Shopify Lazyload Images Guide: Best Feature For Shopify Store

Introduction Of Shopify Lazyload

A website that takes forever to load is a source of constant annoyance. That may be problematic for Shopify store owners since it takes a long time for huge websites to run on the internet. On-site conversions, as well as revenue and profit, may be significantly impacted by slow-running websites.

You may make your Shopify store more user-friendly by using the following strategies. One of the most efficient website performance optimization technique is lazy image loading.

SHOPIFY LAZY LOADING FEATURE

As the user scrolls down the page, a performance-enhancing method known as “lazy loading” slows down the download of pictures and other media assets. Deferred offscreen and veiled visuals are other names for this term.

“Defer offscreen pictures” and “on-demand loading” are two terms for this technique.

How Can I Optimise My Shopify Site?

Lazy Loading might result in weight loss of between 10% and 30%. Because the browser does not have to download all of the images at once, the page browses more rapidly.

Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of it now.

Consider a scenario in which a person uses a search engine to look for the Huptech Web logo. The requested material shows on the whole web page on your screen.

Until the user visits the first picture and is satisfied with what he sees, it will hide the following images from view. Consequently, the resources utilized in bulk lading would discard on the page. The solution to this issue is Lazy Loading.

As the user scrolls, the web page’s content is lading. That is a kind of lazy loading used on a variety of websites.

Is Lazy Loading Awesome in Your Opinion?

My response is a resounding YES.
I’ll explain it to you in a moment.

Importance of Lazy Loading Images Feature:

Because e-commerce websites are so much more significant and use so many more resources, they must optimize. Shopify business is a popular CMS for e-commerce websites. It is possible to improve the Shopify site’s speed by using Lazy Loading.

Because it doesn’t download all the pictures simultaneously, lazy laded pictures improve browser response time for loading quicker Shopify site. Lazy loads images do not slow down the first-page lading.

Using Lazy Loading on a Shopify site has the following advantages:

1. Reduce and accelerate the website.
2. Boosts revenues and improves search engine ranks
3. Reduce server request
4. Reduce Web page weight

In addition to the advantages mentioned above, lazily loading photos has several further advantages. So, let’s clear up some of the confusion around lazily lading pictures by answering some often asked questions:

1. Is utilizing lazy load images beneficial in latency Improvement?

   Lazy loading may have a significant load time reduction impact on the speed of a Shopify site. Using this method, for example, may speed up the loading time of a website that has much visual content.

   Aside from speed, data consumption is also a concern. Suppose for the argument that when someone visits a website, they only see the content that appears above the “fold.” Photos, even if accessible, would still require a lot of the user’s information.

   You may make images and videos lading more slowly to save page weight and use fewer system resources and time during page load. Any or all of these factors might be responsible for improved performance.

2. Impact of Lazy Load images on SEO:

   Using lazily loading pictures ensures that all of your standard HTML sequence image components work as expected. In HTML, the only change is that the data src attribute is used instead of src, which prevents the picture from processing until it does.

   Lazy loading is a good option for SEO and performance since the page crawlers still have access to the essential alt attribute.

   The initial page load time and the speed at which pictures coexist on the page are critical for search engine optimization (SEO). Google highlights the importance of a fast page load time when discussing bounce rates:

   When the page load time increases from one second to three seconds, a user is 32% more likely to leave a website. The chance of a bounce increases ninety percent from the first to the fifth second. From one to six seconds, it increases by a factor of 106. What an incredible 123% increase in only one to 10 seconds!

   Conversion rates, according to research, fall by 4.42 percent for every additional second it takes for a page to load.

   Due to Google’s recent Page Experience Update, it is now even more vital that you focus on enhancing your site’s Core Web Vitals. That may make possible by using Lazy Loading.

3. Lazy loading may be a technique to speed things up.

   Simply loading images in a Shopify store with many high-quality photos might enhance the user experience, save data use, and increase conversion rates.

   Above the fold, all visible elements run to their total capacity. We strongly advise avoiding sluggish browsing on any content above the fold, whatever the temptation. On the other hand, lazy loading may and should use at times.

4. The server or CDN should be serving a lesser volume of data.

   You save money since the server or CDN doesn’t have to download as much data, which reduces the rates you pay.

5. Data and Bandwidth Streaming Costs (Especially from Mobile load time)

   As a mobile user, I’d much appreciate it if you restricted most of your site’s data downloaded as the user scrolls down the page. It’s a beautiful gift for those who don’t have fast Internet connections or extensive data plans to save their data and bandwidth by employing lazy loaded images on your site.

WHEN SHOULD YOU NOT IMPLEMENT LAZY LOAD IMAGES?

1. Above the fold, you have images. That causes a delay in the Loading of your header/banner.
2. You own a business. Shoppers can’t fast-scroll around your site as rapidly as they used to.
3. We are doing it only to deceive page speed scores despite negatively impacting UX for real human users.
4. You have a CDN. Their servers, not yours, perform the job.
5. Each page should include a few photographs. On the other hand, static assets are readily cached and lading rapidly.
6. You have a quick-lading website and a powerful server. There’s no purpose in delaying asset lading if your present site and server can handle it fine.

The goal of your website is to serve humans first, followed by robots/search engines. The purpose of enhancing page lading is to make things r un faster, not slower. Why should you have an image that takes longer to lading than it should? Allowing your site to lading pictures helps your site seem to visitors to load quicker.

WHEN SHOULD IMPLEMENT LAZY LOADING?

Cleaning the theme can help you remove unnecessary stuff from your websites like broken links or any other errors, resulting in eventually speeding up your Shopify website. Below are some of the mentioned ways through which you clean up your theme:

1. Most of your very small or low-quality images are below the fold, at least a few clicks from the site’s top. It makes sense, not to lading images/items that visitors may never see.
2. You have large photos but no CDN. That conserves server resources/bandwidth.
3. You have many photos but no CDN. That conserves server resources/bandwidth.
4. Images aren’t necessary for a good user experience. Users just come for your text.
5. I’m just using it for SCRIPTS, not photos. Excellent for accelerating page lading.
6. Your web server is significantly underpowered. Slow lading saves server processing.
7. You are concerned about page rankings and believe in their ostensible advantages, even though I do not.
8. So there you have it, a couple of situations when I would advocate sluggish lading. Aside from these few exceptions, it’s preferable to acquire a CDN and allow all of your image files to load organically!

Why your Shopify Store should implement lazy Loading?

According to Lazy Load Usage Statistics of BuiltWith,

1. 2,822,548 website customers using it,
2. 881,861 active websites have implemented it,
3. 1,940,687 historical Lazy Load websites.

As discussed, there are many benefits to other online store that add lazy Loading to lad their product images or tiny images using image tags of lazy Loading. Our developers have found a significant reduction in the initial page load time. Even our Shopify developers have personally checked our client’s Shopify website by using new lazy loading syntax on his Shopify store.

Our team has already tried and tested this feature, and to know more, visit our article to boost your website speed and make it a higher quality version in terms of web design and customer satisfaction.

STEPS TO ADD LAZY LOAD IN YOUR SHOPIFY WEBSITE

Open a new window, write Shopify store, and the external site Opens. Sign in to your Shopify theme. Find exact files of the element’s src attribute. Once the window opens, check your store name and click find theme files update.

Remember, the library loads images, eliminating the need to write the logic from scratch and lazy loading syntax explained. Shopify merchants can use Shopify creation tools and the starter Shopify theme assets folder that come with it.

This theme contains two snippets for lazy loading: responsive-image.liquid and responsive-bg-image.liquid. Both are in the snippets folder.

These requirements include in theme assets folder’ JavaScript file from js library. There are other ways to load them, but we’ll assume it uploaded to your theme’s assets folder for this example.

<script src="{{ 'lazysizes.min.js' | asset_url }}" async="async"></script>
<script src="{{ 'ls.rias.min.js' | asset_url }}" async="async"></script>
<script src="{{ 'ls.bgset.min.js' | asset_url }}" async="async"></script>

Add the following code to your theme’s exact files to load the libraries between the head and /head tags:

{% include 'responsive-image' with
image: product.featured_image,
max_width: 700,
max_height: 800
%}

The src attribute defines the placeholder image. The data-src placeholder property calls the full-size picture. The user can view all the loads’ images.

So, they must load slower whether you’re utilizing the quickest theme files or higher-quality images.

Here’s how to go about it:

1. Insert the lazysizes.js library into your theme’s assets folder and include it in the theme.
2. liquid
3. Find the image tags in your theme’s files.
4. Replace src with data-source and add the “lazyload” class to the image tags.
5. To achieve animation effects, use CSS styling.

In the case of the lazy sizes library, for example, you need to replace your usual IMG tags with the following ones:

<img src="IMAGE_URL">

** LAZY LOADING SYNTAX EXPLAINED **

With the new lazy loading syntax:

<img data-src="IMAGE_URL" class="lazyload">

Download the newest version from the lazy sizes website, transfer it to your Shopify theme files’ Assets folder, and rename it lazysizes.min.js before putting it in your theme’s functions.js
a part of the head> like this:

<!--Lazy Loading -->
{{ "lazysizes.min.js" | asset_url | script_tag }}
<style>.lazyload,.lazyloading{opacity:0}.lazyloaded{opacity:1;transition:opacity.3s}</style>

For an elegant CSS animation, utilise the <style> element.

Your graphics will fade into view as you scroll down the page, rather than all at once when the page first loads (you can also refresh this page and scroll the page fast to try and catch the effect here).

Instead of loading with the page startup, your pictures will become lazily loaded and faded until you scroll down the page. That reduces FCP, LCP, and other costs. After implementing lazy loading, your Shopify site will be ready to make lazy load pictures. Also, don’t mix JPG and PNG picture formats. Should save images in JPG rather than PNG since JPG is quicker to process.

Some people prefer to do this manually. How to implement lazy loading for photos in Shopify?

There are Shopify applications for non-techies.

The top Shopify Lazy Load apps:

1. Lazify – Lazy Load Images:

   The Lazy loading app. Pick the relevant product page, select photographs, then hit the Lazy Load button.
   That’s it.
2. Swift Page Speed Booster:

   Fuzz is a Shopify software that preloads pages before you click on them.

   
3. Fuzz Booster Page:

   Fuzz is a Shopify software that preloads pages before you click on them.

   

What kind of Media Should You lazy load?

Either its low quality image, photographic images, very small image, or product image, blog pictures, same resolution image or collection page image, you can use all the images for lazy loading. And if you get a warning in an analyzer tool for icons or little images in your online store, you don’t need to be concerned about them.

1. What about Lazy Play Videos?

   Like pictures, the video may be lazy loaded. The use case determines how to lazy video. An alternative solution employing an image element has developed with limited implementation. Let’s look at a few situations that call for unique solutions.

   1. Use the template code for those videos that don’t autoplay with a placeholder URL:

Adding the preload property to the video element may be useful for videos that aren’t autoplaying.

<video controls preload="none" poster="one-does-not-simply-placeholder.jpg">
<source src="one-does-not-simply.webm" type="video/webm">
<source src="one-does-not-simply.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

# For video replacing animated GIF #

While animated GIFs are widely used, they are inferior to video in many aspects, especially file size. Animated GIFs may be many gigabytes in size.

Using video instead of the animated GIF isn’t as simple as using img.

They have three features:

1. When a run occurs, they begin to play.
2. They usually loop indefinitely.
3. They lack a soundtrack.

Using the video element, you can add this template code:

<video autoplay muted loop playsinline>
<source src="one-does-not-simply.webm" type="video/webm">
<source src="one-does-not-simply.mp4" type="video/mp4">
</video>

How to check that lazy load is implemented correctly?

To determine whether you have lazy loading on your site, you may run it via the PageSpeed Insights or gtmetrix.

Lazy loading test example using Shopify Analyzer.
(need to add example image)

A second approach to verify is by studying the browser code by right-clicking on your page, then choosing “View source.” Search for “lazy” on that page — if there aren’t any components with “lazy,” you probably don’t have it.

If you check the source and observe some “lazy” components, it’s still worth passing through an analyzer tool to make sure they’re all laden using “true lazy loading” (and not simply “placeholder slow loading”).

Your demand + Our Services = Successful Shopify Store

Keep visitors engaged and perhaps convert on our clients’ Shopify sites. You can’t do this if visitors are frustrated. People’s attention spans have reduced from 12 seconds to 8 seconds in the last decade.

Lazy loading may speed up processing. It can also help boost Shopify SEO and reduce bounce rates. Most importantly, it will enhance user experience and promote repeat visits.

So you’ll have seasoned people on your side in a quickly developing Shopify environment. Contact us to discuss.