How Magento Speed Optimization Can Solve Common Speed Issues

Solving Common Speed Issues with Magento Speed Optimization

Magento is one of the leading ecommerce platforms in the world, and powers nearly 200,000 ecommerce websites in the United States alone. In part, this level of loyalty can be attributed to the dedicated support and security updates provided by Magento itself; another factor is the wide variety of extensions and plug-ins that can be used to customize the Magento interface. However, with original Magento’s service and support ending in June of 2020, users are rapidly migrating to Magento 2. Of all the questions this migration has raised since then, there’s one key question the Magento experts here at Forix have noticed above all others – why is Magento so slow? Magento speed optimization strategies can be used to solve these issues.

Magento Speed Issues Relate to These Key Factors

One of the major qualities that makes Magento so appealing to ecommerce vendors across many industries is the ease of customization that can occur either within the Magento platform itself or by adding one of hundreds of third-party extensions optimized for Magento 2. However, in many cases, each of these customizations add one or more HTTP requests upon loading. When you consider the fact that the Magento platform itself must load, in addition to the various customization options you’ve added, it’s easy to see why Magento 2 seems slow.

Key processes that slow down Magento 2 include: 

• Image loading
• JavaScript requests
• CSS requests
• Extension load requests

Apart from eliminating unnecessary or overly large third-party extensions, what can you do to speed up Magento 2? We’ve compiled some easy to incorporate Magento speed optimization strategies to address load times.

Optimize Your Images

Uncompressed images with large file sizes add a significant portion of your page’s overall size. Utilizing an extension to auto-compress your product images can drastically reduce page load times and help speed up Magento as a whole. If you’re hesitant to add another extension, make an effort to compress each photo within your photo editing software to reduce its file size before incorporating into your Magento store.

Merge and Minify CSS and JavaScript

Despite their varied contributions to your page’s overall look and internal structure, CSS and JavaScript both add additional code to your store’s Magento site. As a result, this additional code prompts more requests and can increase page load times. Fortunately, Magento 2 has out-of-the-box tools for merging both CSS and JavaScript, bundling JavaScript codes, and minifying (or compressing) CSS and JavaScript codes; alternatively, you can also employ the use of third party extensions to handle these tasks more flexibly.

Add Caching to Achieve Magento 2 Performance Optimization

A final approach to reducing your Magento page load speeds is by allowing it to access previously-loaded pages instead of reloading anew each time. This process, called caching, is one of the most powerful methods of Magento speed optimization. Be sure to select the “enable caching” option from within the dashboard and implement Magento’s own as well as third party caching extensions.

Find the Right Magento Web Agency for Magento Speed Optimization

In the event that you are still experiencing Magento speed issues, a more in-depth look at your extensions and Magento settings may be in order. As Magento managed service experts, the team at Forix can help you determine the cause behind your slowing issues as well as Magento speed optimization strategies to address them. Contact us today for more information regarding resources to speed up Magento 2.