Speed performance is critical in the conversion rate and overall Magento webshop performance. As per Statista, 58% of users expect a website to load in less than 3 seconds. A sluggish website is bound to lose customers as people of all generations have lost significant patience with online shopping.
Moreover, it creates a poor brand reputation and affects the overall ROI. One must identify the significant issues affecting the website speed to optimise the Magento webshop performance.
To help you out, I have listed ten essential tips to enhance Magento Webshop Performance.
Top listed ten essential tips to enhance Magento Webshop Performance.
- Ensure Compatible Hosting
- Leverage Image Lazy Loading
- Don’t Neglect Image Optimization
- Eliminate Outdated Extensions
- Stay Updated With the Latest Version
- Use Varnish Caching Effectively
- Clean Logs Regularly
- Upgrade to the Latest Magento Version
- Consider Auto-Scaling
- Ensure the Website Runs on Production Mode
Let’s explore them in detail.
Top 10 Ways to Enhance Magento Webshop Performance
#1. Ensure Compatible Hosting
Hosting plays a critical role when optimising Magento webshop performance. You are bound to lose multiple customers with a poor hosting plan as the website suffers from recurring downtime and poor speed performance.
Moreover, the Magento website fails to scale with peak sales hours when it lacks the right hosting. So, choosing the right hosting for the Magento website is critical.
Following are the critical tips you can leverage to choose a compatible hosting:
- Analyse the website needs
- Check the hosting subscription period
- Look for uptime guarantees
- Ensure the provider guarantees refund policies
- Go through the upgrade options
#2. Leverage Image Lazy Loading
The lazy loading technique is a clever way of optimising the website speed. Under this technique, the images are not loaded at the initial point when the shopper visits the web page. Instead, they are loaded later when the user scrolls down. However, make sure that it is implemented for images below the fold.
Image lazy loading benefits you in the following ways:
- Significant reduction in time consumption with lower memory usage
- The necessary content gets delivered in no time, which enhances the user experience
- It eliminates the necessity of executing the entire code in one go
- Cost-effective option for tacking the growing number of consumers
#3. Don’t Neglect Image Optimization
Many images lie on your website, whether you are dealing with a single product or multiple products. You cannot say no to pictures as they are an inherent part of eCommerce. However, lack of optimization contributes to slowing down the Magento webshop performance.
Critical recommendations for optimising the images include the following:
- Format for product images – JPEG, GIF, and PNG.
- Format for Website or brands logo – PNG or SVG
Photo editing tools to trim image size without compromising quality:
- PNG Format – TinyPNG
- JPEG Format – JPEGmini and ImageOptim
- SVG Format – Vecta.io
#4. Eliminate Outdated Extensions
Making use of extensions that aren’t bringing value to the store is a big no. You don’t want the website to have any extensions that may appear appealing in the first go but fail to bring a positive change in the website interaction with the users.
Choose those extensions that are proven valuable to your website. Alternatively, you can test your Magento Webshop for speed performance with each extension you add to the website.
Simply check the website speed performance by turning on and off the desired extensions. So, you will have exact data on how a chosen extension impacts your Magento Website’s speed performance. Thus, you can quickly get rid of or replace the extensions taking a toll on the website speed.
#5. Stay Updated With the Latest Version
Check whether you are updated to the latest Magento version. It’s crucial to leverage the upcoming Magento versions as each release comes with new and exciting features and resolves the issues with the previous editions.
Magento released its new update 2.4.5 on the 09th of August 2022. It came with 290 quality fixes and platform enhancements for the platform.
#6. Use Varnish Caching Effectively
Magento 2 comes with both built-in caching as well as Varnish caching. Varnish caching is more responsible for trimming response time and reducing bandwidth consumption. While Magento 2 can run Varnish caching, you must perform a few additional steps.
To turn on the Varnish caching, go through the following path and turn it on.
Path: Admin panel > Stores > Configuration > Advanced > System > Full Page Cache > Caching Application > Varnish Caching.
However, it is advisable to avoid Varnish caching when you cannot perform additional server installation while the store is running. Also, installing Varnish caching can be tricky if you use an SSL layer for website security. Take help from the Magento Support team when unsure about the effective installation of Varnish caching.
#7. Clean Logs Regularly
Unfortunately, Magento logs make your website sluggish in performance as it affects the database backup of the store. So, to ensure good website speed performance, make log cleaning a regular activity for the management team.
#8. Upgrade to the Latest Magento Version
With each upgrade, the Magento CMS tends to become safer and perform better for the end users. You need to determine whether you are using the latest version or an older version of the software.
The latest version of the CMS (content management system) is Magento 2.4.5, released in August 2022. It came with a whopping 290 quality fixes as well as performance enhancements.
Upgrading to the latest Magento version is simple and only requires a few simple steps. Simply do the following:
Step-1: Install the latest Magento version from the official website
Step-2: Run the installed version
Step-3: Shift your themes to the upgraded version
If you find it difficult to upgrade your eCommerce store, you can hire experienced Magento professionals for help. Notably, the new Magento version eliminates dependencies and provides multiple payment options. So, upgrading your eCommerce platform for a high UX is essential.
#9. Consider Auto-Scaling
Many hosting providers now provide companies with automated scaling abilities where the server allocates scaling during a traffic surge. So, the servers can scale up or down as per the increase and decrease in the website traffic.
It proves beneficiary during the holiday seasons when you experience a high surge in website traffic. Your website will automatically integrate and increase the number of servers and eliminate downtime risks under such scenarios.
- Format for product images – JPEG, GIF, and PNG.
- Format for Website or brands logo – PNG or SVG
#10. Ensure the Website Runs in Production Mode
While this is not exactly a strategy and rather a cautionary tip, you need to ensure that your eCommerce store is running in production mode when it is live & available to the end-users.
The eCommerce CMS comes with the following three modes:
- Default
- Developer
- Production
The default and developer modes are meant for developers’ use and are used when the website is under development, testing, maintenance, etc. However, when the website is live and available to the shoppers, it should be in production mode, which is much faster in performance than the other two.
Wrapping Up
While most of the above-listed tips can easily be implemented by you, some might be overwhelming. However, don’t neglect them as they play a pivotal role in enhancing the Magento webshop performance.
For example, implementing lazy loading or enabling Varnish caching are effective methods but require help from the experts. The Magento Developer proves helpful in such scenarios.
