Magento is one of the most powerful CMS, enjoying its reign of supremacy in the current eCommerce era. However, due to its powerful features and complex functionalities, the code is on the heavier side. This kind of flexibility can cause the platform to perform slowly sometimes, and the store owners hire a magento developer to enhance the speed of the store. Online businesses cannot afford poor performing websites as it negatively affects conversions. An impediment of even a second trims down the conversion by 7%, the page views are trimmed down by 11%, and customer satisfaction plummeting by 16%. Apart from this, slow sites fetch penalty points on Google search engine rankings. Magento, being a gigantic platform, needs sufficient resources to manage it well, which can cause it to work slow. This article highlights settings to speed up the Magento store without manipulating the code.
Tip#1: Enable Caching
A common cause for unresponsive or slow sites is that the cache is disabled, probably as a third-party extension, or Magento developer overlooked it while modifying the store’s code. Caching can improve the store loading speed drastically as it minimizes the load on the server. Caching can be enabled by selecting Cache Management from the System menu. There are multiple caches, full-page, and varnish being the significant ones. A full-page cache perks up the load time by half a second. Varnish cache is used along with a full-page cache to boost up the performance of the store further. The time to the first byte is anywhere between 0.1 and 0.2 seconds, well within the search engine’s acceptable limits.
Tip#2: Select a Fast Hosting Solution
There are certain minimum hardware requirements for running a Magento store optimally. There requirements like RAM capacity and Solid State Disks dictate the speed of the site. One cannot expect a website with blazing speed on an inexpensive Virtual Private Server (VPS). Store owners should make sure that the hosting solution is fast as well as reliable. A good hosting solution provides other benefits, also like airtight security and round the clock customer support.
Tip#3: Regularly Audit the Third-Party Extensions
Online businesses often either hire magento developer online to develop a customized functionality for them or use a readymade third-party extension to integrate the required feature. These third-party extensions should be audited regularly to see whether they are degrading the performance of the site. Disable each extension one by one, clear the cache and observe the difference in the speed. If disabling any extension has improved the speed, probably you have hit the nail with the hammer. This extension’s vendor should be contacted and informed about the issue. In case they don’t respond, find an alternative way of handling the required functionality.
Tip#4: Regularly Clean the Logs
The log entries, especially the database ones, if not cleaned regularly, can pile up space in the cache. The entries in the database logs should be reviewed for redundant or outdated entries. These entries might be responsible for the sluggish performance of the store. The database logs cleaning ensure space only to the requisite entries. The database logs can be cleaned by selecting the Configuration option from the System menu. Select the System and open the Log panel. Set the Save Log, Days to 7, which means that the database log is stored only for 7 days. By default, the log entries are saved for 180 days bulking up the storage space.
Tip#5: Change the CSS/JS Setting
The Magento store depends heavily on JavaScript and CSS files to load the site content. These files, if loaded individually from the server directly, add quite a bit of overhead to the server. These CSS and JavaScript files can be merged to treat them as a single entity reducing the overhead considerably. Moreover, these CSS and JavaScript files can be compressed via an option called minification, which cuts down the load time radically. The minification and merging of CSS and JavaScript files can be done from the Configuration option of Stores menu.
Key Takeaways
The speed of the site plays an important role in engaging the customers and impacts the conversion rate of the business heavily. Store owners do hire magento developer for optimizing their stores in terms of its performance. But, there is no need to hire magento developer online as the store can be optimized by performing the above-mentioned changes in the configuration of the Magento store. However, it is suggested to take help of a professional if one is not technically competent.
