While there are many different things that can make or break the success of your online store, there are few factors more important than speed for keeping your visitors and the search engines happy. One study found that a single second in delay in page loading times could be enough to cut your conversion rate by 7%.

When every second counts, the more you can do to speed up your website, the better off you’ll be. As well as choosing the right host and regularly clearing out your site to make sure that there are no files slowing it down, make sure that you install the following plugins.

1. WP Rocket

WP Rocket is a WordPress plugin specifically designed to help your website run faster. With WP rocket, you get everything you need to run a more effective and efficient website, including caching features, lazy loading and of course, database optimisation. WP Rocket even comes with the option to host Google analytics on your website, so you can see how your site is performing at any time without switching to a different tab.

The great thing about WP Rocket is that it’s incredibly easy to set up. All you need to do is click a few buttons, and you’ll be ready to go in no time.

2. WP Smush.It

Sometimes, the biggest problem slowing down your website is the large image files that your site has to load every time someone clicks on your pages. The WP Smush. It plugin resolves this problem for WordPress users by accessing the Yahoo Smush.it service to remove unnecessary information from large files. While most image compression plugins use “lossy” formats which harm the overall quality of your pictures, WP Smush, it keeps your pictures looking great while it reduces size.

3. Page Speed for Magneto

If you’re not a WordPress user, but you still want to make sure that your website can run as quickly as possible, then you should consider trying the “Page Speed” extension in the Magneto marketplace. Though this a premium plugin – which means that you need to pay to use it, it will help to speed up your Magneto store by loading a multitude of minification tools, all intended to limit the amount of data your pages need to access each day.

4. Amasty Full Page Cache

The full-page cache solution by Amasty is another premium extension for Magneto designed to help you speed up your pictures by giving you a highly customisable environment where you can quickly cache and manage your page information. This is one of the most advanced caching services on the market, with multiple settings that you can adjust to change your caching strategy to suit your needs. The Amasty caching service also works well with a range of other website-building services from Amasty, like their coupon-creation product.

5. BJ Lazy Load

BJ Lazy Load is a lazy loading tool that works with various kinds of sites, including WordPress and WooCommerce. Typically, when a user comes to your website and tries to load a page, they’ll load the entire page at once. However, with Lazy Loading, the user only loads specific elements of the page when they need them, which speeds up your website significantly. Your loading times will skyrocket with this feature.

6. Cache Enabler

Cache Enabler is a plugin that works with sites built on Shopify, WordPress and more. This lightweight caching plugin is free to use, and you can set it up in minutes with a range of different settings to choose from. There’s an option to set your own cache expiry time, and you can also setup minification and other options too. Though it doesn’t have as many features as other caching solutions, it’s more budget friendly for smaller businesses.

7. Google Tag Manager

Finally, don’t just speed up your website, optimise your tracking codes too! Google Tag Manager on Shopify allows you to avoid the headache of adding multiple separate tracking codes to your Shopify site. The more codes you have to send to the developer to check the performance of your website, the more likely it is that your site will begin to slow down as a result. The Google Tag Manager places all of your tags in the same place so that they’re easier to manage. You can use Google Tag Manager with your Shopify Plus store, and it only takes a matter of minutes to set up.