Do you know that a well-optimized Drupal website is very appealing to search engines and can handle millions of visitors daily? And also raise your website's position in SERPs? A website's performance can be measured by its load time, average reaction time, page impressions, and page views.
All these factors can be used to measure the performance of a Drupal site. Therefore, to define a best practice for optimizing Drupal websites, you can hire a Drupal Development Company In Los Angeles to implement them accordingly.
Now that you understand how critical optimizing and increasing Drupal website performance is. Let's review the best practices and techniques for optimizing Drupal website performance.
Top 10 Practices and Techniques for Optimizing Drupal website performance
01. Keep Your Site and Modules Updated
It's time for an update! Updating your modules' versions is crucial as it contains better performance and bug fixes. Modules are bundles of code, functionality, and features that can be used with Drupal-based sites. Over time, these outdated modules weigh down your site's performance and can cause issues.
During Drupal Updates, the user must ensure that all core and custom modules are up to date. Also, "Site Update" can be run before each site launch to verify all modules are in sync with the latest updates. So, remember to keep your site and modules updated.
02. Uninstall Unused Modules
Modules are powerful tools and provide your site with rich functionality. But, when Drupal is overloaded by too many modules, the users can see decreased performance, slower page load times and can even experience downtime.
To reduce the number of modules loaded on your site, uninstalling unused modules will help you keep your site and modules up to date. Uninstalling unused modules helps to reduce the load time of your Drupal website and also improves its performance.
3. Implement a content delivery system
A CDN is a web of numerous servers spread across various geographic locations. This network gives the user faster site performance and better page load times. As a result, you increase your website's speed performance and reduce your site's load time by caching content.
CDN hosts various parts of the Drupal website (CSS, JavaScript and media) and delivers it to the user's browser. Therefore, when the user checks your website, you don't have to wait for Drupal to load content on their page, thus improving your site's performance.
04. Bandwidth Optimization
Bandwidth refers to the data transferred between a user and a website. The main goal of bandwidth optimization techniques is to minimize the time it takes to transfer information from your website's server to a user's browser.
In short, Bandwidth optimization refers to the process of aggregating all CSS and Javascript files so that they load together and in parallel. This way, the user's browser receives all the data it needs simultaneously rather than waiting for multiple files to load sequentially.
05. Optimize the Cache
A cache is a temporary data storage area for frequently retrieved data. When you save pages, images, and other website elements in the cache, users can view them more quickly. Also, the changes are instantly incorporated into the cache if the content is updated.
Most of the content on your Drupal website will be saved in the cache. The cache improves page load time and reduces traffic from external sites. Also, it prevents unnecessary data requests from causing an increase in traffic to your site.
06. Optimization and compress your images
Obviously, images are the most critical piece of content on a Drupal website. Images help to express your message and attract visitors. But images also require more time and, therefore, can slow down your Drupal website.
For optimizing and compressing images on your website, Drupal Core can directly compress, resize and provide the appropriate image for every situation. It can also scale and crop the images. Consistent image sizes reduce the bandwidth used to transfer images and allow users to load web pages more quickly.
07. Optimize your themes
A theme is an extension of a Drupal website and defines a site's overall look, style and feel. A theme is built using modules that can add new capabilities to your site, such as custom CSS, Javascript files and components.
Themes are a significant way to personalize your site and are fun to work with. But, the number of features you can add to a Drupal website may slow down performance. Therefore, before updating a theme, ensure it will not affect page load time or cause other problems.
08. Upgrade to the Latest Drupal Version
The latest version of Drupal performs better than previous versions. If you are updating Drupal, you should take the latest stable version of Drupal. This is because the latest version contains bug fixes, improvements and optimizations to improve and enhance your website's speed performance.
In the latest version of Drupal, you can have the following features:
- Faster page load times.
- Improved site maintenance.
- Boosted security with auto updates functionality.
- Greater user experience.
- Reduced support costs.
- Greater functionality with new features.
09. Choose a High-Performance Drupal Hosting
Suppose you still need to meet your performance goals after implementing some of the tips above. In that case, consider choosing a faster Drupal hosting provider and hosting to determine your site's speed, stability, security and performance.
Choosing a fast Drupal hosting provider will allow you to manage your site better and reduce the overloading of your Drupal website. Further, a host that provides a solid SSD will decrease your site's load times.
When choosing a Drupal hosting provider, perform the following:
- Make sure you picked the right plan
- Your host is also a high-performing Drupal hosting provider.
- Check reviews on their speed and performance on their website.
- Check SSL and other security features that they provide to protect your site.
10. Redis and Varnish
Redis and Varnish are the best practices for Drupal performance because they improve the site's speed by caching content. Redis is a famous in memory data structure store that can be used to cache data. Redis can help you reduce the number of database queries, increasing performance.
Varnish is a web application accelerator that offers caching features. If used correctly, Varnish can increase the speed and performance of your website by allowing multiple users to access the Drupal website simultaneously.
Conclusion:
As you can see, there are many techniques and methods to help speed up your Drupal website. Before you add any of the techniques above to your site, you must ensure they are scalable, maintainable and allow you to minimize downtime for your Drupal website.
The best way is to upgrade to the latest version of Drupal and follow some of the tips above, plus practices like caching images with PHP, optimizing your themes, upgrading your host to a high performing one etc.
If you are searching for a quick and easy way to speed up your website, then Drupal Development Company In Los Angeles can help you. With basic and advanced Drupal optimization features, this company can help you improve your website's speed performance.
