloading important page elements, and eliminating unused CSS and Javascript files.
Reduce the impact of third-party code
Third-party scripts, such as ads, analytics, and social media widgets, can slow down your site. Delaying the firing of analytics, or deferring them from using the main thread, can improve performance.
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Desktop Page Speed Audit

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image.png
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Results

First Contentful Paint: 3.2 seconds
Explanation: First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures how long it takes for content to start appearing on a website. This is typically an empty box or plain text. It’s the first pixels rendered in for the site.
Optimal time for ecommerce sites is < 1.8 seconds.
Largest Contentful Paint: 4.1 seconds
Explanation: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) measures how long it takes for a website to display its biggest single content element. It's one of the most common ways to measure page load time.
Optimal time for ecommerce sites is < 2.5 seconds.
Cumulative Layout Shift: 0.01
Explanation: Cumulative Layout Shift is a measure of how “stable” your website it after it first renders. A website that has content shift down as more object load will have a higher score. Cumulative Layout Shift is one of the core ranking factors for Google.
Optimal score for ecommerce sites is < 0.1.

Technical Issues

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image.png
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Same technical issues that are affecting load times on mobile devices are affecting the load times on desktop device; however, there is a lesser affect on the desktop (desktop computers have more processing power). It’s very common for the same technical issues to be present and negatively affecting the site on mobile and desktop.
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Ecommerce Site Speed Statistics

Anyone selling products on the internet should think about their website’s speed. It’s the biggest lever any ecommerce business can make to increase sales and revenue.

And the research backs it up:
Improving a website’s load time by 1 second can increase mobile conversion rate by up to 27% (
Shopify
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)
Improving a website’s load time by 0.1s can increase overall conversion rates by up to 8.4% (
Deloitte
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)
A site that loads in 1 second has an e-commerce conversion rate 2.5x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds (
Portent
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)
47% of customers expect a webpage to load in 2 seconds or less (
Cloudflare
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)

Let’s make it real with an example. Let’s say an ecommerce site get’s 100,000 visitors per month and has a 3% conversion rate.

If that site is optimized for speed, and see a 20% increase in conversion rates, it would go from 3000 sales/month to 3600 sales/month. At an AOV of $30, that’s an addition $20,000 per month in sales for every 100,000 visitors.

Site speed is important.

That’s why I started
Roadrunner
⁠
, a done-for-you site speed optimization agency helping Shopify brands improve their online performance.

Our process is simple, straightforward, and requires no downtime for the website at all.

If you’re interested in learning more about the work we do at Roadrunner, please reach out to my on my
LinkedIn
⁠
or via email (kris@tryroadrunner.com).

Best,
Kris


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