Generally speaking, you should aim to load your site in under two seconds. Two seconds is an interval that users expect to have to wait, so it should not stop them from browsing. As soon as your site is taking longer to load, your visitors might lose interest. Several studies have shown that conversion rates start dropping if pages take more than those two seconds.
I would advise you to take one of your web sites and really make an effort to accelerate its speed as much as possible. Even if it already loads in two seconds, you might try to make it load in under one second. Your site will feel super snappy and lively, which is something users will definitely appreciate.
Some of the measures I will discuss may seem trivial, but if you follow along, you will learn a lot. Once you have gained experience, it will be easier and easier for you to speed up your sites, and you will know which measures work for you and which ones don’t. Small, simple sites, such as a portfolio or brochure site, may only require five minutes of configuration to make them twice as fast.
Be aware that some of the actions I discuss may sometimes break functionality, so, as with any major change you undertake, test and be prepared to go back to the original configuration, either by retracing your steps or by restoring your backup. The more complicated your site is, the more time-consuming it will be to speed it up.
Check Before You Begin
Before we dive straight into optimizing Joomla for speed, let’s first see where we currently stand. If you understand what each optimization step does, you will learn which ones have a large effect and which have a minimal one. Your web site must be published and online to take advantage of these tools, but afterward there are several options for checking the speed of your web site. What is especially nice is that these tools not only rank your web site speed but also provide you with very useful tips. Just by following their advice, you may be able to find out what your issues are.
It can pay to check your web sites with more than one tool, as the different checks do not always agree 100% about the actions to be undertaken.
YSlow Browser Extension
YSlow can be installed in your Firefox or Chrome browser, using the Firefox and Chrome Play stores, allowing any site to be graded from there.