Top 14 Tips to Optimize Your Drupal 8 Website’s Performance

If you need to get your website up and running within a day, Drupal 8 is the solution that you need. Because of its sleek designs, stability, and appearance, the Drupal 8 system can cater to most of your online needs. Even though this platform offers a plethora of benefits for your website, there are always a few ways you can boost up your Drupal 8 website’s performance.

Fast loading speed and high performance are crucial for increasing user engagement. Content is still king and will always be, the overall performance of a website is also significantly important. Website visitors and search engines are the primary factors that can contribute to the success of your website. Therefore, you need to have fast Drupal hosting and efficiently-performing website. Otherwise, it can create an unpleasant experience for both your users and search engines. Above all, you can always approach a professional Drupal development company and take advantage of their Drupal 8 development services to better optimize your Drupal 8 website’s performance.

Here are a few essential tips that will improve your Drupal website significantly.

 

1. Simple Yet Effective Design

 

Keeping minimalist design of your website can make your site faster ad efficient. Cramming your website with too many features will only hurt the performance of your website. As there is so much to add to Drupal, it can be difficult to slim it down. However, everything from captivating themes to engaging modules can greatly affect your website’s performance. Having fewer graphics and calls to the database, the site can deliver faster website experience to users.

If you wish to create a more professional and impactful website, you should consider getting help from a professional Drupal development company for their complete suite of website design and development services.

2. Image Optimization

 

A blog post with attractive and high-quality images can fetch 94% more views. Although it is important to use HD-quality images on a website, these images can be double-edged blades which can hamper your Drupal 8 website’s performance. Large high-resolution graphics and images can make your website much slower to load. Therefore, one of the best ways to improve your Drupal site’s performance is to optimize your images by fitting them to the right size before uploading them on your website. It is not a good idea to use huge graphics and then altering the size using coding. Web browsers can still render the entire graphics as a whole. It is recommended to keep images to 72dpi and upload it with the right size.

3. Reduce the Number of Modules

 

If you don’t want to go with the minimalist approach to web design, then you may consider reducing the number of modules. Each new module can hamper the speed of your Drupal 8 because each will have their separate code that needs to execute or calls to a database. By keeping the modules to a minimum, you can make your website light-weight and easier for browsers to load your website. Even if a module is currently inactive, it can still affect the performance of your Drupal.

If you’re not comfortable with the coding, it is wise to hire Drupal developers who have strong expertise and knowledge in creating effective and relevant modules for your Drupal website.

4. Reduce External Resources

 

External resources also have a significant impact on the performance of your website. Incorporating affiliate links, ad sharing, or any other add-on that retrieves data from external or third-party websites can easily reduce the speed of your website. For instance, your site’s performance can be deteriorated whenever you add a Google Adsense block to your web page. Therefore, keeping these external resources to a minimum can improve the overall performance of your Drupal.

5. Caching Modules

 

Caching can boost your website’s speed when the elements of your website are saved and used when a user visits your website. It is similar to saving the settings on a program that you use daily. However, this is only possible unless a user doesn’t empty his cache on the computer. Drupal 8 comes with some built-in methods that enable it to do this without having to install additional modules. However, there are some extensions that have greater control and versatility than the pre-built modules. For example, the Boost module will cache and minify coding which empowers your website to perform at its peak level. It also adjusts the cache life cycle of different data which improves user experience as well as SEO.

6. Use a Reliable CDN

 

Using a reliable Content Delivery Network or CDN is one of the easiest and effective ways to boost the speed of your Drupal 8 website. A CDN automatically distributes your website across a network of servers in different locations. These web copies are useful when a user tries to access your CDN website from any server regardless of his current location. This removes the distance barriers, thereby improving the speed of your website.
If you need a custom CDN, you can always approach a professional Drupal 8 development company that can provide you with custom CDN to meet all your unique business requirements.

7. Update to the Latest Version of PHP

 

Drupal is a PHP-based content management system. Each new version of PHP promises improved performance and efficiency. Therefore, make sure you are using the latest version of PHP to improve your website’s performance. Many hosting providers give you the liberty to update to a newer version of PHP through cPanel. You just have to select the version of your choice from a drop-down window, and then you’re good to go. However, it’s worth noting that some modules or scripts may not support specific versions of PHP, so you should be careful when changing the version of PHP all by yourself.

8. Keep Your Database Clean

 

Besides optimizing the coding of your website, you should also consider optimizing your database from time to time by cleaning the data and removing unwanted or out-dated chunks of information. By using modules like Memcache, you can make your database faster as this toll stores your data in the active memory for a limited time-frame which makes data retrieval much faster and easier. This eliminates the need of making constant queries to fetch data as the data is readily available. This system is also useful for shared web hosting plans.

9. Be Picky About Background Image

 

When it comes to selecting the background images, you must choose something that does not affect your website’s performance. You should try to keep the background of your Drupal 8 website to standard color schemes as much as possible. Drupal comes with many templates that allow you to adjust the background image of the site. By dropping the graphic and using the hexadecimal color platform, you can eliminate a large part that browsers don’t have to render upon visiting. If you still want to use high-quality large JPG files, make sure your compress its size prior to upload. This can improve the overall performance of your website.

10. Leverage Lazy Loading

 

Unlike traditional websites where all the images and content are pre-loaded into a web browser, lazy loading allows a user to access website elements as needed. With lazy loading, the elements of the website are loaded as soon as a user scrolls to view the content. This feature can be used in a mobile environment as well as improving mobile speed is an essential part of the overall performance. By installing modules like Blazy will enable your Drupal 8 website to attract and engage some of those users.

11. Add Expires Headers

 

Expiring headers can make caching more efficient on the browser’s end of the website. You may get a warning if you don’t add an ‘expires’ header in the .htaccess file. An ‘expires’ header tells the user’s web browsers to save certain unchangeable elements of the site such as your website’s background, logo, icon images, and many others so that the user’s computer simply recalls the graphics itself whenever the user visits the website the next time.

12. Do Not Use Flash

 

Earlier, Flash was useful when it came to animated graphics on the internet. Today, this system is considered out-dated and therefore should be avoided. This includes everything from website backgrounds to buttons. Flash has become obsolete over the years because of its slow behavior and security risks. Instead, there are plenty of HTML5 components that are faster and secure. Frequent buffering while watching videos online is quite annoying for users. Moreover, as videos play a significant role in marketing today, you should try avoiding the use of Flash for this purpose on your Drupal website.

13. Manage the Use of CSS and JavaScript for Reduced HTTP Requests

 

CSS and JavaScript make your website dynamic, customizable, and flexible. However, a huge number of CSS files and JS use can also affect the performance of your Drupal website. Therefore, you should try to keep your coding to a minimum and try to avoid excessive CSS files and usage of JavaScript to ensure the optimal performance of your website.
Drupal 8 comes with a built-in ability to aggregate these extra files into bundles to reduce the load time of your website. We recommend installing the Advanced CSS.JS

Aggregation (AdvAgg) module to boost the speed of your Drupal. Using AdvAgg enables you to

• Aggregate CSS files using media queries and group them into one bundle
• Add JavaScript to any part of your website’s theme, block or views
• Render Cache and cache the generated HTML file
• Disable aggregation using a cookie or the query string in a URL

Besides, the AdvAgg module comes with several submodules to carry out front-end tasks and protect your site from cyber threats. If you’re not an expert at handling these technology files, it is always best to approach a Drupal development company where you can hire Drupal developers to address your concerns with your Drupal 8 website.

14. Handle 404 Error in a Fast and Efficient Manner

 

If you do not handle 404 Error by setting up a redirect or an error page offering users alternative information, you send a negative signal to your users as well as Google. Moreover, even a failed image can make your website slow. Therefore, you need to fix these issues to deliver a seamless website experience to users. Although Drupal 8 comes with limited ability to manage 404 errors quickly and efficiently, you can consider installing the Fast 404 module. This module not only ensures better resource utilization but also allows you to whitelist files and trace pathways of the issues.

Wrapping Up

 

Every Drupal development company or individual user strives to improve Drupal performance to deliver an excellent experience for both visitors and search engines. A fast performing website has a lot of potentials to engage your audience and convert prospects into leads. You can always a reputed Drupal 8 development company that can help you build a robust, responsive, and high performing website for your business. If you need to optimize your Drupal 8 website, you can hire Drupal developers on an hourly or part-time basis to add the element of speed to your website and feel the difference.