In the era of digitalization various e commerce CMSs (Content Management System) are marking their presence noticeable. Magento, WooCommerce, Shopify, etc are among the most common platform used by development teams. Magento is undoubtedly the most popular and widely used E commerce platform for designing robust, flexible, and customizable user interfaces. It is performance oriented hence, it is the first choice for developers. Latest Magento 2 is the first choice for most of the e commerce website and online start-ups.
We know nothing is perfect in this world and with the urge of migration from Magento 1.9 to Magento 2.0 store owners are looking for solutions of some setbacks of Magento 2.0. Magento developers and Magento development companies are focussing on speed optimization. The main concern is to increase website speed and enhance user experience.
Know the reason why Magento 2.0 is a bit slow
The Default store is robust and not slow, the main issue arises because of a lack of technical knowledge and implementation of unnecessary extensions and function which can hamper website speed. Enabling faulty plugins will slow down the store’s speed. Magneto developers and Magento Development companies are looking for solutions because slow store speed can result in loss of potential customers and company revenues. After migration Magento developers are finding websites loading very slow.
There are numerous ways to speed up Magento website. Few are described below
Optimize TTFB (Time to First Byte)
TTFB is the time that the user browser takes to download HTML files. During this time many users may see blank screens (white color) with the only loading circle. During this process, the website is rendering HTML out and send it to the user screen. Other files such as images, JavaScript, CSS are loaded later, and hence the speed of the website may get slow. TTFB may also increase the load time because, with every update, the coding gets piled up. Optimizing TTFB needs to inspect codebase. Magento developers and various Magento Development companies use monitoring tools that can debug a high TTFB
Optimize Server and System Requirements
The two crucial factors that can help Magento developers to increase the website speed. Since Magento is a powerful store Magneto development companies are going for VPS hosting or a Dedicated **server **instead of traditional Shared hosting.
System requirement includes Apache 2.2, Nginx 1.x, MySQL, MariaDB, PHP (7.2.0), PHP extensions, email services, SSL, etc.
Update the latest version of Magento
Thinking of optimizing the speed, one of the simplest ways is to update Magento with the latest version. With the release of new version old bugs, tweaks, setbacks are taken care of. Magento development companies recommend updating the store version to the latest one to optimize store speed and performance.
Not using JS Bundling
JavaScript bundling groups the separate files to reduce HTTP requests to load a page. Fewer files and fewer HTTP requests will help the website speed. The time is instead used for loading large files. So, using the JS bundling trick is not a good idea.
Enabling Varnish Cache
The varnish is an accelerator designed for websites with heavy dynamic content. It is written in C language and also known as caching HTTP reverse proxy. It is very fast and can improve the speed by 300-1000x depending on the architecture designed by Magento developers. It can be changed from the Admin panel under Configuration tab > Advanced > System > Caching Application (from Built-in to Varnish caching).
Configuring Memcached
Magento developers have found a unique way to increase the speed of the store by decreasing the database load. It can be done by configuring Memcached which is an open source caching system.
Content Delivery Network (CDN) Plan
A content delivery network is an online service that helps in transferring various types of static files (CSS, JS files, images, HTML pages) using a group of regional servers. This increases the delivery of internet content and speeds up the website.
Many businesses are global hence they require these types of functionalities to enhance user experience and increase potential customers.
Elastic Search
Searching a product is much easier with an elastic search engine. Magento 2.3.0 and other releases have a built-in extension of the elastic search to optimize the speed. Magento development companies are asking their Magento developers to use elastic search for better performance. When a customer gets fast and responsive website, they love to buy stuff. This increases the sales and revenues for the company. Elastic search has other benefits too.
Multiple language support enables the website to interact with many users and potential customers both globally and locally.
Search support helps the user to get the desired result by suggesting synonyms and product list. They also make auto-fill suggestions with a wide range of product suggestions and some ongoing offer details.
Indexing- Elastic search returns the search result based on its last generated index. New indexing won’t affect customer search results at all.
Optimizing CSS delivery and Images
The backbone of creating a Magento website is CSS. CSS determines how the website should look. The browser loads the CSS and shows the content to the user. While loading the CSS the browser displays the white screen. Magento developers are placing above-the-fold content high in HTML codes. Minify the JavaScript and CSS and merge them for better performance.
There are tons of product images on a website that can make it slower. It is better to optimize images properly by compressing the images, selection of right image format.
Auditing 3rd Party Extensions
Usually, 3rd party extensions are poorly coded. Magento developers evaluate 3rd part extension codes and see whether they need them or not. Proper auditing results in the smooth running of the website.
Conclusion
It is not a hidden fact that Magento 2 is slow but this is not the end with certain steps described above and with proper technical knowledge things can be fixed. The right extensions, CSS, JavaScript, images will optimize the website speed. The faster environment will lead to a fast website and enhance the user experience.
