Increase Website Speed with These MagentoTM Extensions

Increasing website speed shouldn’t be as complicated as so many articles make it out to be.

After all, if you’re running an online store, part of the reason you went with a platform such as Magento^TM is to quickly implement a pre-made extension for anything from speeding up your website to improving the way search engines view your site to allowing reviews. Speed is just one metric that Google uses to determine a website’s rank, there are many other things to consider but this article concentrates just on speed.

There are alternatives to Magento^TM but the best extensions specific to Magento^TM for speeding up your site are not always the first ones you may assume. In fact, quite a few extensions are not nearly as popular, yet they are almost required to boost website speed and help people move through your website quickly.

And this is a necessity. If your customers have to wait around for slow page loads, they’re bound to leave your website for a different one. Once the search engines begin noticing this, they’ll drop your rankings and it will hinder your ability to generate traffic in the future. In short, a faster site helps out your conversions.

Keep reading to learn about the best Magento^TM extensions for speeding up a website, and remember: do not install two extensions that complete the exact same tasks, otherwise they could conflict.

Compress JPEG & PNG images

Pricing: Free

If you’ve ever heard of TinyPNG or TinyJPG, you know that the tools work to shrink the sizes of images and compress them so that they show up quickly on websites. Why does this happen? Because images bog down page load speeds like crazy.

If you’re not optimizing the images on your online store, you could have some huge problems with the load speeds. This tool is a highly reputable option, and it processes batches of PNGs and JPGs, all from the convenience of your Magento^TM dashboard. Best of all, it’s completely free. So, definitely try this one out so that the images on your website work well.

Full Page Cache Speed Booster

Pricing: $99

Your server is the most important cog in the speed chain. You should always pick the best server for your needs, here’s a handy comparison between a dedicated and a VPS server. Once you have a good server in place you can then tweak how you cache your website. If you’re not aware of what caching is, let’s explain it right now. In short, a website can cache recent versions of your website. Not all versions are saved, but the most recent ones can be served up in case the regular website speed is too slow. The user sees no difference, so the experience is optimal for everyone who goes to the store.

The search engines start to see that your page load speeds are high, and people are more willing to stick around to buy products. Although you have to pay $99 to install this extension, it’s by far the best solution out there, and every website requires a caching plugin if they expect to handle influxes in traffic.

Minify HTML CSS JS

Pricing: Free

Although not many beginners know what minification is, it’s wise to at least implement a quality free plugin to take care of this issue, since you need to address every possible area of your site that may be affecting overall site speeds.

In terms of minification, it’s a process that compresses the sizes of your site files. So, HTML, CSS and Javascript files can get bulky and complicated. The more complex they are, the harder time your server is going to have trying to retrieve the right files. However, if you install a minifying extension, the compression is completed in the background. You only need to click on a single button after the installation. After that, everything runs on its own.

Turpentine – Varnish Cache

Pricing: Free

If you’re interested in toying with a caching extension that can potentially decrease your page load speeds more than some of the regular extensions, checkout the Turpentine – Tarnish option. It provides full page caching for speeding up your site, along with continuous caching without having to flush the cache on occasion.

As stated before, the Turpentine caching solution is not exactly the best option for those just getting started with Magento^TM. If you don’t consider yourself an advanced developer, I would recommend opting for an extension like the Full Page Cache Speed Booster.

Fast Asynchronous Re-indexing

Pricing: $149

As another paid speed extension, the Fast Asynchronous Re-indexing tool has one primary function. It helps in speeding up the process of products saving in a catalog. This all generally happens in the background, but it can hinder how well your server delivers information to the end users.

Therefore, it’s important to consider installing a plugin like this, since it can reduce loads on the server and increase website speed in the long run.

Speed Analyzer

Pricing: Free

The Speed Analyzer tool isn’t going to increase your website speed, but it’s one of the best ways to start figuring out where you could improve. It takes every block and template in your Magento^TM site, analyzing which ones may be dragging your site down and hurting its overall performance.

What’s cool is that the extension can identify one or two blocks that are the true culprits, since that’s generally what happens when you start to see your website slowing down randomly.

Bot Blocker

Pricing: $79

Have you ever wondered why it’s so bad for hackers to get into your website? After all, most of them don’t crash your site, so what’s the harm?

Well, the problem is that most hackers install scripts or bots in your files, sending out messages or sucking down the resources your website uses to function. It’s a terrible thing to happen, so it’s essential to fight bots to keep your sites fresh and fast. Bot Blocker prevents your store from getting hacked, and it protects your store from form spam and more. The idea is to keep your site safe, while also boosting website speed because of clean source code. The coolest part is that the plugin finds certain blocks that are affected, making it easy to identify what’s wrong without forcing you to completely scan your site manually.

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Moosa Hemani—Inbound Marketing Governor at setalks.com