Magento is known for its high level of customization and a wide set of available features that make this platform an ultimate selling tool. Because of its complexity, Magento is perfect for medium-sized and big stores that see a huge inflow of visitors and a great number of transactions on a daily basis.

However, Magento complexity has its cons. If configured improperly, the store may perform slower than needed.

Luckily, there are numerous ways to speed up your Magento store and achieve seamless performance. The best part about it is that you can perform these actions independently, thus saving time and conversions.

Use Redis for caching

Every e-commerce entrepreneur knows that even one second of delay in page load can impact conversions. There are even statistics that 1 second delay in page load results in 11% fewer page views – while 1 second faster loading time leads to a 7% increase in conversions.

Caching is one of the most efficient methods to speed up the process of page load. It is applied when there is a static content on the page that does not change when the page loads. As well, caching is used when there is a need to keep multiple content copies. In both cases, caching saves load time because the content is already there and ready and there is no need to load it again and again.

Redis is an in-memory data structure store that is used as a cache, database, and message broker. It successfully replaces Memcached for Magento and performs the following functions:

• on-disk save,
• PHP session storage,
• awesome eviction control,
• support of multiple databases,
• support of lzf and snappy

To learn about Redis configuration for Magento, check out the official guide on Magento site.

Remove unnecessary plugins and extensions

If your site is functioning long enough, you may not know about all the extensions that it has. Even more, you may not always be sure if you need all of them.

These unnecessary extensions and plugins are one of the main reasons why your site performs too slow. To find out if you need to remove any of them, check out your Modules folder: /app/etc/modules. If you see an extension that you cannot recognize or don’t need at all, feel free to either turn it off or remove it.

Use lazy loading for images

It’s no secret that image loading takes a lot of time and may slow the page down significantly. To resolve this issue, use LazyLoad.

With lazy loading, the browser will load the page step by step, prioritizing the visible content. And while the user scrolls down, the content will be loaded on the go, instead of overcharging the server by loading all content at one time.

The LazyLoad plugin will show the lower-resolution images first and then will switch to the high-quality source image. When used in Magento, LazyLoad brings the following benefits:

• faster perceived load speed which boosts the user experience,
• SEO-friendly (images will be crawled as always),
• Bandwidth savings.

Install ElasticSearch

Because Magento is a full-fledged e-commerce platform, it has a default search function for better user navigation. However, the ElasticSearch plugin significantly speeds up the search process and contributes to faster and more efficient store performance.

In addition to great performance, this plugin also supports multiple languages and has advanced search options. To learn about correct installation, read this guide.

Once the plugin is installed, you will need to turn it on. For that, go to Stores > Settings > Configuration > Catalog > Catalog > Catalog Search. Scroll down to Search Engine and choose ElasticSearch.

Enable flat catalogs

The Magento product structure stores product attributes across numerous databases. So when the user wants to see a product, Magento will be looking up each product attribute in different tables. You can imagine how much time it may take.

Flat catalog, in its turn, creates new tables on the go. In these tables, each row has all the data about either a product or a category. In addition, a flat catalog has an automated update feature.

Catalog flattening leads to fewer database queries and thus will improve the site speed a lot, especially if you have many products in your store. To set up flat catalog, go to Stores > Configuration > Catalog. In Use Flat Catalog Category and Use Flat Catalog Product put Yes.

Conclusion

These are not all the things you can do to speed up your Magento store. Check out this article to find more actionable tips.

However, if you want to be 100% sure there is nothing wrong with your store and you really want to achieve excellent performance, it’s better to conduct a Magento performance audit to let the experienced developers do the work and recommend you the best solutions for your store.