Magento 2.0 caters to the next era of digital commerce; it crafts shopping experiences that are tailor made for every business. However, sometimes there are complaints of slow loading of pages, even in Magento 2. It is typically because of the incorrect configurations that deter a powerful shopping experience.

Magento is a flexible, robust, and performance-oriented eCommerce platform but, its resource-heaviness might affect the store speed.

In this blog, we shall explore some of the tried and tested ways to enhance the optimization of web pages built on Magento and to offer users with quick search features.

Optimize TTFB (Time to First Byte)

What is TTFB? It is simply the time taken to download the HTML of a page on the user’s browser. During this time, users see a blank screen, which can be quite frustrating. Also, it impacts the website ranking if the blank screen persists for long. To avoid such situations, a TTFB audit is a must. It helps developers understand what code is running at the back end and the time needed to run. In fact, speeding up a Magento store with TTFB optimization is one of the best practices.

Perform Extension Audit

In a Magento store, it’s crucial to examine every third-party module that has been installed. Each of them should be disabled one by one to find out which creates a difference in the store performance. If the website speed increases, developers can reach out to the service providers for a quick fix.

Choose a Proper Hosting Plan

Did you know that the hosting plan significantly affects the performance of a Magento eCommerce platform? Hence, it’s always better to choose a standard hosting plan instead of a shared or a cheap one. Magento demands specific technical requirements like OS, PHP, Web Servers, and Database. Therefore, the right hosting plan can substantially improve the performance of a Magento store.

Turn on the Full-Page Caching

Most of the time a website is slow because the caching is off. To improve the performance of a Magento 2 store, it’s necessary to enable all the fields that show up in the following path: Admin Panel > System > Tools > Cache Management.

Varnish Cache

Varnish cache can improve the performance of web applications. If you use the varnish cache feature for Magento 2, there is no need to allocate separate time for duplicate requests. Consequently, the loading speed increases and the user experience becomes better.

Use Elastic Search

Elastic search is an open-source, distributed search and analytics engine. The purpose is to make product search easier. In Magento commerce cloud, the elastic search feature is in-built. Therefore, customers can quickly search for products, leading to increased sales. The specialty of elastic search is that it supports multiple languages to improve the user experience. Besides, it has auto-fill options and product suggestions so that results come up even before the customer completes the search, leading to customer delight.

Turn on the Production Mode

There are three modes in Magento 2. They are the Developer, Production, and Default. And among the three, the Production mode is the fastest. Usually, the Developer and the Default are more common for debugging and not recommended when a site goes live. Therefore, before the site goes live, you ought to check the mode in which it is running to ensure that you leave no stones unturned for better performance.

Remove unnecessary database logs

If you are well-versed with Magento, you know Magento retains the database logs, contributing to a slow loading time. Hence, removing these database logs at regular intervals will decrease the loading time, leading to an enhanced customer experience.

To Note: Backup your database before removing the logs

Update the Indexers

Since Magento works with bulk data, it might increase the load time. Hence, it is important to re-index the indexers as the system updates indexers for every object that is stored.

Execute the following command to reindex the indexers: php bin/magento indexer:reindex

Organizing the Memory Caches

A well-established way to reduce the server response time for Magento 2 stores is to decrease the load on the database server. Configuring the distributed memory caches like Memcached or Redis is a good way to reduce the number of database requests on the server.

Going Forward

Undoubtedly, Magento 2.0 is highly scalable and flexible, but if you are keen to leverage the platform to its fullest; enhancing its performance is a pre-requisite. A storefront that is highly optimized and responds quickly to users shall certainly bring in customer delight, increase the sales and revenue for the brand. Therefore, for retailers to remain relevant building upon the existing Magento storefront with a few tweaks, like the ones mentioned in this blog, is essential.

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