Magento 2 Store Speed Optimization

Achieve 90%+ Luma theme optimization score

Today's world is full of ways that will determine whether your website succeeds or fails – those are within your control. Thus, fast pace means how quickly something happens; electronic commerce means anything being sold online. Magento 2 is a common platform for e-commerce websites; it’s a program that has been developed for such websites; therefore, making its performance better is very important more so when are working with the default Luma theme. As such with the above in mind the Team introduces to you this blog whose intention is not only getting you familiarized with optimizing the performances of your online store built using Magento 2 but also ensuring that you can score 90% and above hence improving user satisfaction among other things like increasing sales volume.

The significance of performance optimization for your Magento 2 store should be recognized before you discuss any optimization strategies. Faster loading times on a website not only improve user satisfaction but also affect search engine rankings, conversion rates, and overall business success. It is through optimizing performance that one can create a positive user experience that motivates one's guests to interact with his or her website as well as make purchases. Transitioning to Production Mode is considered one of the most critical steps in optimizing the speed of the Magento 2 store by many developers. Your Magento 2 speed optimization checklist should put this first. Three modes are used in Magento 2: Default mode, Developer mode, and Production mode. Production mode is characterized by the best performance and guarantees exceptional customer experience for your users.

Fret not! This enchanting guide is your map through the mystical onboarding realm. As you traverse its pages, you'll unlock insights and strategies that are like magic potions, essential for making decisions that sparkle with wisdom. You'll be empowered to:

Key Strategies for Luma Theme Optimization in Magento 2

Image Compression and Optimization: Images play a significant role in keeping your users engaged but may also slow down your website if not well optimized for this purpose. Employ the use of tools such as Kraken.io or TinyPNG for compression purposes without losing quality. For example, lazy loading techniques should be applied to load those images that are not visible on the screen only when they are required aggregating such images on the other hand will reduce your website speed.

Critical CSS: Critical CSS is a technique where we identify and prioritize the CSS needed to render above-the-fold content, allowing the browser to quickly display the most important parts of the page. By inline loading critical CSS, we ensure that essential styling is applied without waiting for additional stylesheets to load, thereby reducing render-blocking resources and improving page load times.

Minification and Bundling of CSS and JavaScript: When you minify and bundle your CSS and JavaScript files, only a limited number of HTTP requests are being made as a result, which in turn speeds up the loading time. As a way of smoothing out the codebase of your site and improving its responsiveness in different gadgets; optimize all its CSS and JavaScript.

Enable Full-page Cache (FPC): Storing the whole HTML pages and giving them to people without making content new is what makes full-page caching an effective way to boost the speed of Magento 2 websites. Use Magento’s internal FPC system or other modules from outside sources to apply caching properly. Through the use of caches on dynamic data, a large part of the burden on your servers counts down, thus enhancing response time specifically meant for revisits.

Server-side Optimization: : For the high-quality performance of Magento 2, it is important to select an appropriate hosting provider along with server configuration. Go for hosting providers experienced in Magento hosting and who have specialized optimized server setups meant to support the application adequately. Hence if you enable some server-level caches such as Varnish Cache which caches commonly requested items then delays in the server response will be eradicated.

Browser Caching: Configuring browser caching directives allows visitors to store static resources locally on their devices, reducing the need to fetch these resources from the server upon subsequent visits. By specifying appropriate cache expiration times for different file types, we optimize resource delivery and minimize server load, resulting in faster page load times for returning users.

Lazy Loading: Implementing lazy loading for images, videos, and other media assets helps reduce initial page load times by deferring the loading of non-visible elements until they are needed. This technique prioritizes the loading of content that is visible to the user, enhancing the perceived performance of the website.

JavaScript Optimization: JavaScript files can significantly impact page loading speed, especially if they are large or render-blocking. We implement strategies such as delaying non-essential JavaScript execution, asynchronous loading of JavaScript files, and deferring the loading of non-critical scripts to improve overall performance. This approach prevents JavaScript from blocking the rendering of the page content, allowing users to access the site more quickly

Content Delivery Network (CDN) Integration: The content delivery network distributes static material on your website on several servers located in different parts of the world, which decreases the time it takes to load pages and speeds up the process regardless of users’ locations. To enhance the speed of delivery of images, CSS styles, JavaSript, and other files without changing the way you are currently hosting your site through Magento 2, consider using CDN. Each time the same content is requested from the same server, it travels a shorter distance thus, enhancing user experience through faster response time and overall performance.

Database Optimization: It is critical that you are optimizing your Magento 2 database to maintain top performance. Just clean up some unnecessary data periodically, optimize some tables on the database, and turn on Magento's flat catalog to cut short query execution time. Those tools along with expansion can be utilized for automatic performance improvement over the years as far as database maintaining tasks are concerned.

Code Audit and Performance Profiling: Do a thorough check of the website’s codebase including personal code and third-party plug-ins. By checking code quality and resource use, you can find performance bottlenecks and places that need improving. So use tools for profiling such as the Magento Profiler of New Relic that can help you locate code areas requiring optimization thus prioritizing these areas first.

DELAY JS

Delaying JavaScript (JS) execution is a technique used in web optimization to improve page loading speed and overall performance. Here's how it helps:

• Reduces Render-blocking Resources : JavaScript files can block the rendering of page content, especially when loaded synchronously in the section of the HTML document. By delaying the execution of non-critical JavaScript until after the initial page content has loaded, we allow the browser to render the visible parts of the page more quickly, enhancing the perceived performance for users.
• Improves First Contentful Paint (FCP): Delaying non-essential JS scripts can improve the FCP metric, which measures the time it takes for the browser to render the first piece of content on the screen. By prioritizing the loading of critical resources and deferring the execution of non-critical JS, we ensure that users see meaningful content sooner, enhancing their browsing experience.
• Enhances User Interactivity : Delaying JS execution can also improve user interactivity by ensuring that essential page elements, such as navigation menus and buttons, are fully functional before additional scripts are executed. This reduces the likelihood of users encountering unresponsive or broken functionality during the initial page load, improving overall usability and user satisfaction.
• Optimizes Resource Loading Order: By strategically delaying the loading and execution of non-critical JS scripts, we can optimize the order in which resources are fetched and processed by the browser. This can prevent JS files from competing with critical resources such as CSS and images, allowing the browser to prioritize the loading of essential content and improve overall page load times.

Overall, delaying JavaScript execution is an effective optimization technique that helps streamline the loading process, reduce render-blocking resources, and enhance user experience on the web.