I am extremely interested in online stores, especially those built on the Magento platform. I regularly investigate their operations, sincerely striving to understand how they work and whether they employ any special new functionalities developed for this system. This helps me gain new ideas for developing Magento modules, designing online stores, and motivates me to put in more effort to achieve more in my projects.
In the past week, I reviewed at least twenty stores and I was quite disappointed to find that most of these stores had serious operational issues manifesting in various errors. Most surprisingly, it took more than 10 seconds for the website to load on mobile devices, a result that greatly concerned me.
Many store owners might not even notice this issue since it might have been a while since their last visit, and the page probably already cached in their browser. However, for new visitors, these slow load times can cause significant inconvenience. You might wonder what Google says about this?
Google states:
- 53% of visits are likely abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load.
- Half of the people expect a site to load in less than 2 seconds.
- 46% of people say waiting for pages to load is what they dislike the most about browsing the internet on mobile devices.
(Source: https://blog.google/products/admanager/the-need-for-mobile-speed/)
Therefore, I have prepared some basic guidelines to help ordinary users and online store owners check the performance of their Magento online stores.
Store Performance Speed
Let's start with the speed, as mentioned earlier. The easiest way to check your store's performance is by using the Google PageSpeed Insight tool. This tool not only rates your store's state on a scale from 0 to 100 but also provides detailed instructions to fix issues and focus on key aspects. You might not need to understand all technical details, as you'll find enough information on this page for your web store administrator to enhance its performance.
To get scores for mobile and desktop devices, input your store's link in the following website and click "Analyze":
Achieving a perfect score of 100/100 is often a challenging task, requiring specific changes and compromises. For instance, your store's performance might be highly optimized, but services like Google Analytics, Captcha, Facebook pixel, which load from external sources, might affect loading speed. In such cases, a balance between optimization and functionality is necessary.
Store performance speed can also heavily depend on hosting, as it can vary significantly based on configuration and optimization. For example, I recently migrated a client's online store from a virtual server with different caches (Redis, Varnish, etc.) to Neoserv's shared Turbo hosting package, improving speed by about 4 seconds on mobile devices. Although it still took about 10 seconds, this improvement was substantial. I plan further optimizations in the coming days to achieve a green score (above 90 out of 100).
Store Security
Another crucial aspect is your online store's security against attacks and abuses. In a previous case, I encountered a situation where dangerous code was running on the checkout through Google Tag Manager, which could have exploited visitor data. This can be a very serious problem, as an automatic form for entering credit card information could be created, even though the online store doesn't have credit card payment options. These data were then sent to a remote server.
During the period when official support for Magento 1.9 ended, I heard about 24 data breaches in just one month. Thus, I recommend updating your store at least once a year or at least patching the most well-known security holes. You might not know, but Magento 1.9 can still be upgraded, as there is an unofficial development called Openmage.
How to check if you have an updated store? It's simple. When you're logged into the administration, check the store version mentioned in the website's footer. Additionally, you can verify your Magento store's security using the following link. Input your store's URL in the field and click "Scan"
Store Operation Errors
Sometimes, errors in the store occur despite having everything updated and the store loading quickly. These errors can hinder or even prevent users from completing purchases or accessing all information. A simple way to check these errors is to test the store's operation on various devices, such as mobile phones and desktop computers, and perform some test purchases.
Check if all information is understandable and translated, if all elements are clickable, and if functionalities work as they should. For those with more technical knowledge, errors in the website's execution can also be checked in the browser console. I believe that by regularly checking the above-mentioned aspects, you shouldn't have major issues with your online store.
If you want a more detailed analysis with improvement recommendations, feel free to contact me, and I will be happy to provide you with a report with suggestions. I am also available to help improve the situation free of charge.
