Speed up Joomla Website Load Time

Joomla is an Open Source software program that offers users many different components, modules and Mambots in order to run an effective, dynamic, community website. But, all these add-ons and additional features can often slow down your website. While, we can't blame Joomla, because we heart Joomla, we can understand that Joomla websites are not always downloading fast on user's browsers.

There are simple ways to speed up your Joomla website right away, they’re easy and effective.

First of all, so that we can track your progress as you speed up the download time of your website, check out the Octagate site timer for Website Load Time

Before trying any of these steps, test your website in a new tab or browser with the site time, that way, you can compare the speed once you take each one of these quick steps.

Make sure your Joomla website is caching data through the backend.

HOW?

Go to the backend of your Joomla website and choose: Site >> Global Configuration >> Cache

Make sure that the cache is enabled and at least 900 seconds for heavily trafficked websites, you can raise that number a bit if your site is less frequented.

Now, to cover 2 steps in one, we’re going to go through each of one of the modules on your website. This is what you’re checking for:

Cache is enabled. If it isn’t enabled, enable it. You are using the module and need the module. If you’re not using the module, delete it or UN-publish it.

Did you test out a dozen different templates before choosing the one you’re currently using? Delete them if you’re not using it!

View your Index.php file for the template you’re using and delete all white space that isn’t needed. You’ll find that there are large spaces between some module positions, HTML elements, etc. This isn’t necessary, and will slow down the download time of your website because it takes that much long to read your site.

View the CSS file associated with your website and delete all styles that aren’t needed for your Joomla site. If you want to be safe about it, go ahead and make a backup so that you can still go back to them if you want to.

Finally, view the source code on your website from a browser. Do you see a lot of JavaScript code before the content appears? Are they for mambots that you’re not really using or need? Delete anything you DON’T NEED between your actual website content and the top of your page using the Joomla backend mambot, module and component uninstall function.

NOTE: Make sure you’re not using these extensions before your delete them!

We’ve covered the absolute basics of speeding up your Joomla website. Check the speed on the website load timer now and notice the difference, I think you’ll be surprised!