Tips to Speed Up a Joomla Site
CheapWindowsHosting.com | Best and cheap Joomla hosting. Today in this article we will introduce you 10 best tips to speed up a Joomla site. Actually, this is not a new topic but we really hope that it can help. Let’s choose the most suitable ones for yourself.
1. Choose a good hosting
It’s crucial for you to choose the right host for your site. This is the decisive factor to slow or speed up your site no matter how well you have optimized your Joomla site.
Therefore, before choosing a hosting, you should find more information in the forum. Let’s find a web hosting that is best suitable with your site demand: web space, monthly traffic, data transfer, backup, database type support, CDN, etc.
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2. Enable Joomla Cache
If you enable the cache in your site, it will be more responsive. Luckily, Joomla is capable of serving 3 types of cache: Component views, Module views and Page views.
The first 2 settings are determined by one setting in your Systems > Global Configuration and set it as Conservative. Optionally you can also set the time different than the default of 15 minutes.
If globally, cache is switched on, you can switch it off again for specific modules from the Advanced tab in selected modules. Page views are only cached if you switch on the System – Cache plugin in the Extensions> Plugin. Just set it to Enabled, and leave default parameters.
3. Use G-Zip
In Systems > Global Configuration, on the Server tab, you will find the setting to turn on Gzip:
By this way, your pages are compressed in a zip-file, sent to the browser on your PC, and unpacked there. Except for really ancient versions of IE, it is supported in all browsers, and should be safe to turn on.
To use this function, please make sure that your host supports mod_gzip.
4. Remove unnecessary extensions
It’s true that any Joomla site needs extensions. However it’s really important for us to choose the good ones. Some extensions need additional Javascripts, connect to the remote network, or take time to be loaded can surely slow you down terribly.
Also, any unneeded extensions should be removed even they are not in use.
5. Browser caching in .htaccess
After renaming your htaccess.txt file into .htaccess, you can add some code to prevent browser to request specific image types from the server if they are already present on your PC.
By this way, you can reduce the loading time.
6. Optimize your images
We can’t deny the important role of the images in a website. However, images account for for more KB’s than the rest of your web page and that’s why they need optimizing.
Firstly, you should use the image with correct size. Secondly, you can use the compression tools to further reduce the size by stripping the unnecessary data.
7. Use a CDN
CND or Content Delivery Network is the one that can serve your static files from the global network of the CND provider. By this way, the user far from the server can receive the files faster from the nearest location.
This tip is not only good for sites operating globally, but also specially for sites in large countries.
8. Optimize CSS + Javascript
Most Joomla sites now have many CSS and Javascript files which will all add up in size AND number of HTTP-requests. Also they will take lots of time for loading the site while they are executing.
Luckily, you can over this issue by:
- Compressing these files.
- Combining multiple files into one.
- Using a defer or a sync attribute in the scripts to execution.
9. Use speed optimization extensions
One of the easiest ways to optimize your site is to use the speed up extensions. Just after installation and some configuration steps, your site will be significantly speeded up!
10. Optimize for mobile devices
“Mobile device” is one essential point that decides the rank of your site on search engine. Your site may not perform well on mobile device even though it works great on desktops.
Therefore, we need to optimize the site for mobile devices too. The key here is to load only what is really needed in the site. You can use user-agent detection to check if you are on a mobile device, not just on a resized browser window and then you can then selectively disable module positions.
