A Magento Speed Optimization Guide from the Experts at Forix

Your Guide to Magento Speed Optimization

The Magento 1 platform will reach its official End of Life date on June 30th, 2020. At that time, there will be no more official updates or security patches made available to the platform. As a result, the Magento development team shifted its focus from ongoing Magento support to the further development and support of Magento 2. After some 11,000 eCommerce stores made the migration to Magento 2 to continue to utilize the support and updates offered there, however, many of these users noticed a need for Magento speed optimization services.

Why Is Magento So Slow? 

As a whole, the Magento 2 platform offers its users a more diverse set of features, both out of the box and through the vast library of third party Magento extensions available for incorporation. While these features and extensions ultimately make your ecommerce website function more intuitively, add enhanced options, and appear more attractive, they’re also likely slowing down your store. However, there are some things you can do to ensure you’re endeavoring to speed up Magento 2 without hampering its performance:

• Address caching
• Concatenate CSS coding
• Minify JavaScript coding
• Optimize images
  

As Magento managed service partners, Forix has developed this short guide to improving Magento’s behind-the-scenes behavior, so you can get speeds back up to a comfortable level.

Improve Speeds By Caching 

Magento comes with caching support out-of-the-box, but most ecommerce business owners have reported greater success with third party solutions. However, combining Magento’s own browser caching (under the .htaccess file) along with page caching extensions from other providers can provide a powerful boost to your Magento speeds. Together, these options enable Magento to load pages previously visited from a cache instead of depending on the server to load each individually – just ensure that you’ve enabled caching under the “Cache Management” menu.

CSS and JavaScript Optimization

While CSS and JavaScript perform different functions regarding the user interface and framework of Magento store pages, they both pose one key risk to its speed – the persistent HTTP requests upon loading or reloading your page. Fortunately, Magento 2 users can address these issues from within the user dashboard, as Magento includes options to concatenate (merge) and minify both CSS and JavaScript. Ensure that you’ve selected JavaScript bundling, JavaScript and CSS merging, and JavaScript and CSS minification from the Developer menu.

Optimize Images to Speed Up Magento 2

A large portion of your Magento store page weight is composed of images and optimizing them can decrease the load your pages put on your server and speed your load times. One strategy you can use is compressing the image files before you upload, usually via a tool in Photoshop or another image editing product. Another strategy is to utilize an extension to optimize images for you; however, be aware that additional extensions may themselves hamper your load speeds. 

Learn More about Magento Speed Optimization

These techniques are just a few of the multiple ways your Magento managed services partners at Forix have found to address Magento speed optimization strategy. However, these factors may not be the only thing affecting your Magento 2 speeds, and a more thorough picture of the inner workings of your Magento store may be necessary. If you’d like more information about a Magento speed test or other optimization strategies, contact the experts at Forix today.