How can I improve the speed of my Prestashop site?

One way of dealing with PrestaShop's slowness is to remove unused modules. Generally, PrestaShop 1.7 seems to come with various modules and features you don't need. Uninstall and delete any modules you don't use. This way, these modules won't be loaded and they won't slow down your PrestaShop store.

As far as modules are concerned, there are several add-ons available that you can use to speed up your PrestaShop. In fact, they enable you to improve PrestaShop's performance. With such tools, you can implement PrestaShop image optimization and lazy loading to improve your user experience. For image optimization, you can use the Google Webp image generator or even Image optimization pro module.

Upgrading or installing the latest version of PHP could bring significant improvements to PrestaShop's speed. For example, compared with PHP 5, PHP 7 is a significant upgrade.

You can try MariaDB or Percona Server for your database instead of standard MySQL for better scalability. You can even use an individual server for your MySQL if your online store is always busy. Even when you've optimized your database, you should keep in mind to keep optimizing it from time to time for better performance.

When it comes to selecting a web server, you have two obvious options in the form of Apache and Nginx. Each of these options has its own disadvantages and advantages. You can simply use both. Using both servers will compensate for their shortcomings. A common approach to this combination is to place Apache behind Nginx. Nginx should be used as a reverse proxy. In this way, it will be able to handle every request for static content, while Apache will handle dynamic requests.

The aim is to use more RAM than hard disk memory. This is achieved by using temporary system cache files to optimize disk input and output.

You should take advantage of a CDN or content delivery network to speed up the delivery of your content. Once set up, you simply need to enter information about the multimedia service in PrestaShop. Your static assets will be cached by a content delivery network on its peripheral servers around the world. In this way, a visitor's request can be routed to the nearest peripheral server, as opposed to moving to the main server.

There are a number of PrestaShop modules you can implement to improve your store's performance. In fact, the importance of implementing a PrestaShop cache module or a PrestaShop speed module cannot be ignored. You can invest in modules such as Page Cache Ultimate module or Page Cache Pro module to improve PrestaShop page caching. In addition to simply reducing loading times by several seconds, they can even reduce the load on your server, as minimal resources are consumed in providing cached files.

This option will compress all your HTML, JavaScript and CSS into a single code. As a result, it will get rid of unnecessary characters and white spaces. In this way, the size of your files will be smaller and your pages will load faster. You should look for the Advanced Preferences tab under the top menu bar and click on Performance. Finally, activate the CCC option and enable cache servers (memcache).

One of the most important things to consider when you want to improve your store's speed is to know about and use speed testing tools. Most e-tailers continue to invest efforts in improving the speed of their Prestashop, but they don't know if their efforts are paying off or not. You can't know whether your efforts are bearing fruit until you know how to quantify your gains.

Fortunately, there are various speed testing tools that can help you evaluate your website's performance, such as GTmetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights. The best thing about these tools is that they not only analyze your store, but also identify any areas that are lacking and need improvement. Whichever tool you select, you need to run regular tests to make sure you're performing at your best and at the desired level of speed. Whether on desktop or mobile.

Your bottom line is the most important measure. You need to ask yourself whether or not your optimization efforts are generating more sales. The speed of a Prestashop store is a major factor in its success.