Summary

READ IT

In the evolving landscape, of e-commerce, video has become a crucial part towards the growth of online stores. Though just solely adding videos to your website is not just enough, instead you need to ensure that both your videos and your website are optimized for speed as well as engagement to avoid penalisation from Google's lighthouse performance with the most important factor, interaction to next paint (INP).

In simple terms, INP refers to how rapidly individuals can interact with your website, once the video has loaded, which impacts your user's experience directly alongside your website's SEO rankings. As a brand, if you have a low score, this means there are frustrated visitors, leading to increased bounce rates and in turn lower or reduced conversions. By utilising players that are optimized to ensure fast load times and an enjoyable experience for your customers.

Join along as this article explores how you can optimize your video content to ensure faster load times and increased engagements.

What Is Interaction to Next Paint (INP)?

Before jumping into the how's and why's of optimization lets quickly understand what INP is.

INP as mentioned is a core web vital metric that highlights how fast a page is able to respond to a viewer's actions such as:

  • Clicking a “Buy Now” button
  • Opening a product video
  • Scrolling through a carousel

Tools such as Google Lighthouse are able to instantly flag slow INP scores as they signal poor user experience. In the case that your videos take too long to load and delay interactions, your store’s SEO performance can be affected significantly.

Why Optimizing for INP Matters for E-Commerce Videos

  • Faster interaction = higher conversions: Customers expect instant responses when they click a product video. A slow INP can cause them to leave before making a purchase.
  • Better SEO rankings: Google prioritizes sites that load quickly and offer seamless interaction.
  • Lower bounce rates: If shoppers don’t experience lag, they stay longer, browse more, and buy more.
  • Increased engagement: Videos that load fast encourage users to explore your site and interact with your products.

Best Practices to Optimize Videos for Interaction to Next Paint

1. Use a Lightweight Video Player

As a brand using video players for hosting and embedding, it needs to be understood that not all players are created the same. Some can use heavy to load scripts that hinder site speed. An ideal example of this is the vidjet player that is specifically built for e-commerce stores, with a strong emphasis on faster load times, enjoyable interactions and no flags by google lighthouse.

Dashboard mockup
Image showing the vidjet load times completely optimised.

Why they work:

  • Preloads only what’s necessary
  • Delivers videos via a CDN (Content Delivery Network) for faster streaming
  • Lazy loads videos so they don’t impact page speed until needed

‍

Image showing how a video embedded on the site works.

‍

2. Optimize Video File Sizes

Keep this in mind, the larger the video file means the slower the performance. Here is how you can attack this without losing quality:

  • Use MP4 (H.264) format for the best balance of quality and compression
  • Compress videos using tools like HandBrake or FFmpeg
  • Limit video resolution to 720p or 1080p (4K isn’t necessary for product pages)
  • Enable adaptive bitrate streaming, so videos adjust based on user connection speed

‍

3. Implement Lazy Loading for Videos

Lazy loading ensures that videos only load when they come into view, reducing initial page load time and improving INP.

To enable lazy loading:

  • Use tools like vidjet that have an in-built lazy loading feature that implements an intersection intersects between observers to load videos dynamically

‍

4. Prioritize Video Loading Over Third-Party Scripts

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that most online stores utilise third-party scripts on their pages, which often a time can lead to a delayed interaction. In order to ensure you are able to avoid this, try to:

  • Load the important code before secondary ones.
  • Utilise defer attributes to delay non-essential scripts
  • Optimize your JavaScript execution to make sure that render-blocking elements are reduced.

‍

5. Minimize Render-Blocking Elements

Anything that blocks rendering can lead to an increase in INP time. Reduce delays by:

‍

6. Use Click-to-Play Instead of Auto-Play

When it comes to video content, did you know that a slow page load time can be a result of autoplay features? Instead, consider using click-to-play functionality to:

  • Improve INP by preventing unnecessary resource loading
  • Give users control over their experience
  • Ensure compliance with Google’s Core Web Vitals

‍

Why E-Commerce Brands Choose Vidjet for Optimized Videos

The reason brands are opting for Vidjet is that as compared to bulky video players, Vidjet is created with the aim of boosting your site speed as well as performance and interactions, to ensure that you never get flagged by Google Lighthouse.

‍

Here’s what sets Vidjet apart:

Instant loading: Our lightweight player ensures videos don’t delay user interactions.

Optimized for Lighthouse: Designed to pass Core Web Vitals tests effortlessly.

Seamless e-commerce integration: Works with Shopify, WooCommerce, and more.

Lazy loading built-in: No extra coding needed—just embed and go.

Engagement tracking: See how customers interact with your videos.

‍

Final Thoughts: Fast, Interactive Videos Are the Future

As a brand in the competitive world of e-commerce, optimising your video content for interactions to next paint (INP)is a must. Videos that take forever to load hurts conversions and engagement. So stop the damage, and implement lazy loading and lightweight players that are optimized so you can create a high performing shopping experience

Ready to take your e-commerce videos to the next level?

‍