Creating a Shopify store is not just about adding products and listing them with prices. Neglecting visual stability can harm the site’s user experience. Visual stability enables smooth loading on your website, preventing disruptions while users browse your store.
This is important because, if elements shuffle about while your page is loading, it can disorient visitors, frustrate them, hurt your user experience, and lead to lost conversions.
One of Google’s Core Web Vitals is CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift), a metric that evaluates how stable the content layout is while the page is loading. Aim for a low CLS score (<0.1) to maintain a predictable layout and search ranking. Use effective strategies to enhance visual stability and provide a smooth browsing experience on your Shopify store.
Understanding Layout Shifts
This occurs when parts of your webpage move around unexpectedly as the page loads. This happens when the images, fonts, ads or buttons on a page are loading at different speeds. Images, for instance, that subsequently push text down after being loaded or late-loading ads moving content of later items. These changes can also ruin the user experience and make your website look less professional.
Not only does this result in fewer shifts, but it also will help your store rank higher in search engines as Google is now using CLS against you when ranking your webpage. Your Shopify store is more likely to load faster and keep users for longer when everything is more visually still.
Key Techniques to Increase Visual Stability on Shopify
Visual stability can be enhanced by focusing on several core areas of your Shopify store. Let’s explore some straightforward techniques that you can implement.
1. Set Proper Image Dimensions
Modern images that use srcset and are not sized responsively are the biggest offenders of layout shifts. This creates a problem because the browser has to play a guessing game: simply put, if an image lacks specific sizes, it forces the content before it to render without knowing how much space the downstream images will occupy, causing the content to jump as other parts of your website start loading and the images gradually appear. To prevent this:
Always declare the width and height of your images in your theme. This way, the browser will reserve space for these elements while the rest of the page loads. Shopify provides built-in features that help you maintain uniform image dimensions across product listings, banners, and galleries. You can easily achieve this, whether you modify it from the theme or use apps designed for this function.
2. Preload Important Fonts
Fonts can also cause layout shifts, especially when custom fonts are used. If the font loads slowly, the browser may first display text in a default font, then switch to the custom font, causing a visible shift. To address this:
Preload key fonts by adding a tag in your Shopify theme file. This tells the browser to load your custom fonts quickly before anything else.
Use the font-display: swap CSS rule. This allows fallback fonts to be used until the custom font is fully loaded, keeping the text stable without sudden shifts.
3. Use Static Elements in Key Areas
Any dynamic content that suddenly appears (pop-ups, ads, banners) can create layout shifts, which derail visual stability. To minimize this:
Do not place dynamic content, especially an ad in the areas that load first (above the fold). Instead of this, you use placeholders and let the browser know how much space is taken by content before it even fully renders.
For dynamic content like video embeds or iFrames use fixed dimensions. This way avoids any of the unpredictable layout changes once this content is loaded after the rest of the page.
4. Optimize Lazy-Loading for Images and Videos
True to its name, lazy-loading can delay the loading of images and videos outside the viewports so they only load when they are scrolled into. This obviously helps make pages load faster by allowing content to load right before or even after the user actually needs it. Yet, poorly implemented lazy-loading can lead to content shifts as images or videos are loaded after the fact. To solve this:
Preserve space for lazy-loaded images. This prevents the layout from shifting when these images are finally loaded as people scroll down.
The default lazy-loading options from Shopify are built to do this in a manner that does not cause movement, but double-check it in the theme editor.
5. Reserve Space for Ads and Embedded Content
The root cause of a lot of layout shifts revolves around ads, banners, or embedded elements (eg: Google Maps / YouTube) that haven’t been sized correctly or reserved space ahead of time. To avoid this:
Define the height and width of ad slots, or embedded content ahead so that a browser can begin allocating box space for that object.
One possibility to consider is integrating with ad platforms, or even embedding content within the page — however, to ensure that these components have a pre-set space or container to maintain layout stability.
6. Ensure Consistent Loading of Critical Resources
Delays in loading critical resources such as CSS and JS files can cause layout shifts. The system must load these resources, but it loads them after an additional element, which may break the formatting of the existing page. Resource Loading Best Practice.
Leverage Shopify’s inbuilt methods to reduce the render-blocking caused by CSS and JavaScript. Loading these elements late can lead to layout shifts when styles or functionality are applied. Use tools like Shopify’s Theme Inspector to identify performance bottlenecks, and load critical resources as early as possible.
7. Test and Monitor CLS with Tools
So it is important to frequently test for layout shifts on your Shopify store. This will allow you to proactively find visual stability issues that may have been missed and promptly resolve them. Tons of tools to monitor CLS and other Core Web Vitals:
Google Page Speed Insights -This tool offers a CLS evaluation of your store and detailed recommendations to optimize CLS.
Lighthouse in Chrome DevTools: Using Lighthouse in Chrome, you can obtain a CLS and visual stability summary, along with actions on how to resolve them.
Web Vitals Extension — This browser extension tracks CLS in real-time while you browse your Shopify store, providing live and immediate insights into how stable your layout is.
The Benefits of a Visually Stable Shopify Store
Now that you understand what visual stability is, it’s time to talk about why it matters. A visually stable website:
More Efficient User Experience: A persistent layout keeps your store simple and frustration free for visitors, allowing them to focus on looking around or buying your products.
Greater Conversion Rates: This way, your layout remains unchanged for the visitor, directing their attention towards making a purchase. The lower your CLS, the more likely you are to decrease high bounce rates and cart abandonment.
Improves Store SEO Rankings: Google considers instant visual stability a Core Web Vital for your store, which impacts your search engine ranking. Sign up here: A lower CLS score makes it more likely for you to appear on Google and attract traffic to your store.
Final Thoughts
Visual stability is also crucial for an overall professional and standardized shopping experience over your Shopify store. You can boost your site performance quite a lot by eliminating layout shift, which is fundamentally possible by specifying image dimensions, preloading fonts and reserving space for dynamic content.
A resilient layout plays a crucial role in enhancing the shopping experience, improving search engine results, and boosting store performance. Follow the suggestions in this guide, and always test your store to ensure its long-term success.
