How to speed up Joomla website and make it faster?

The Ultimate guide to speed up Joomla websites & improve the performance

Are you interested to learn the best way to increase website speed and score high on Google Pagespeed? This is the Ultimate guide and tips to enhance, optimize and how to speed up Joomla performance.

First of all, you should know that optimizing website speed is a time-consuming process and that some of the methods referenced in this article would require a significant amount of time to implement.

If you don’t have time to do this, our experts can provide you speed up Joomla site services.
So now you should probably ask yourself if it’s worth taking the time.

It’s worth noting that if you run a business, we recommend that you take all the necessary steps to optimize your website as this will have a direct impact on your business.
The first realistic step you can take to speed up Joomla would be to use Google Lighthouse to better understand your site’s issues.

Our team of experts have spent years analyzing what metrics benefit top-ranked search engine sites and have developed our own checklist that will be used to both speed up Joomla and its ranking.
The next step would be to compress the images to reduce loading times for the first color pixel on the site. A quick estimate would show that such a project would take around 3 months for websites that offer a lot of image-based content.

After following these initial steps, updating your website and optimizing its loading, you will immediately notice an increase in your position in Google Search. On the other hand, your conversion rate will increase by a total of 3 percent.
It’s a well-known fact that Google’s search engine prioritizes websites that load quickly and also positions them more positively.

The steps you take when using this post as your goal will have a minor impact at first, but in the long run you will see a significant improvement in terms of ranking and loading of your website.
No matter what type of website or business you are operating, we strongly recommend that you solve problems related to speed optimization, because no user will like a website that takes too long to load.

The importance of website speed

Speed ​​is an important factor to consider when both improving your SEO and building your infrastructure.
However, since this is a complex technical issue, you need to be proficient in different aspects. Some important factors that require more attention are mentioned in this article.
The speed of the website matters a lot. Users, as well as search engines, don’t like slow websites. The sites taking more than 2 seconds have a low conversion rate and ultimately resulting in low page rankings on search engines. You can use some of the best online tools to test the speed of your Joomla website. The tools provide suggestions and provide a detailed overview of your website. You can use the tips provided by the tools to for Joomla page speed optimization.

How to speed up Joomla website

• Choose a good Hosting Provider
• Enable Joomla cache
• Enable Joomla Gzip Compression
• Remove Unused Extensions and choose right third party Extensions
• Compress Javascript, CSS and HTML
• Image Size Reduction
• Use .htaccess Optimization Rules
• Update Joomla and Extensions
• Use Content Delivery Network (CDN)
• Optimise for mobile devices

Choose a good Hosting Provider

A bad host can result in slow website speed. All your efforts of making the site run faster will be of no use if the server is overloaded. In shared hosting, all the resources are used by multiple websites, thus making it slower. I would personally recommend using Cloud Linux from LiquidWeb (I have been using it for years and trust me, they provide the best support) as it provides own virtual environment and doesn’t allow another site from using the server resources. It will significantly improve website speed.

Enable Joomla cache

Joomla has cache feature already available and needs no other third party extension installation. Every time a Joomla website is loaded, it fetches data from the database along with the extensions (component, module and plugins) and the template files which gets rendered as a single page. This process takes time, so it is recommended to use the Joomla Cache. It will reduce the database activity and a robust solution for caching. You can set up the Joomla cache in two different ways :

Using Joomla System – Page Cache Plugin

You can easily enable the System – Page Cache plugin by

1. Log in to the administrator panel.
2. Go to Extensions > Plugins and search for System – Page Cache
3. Activate it and you are done.

I have written another tutorial about how to enable, disable and clear Joomla cache. You can go through it.

Enabling Cache in Global Configuration

1. Please login to the backend of the website or the administrator panel.
2. Go to System > Global Configuration and open the System tab.
3. In the Cache Setting section, you will find the options Cache Handler, Path to Cache Folder and Cache Time, Platform Specific Caching and System Cache.

• • Cache Handler: The native cache handlers are file-based. The cache folder must be writable.
  • Cache Folder: If you don’ t want Joomla to use the default folder, then you can specify another writable folder path. Ex : your_joomla_folder/newcache
  • Cache Time: The maximum length of time in minutes for a cache file to be stored before it is refreshed.
  • Platform Specific Caching: Set it to enable when HTML output on mobile differs from other devices.
  • System Cache: You can enable or disable the caching and set the level. You can choose Conservative or Progressive caching.

What is the difference between Conservative and Progressive Caching?

• Conservative Caching: It’s a small system cache. It caches the content for each unique visitor.
• Progressive Caching: Its a faster, bigger system cache and delivers the same system cache to all the users. It’s not appropriate for huge websites.

Enable Joomla Gzip Compression

Gzip compresses the files which are sent to the user. It makes the site load faster. You can find the Gzip Compression option in the backend of the website. To enable it

1. Navigate to the backend of the Joomla
2. Go to System > Global Configuration and open the Server tab
3. Set the Gzip Page Compression to Yes and click on Save and you are done!

I have written a tutorial on how to enable Gzip compression in Joomla. You can have a look at it.

Remove Unused Extensions and choose right third party Extensions

Uninstall all the extensions which you don’t use. Before doing it take a backup of your Joomla website. The extensions which don’t add any functionality to your website and loads into the frontend unnecessarily uses your server resources and slows down your website. Choosing the right third-party extensions are essential while building a Joomla website.
How to choose the right third party Joomla extension?
The extension must :

• Use Minified or compressed Javascript and CSS files.
• Not make any remote call. This can slow down the website.
• Use optimised images incase of slideshow, sliders and image gallery.
• Use Joomla PHP functions and framework.
• Avoid inline CSS and javascript as much as possible.

Compress Javascript, CSS and HTML

Compression and optimisation of Javascript and CSS files can help in improving the speed of the Joomla site. The compressed and minified version of the JS and CSS files are much lower in size. Combing all the CSS and JS files reduces the number of request from the server. Combing of the scripts and styling can be done using third-party extensions.
I would recommend using JCH Optimize or RokBooster. Both the extensions can drastically increase the speed of the Joomla website. But use one at a time. Using both may create conflicts, thus breaking the layout of the website.

Image Size Reduction

Images play a significant role in the websites. Images make the site look good, but if it isn’t optimised, it will make your website slow. Here are some of the tips which you can follow when you use images on your website :

• Don’t use large images and scale them using HTML or CSS. Resize the image to an exact size which is required on the website.
• Avoid using too many images on a single page.
• Always optimise the images. You can do it using Photoshop. Open the image and Save it for Web devices.

Use .htaccess Optimization Rules

You can find the htaccess.txt file in the root of your Joomla folder. The make it work; you have to rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess. You can add a lot of rules into the file which can improve the site.

• ETag: This tag tells the browser to load the already downloaded image from the local browser cache instead of the server.
• Expires headers – It allows you to set different expiration times for different file types.
• AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE – minify the source code of your compiled HTML files by removing empty lines, breaks and spaces

########## Begin - ETag Optimization
## This rule will create an ETag for files based only on the modification
## timestamp and their size.
## Note: It may cause problems on your server and you may need to remove it
FileETag MTime Size
# AddOutputFilterByType is now deprecated by Apache. Use mod_filter in the future.
AddOutputFilterByType DEFLATE text/plain text/html text/xml text/css application/xml application/xhtml+xml application/rss+xml application/javascript application/x-javascript
# Enable expiration control
ExpiresActive On
# Default expiration: 1 hour after request
ExpiresDefault "now plus 1 hour"
# CSS and JS expiration: 1 week after request
ExpiresByType text/css "now plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType application/javascript "now plus 1 week"
ExpiresByType application/x-javascript "now plus 1 week"
# Image files expiration: 1 month after request
ExpiresByType image/bmp "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/gif "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jpeg "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/jp2 "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/pipeg "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/png "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/svg+xml "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/tiff "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/vnd.microsoft.icon "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/x-icon "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/ico "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/icon "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType text/ico "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/ico "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType image/vnd.wap.wbmp "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/vnd.wap.wbxml "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType application/smil "now plus 1 month"
# Audio files expiration: 1 month after request
ExpiresByType audio/basic "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/mid "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/midi "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/mpeg "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/x-aiff "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/x-mpegurl "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/x-pn-realaudio "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType audio/x-wav "now plus 1 month"
# Movie files expiration: 1 month after request
ExpiresByType application/x-shockwave-flash "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType x-world/x-vrml "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/x-msvideo "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/mpeg "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/mp4 "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/quicktime "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/x-la-asf "now plus 1 month"
ExpiresByType video/x-ms-asf "now plus 1 month"

Update Joomla and Extensions

You should always keep your Joomla and its extensions updated to the latest version. With every update, a lot of improvements to the core Joomla CMS are done. You can also mark the difference in site speed upon upgrading the PHP version from 5.6 to 7.4. New versions of Joomla will perform better than the old ones.
If you are still using Joomla 1.5 or 2.5.x, it’s vulnerable, and you must upgrade Joomla it to the latest version.

Use Content Delivery Networks (CDN)

By using a Content Delivery Network, the static files like CSS and JS will not be loaded from your server but other global networks of your CDN provider. This ensures that the files are delivered from the nearest geographic location, thus makes the site load faster. This also reduces the load on the server. It is recommended for the websites which have global visitors. You can use KeyCDN which provides CDN services at affordable prices.

Optimise for Mobile Devices

You can test the website using the tool PageSpeed Insights by Google, where you can get a clear idea about the improvements that have to be done to optimize the Joomla website for mobile devices. The site may load perfectly in desktop but may be slower on mobile devices.
The Joomla website must be responsive and fewer images; modules must be loaded for mobile sites. The modules which aren’t required on mobile devices must be disabled. Extensions like NoNumber Advanced Module Manager detects the user agent and doesn’t display the modules.