Surprisingly I was not excited when I found this "Jspeed" extension, in fact I was very agitated. Why? Because the person who created this is a rip off copycat. So I do not recommend this extension and let me explain why.

Take a close look at the URL that you are on.

Now you will see the name "Jspeed" in the URL, so you might think that this is the same product. But no. It is not, but it is very closely related. "Jspeed" is a super fast and light weight Joomla template.

Jspeed the template?

Jspeed the template was created in 2018.

In the picture above you can see the name in the URL, the text on the page and the publish date from one of the earlier blog posts.

"Jspeed" the extension?

According to Joomla extensions the extension was created in 2020.

This is a COPYRIGHT VIOLATION. Now if his product was a stimulant that you pop in your mouth then that's not a copyright violation, but his product is a Joomla extension to make your site supposedly load faster. Mine is a Joomla template that loads fast. They are very closely related. That's a copyright violation.

I emailed J!Extensions store about this problem and guess what?

No reply. 

Of course you may say how can I believe you or does this matter? Fair enough. First we can check dates using an external site. 

Who is the original Jspeed?

The wayback machine is an internet archive of the web. It contains a history of cached websites.

You can see that the earliest cached pages were from July and August 2018.

Does this matter to you?

Have you ever heard the quote...

"How you do one thing is how you do everything."

What does that mean?

This person doesn't give a f**k about stealing the name of my template to use with his cheap related product. So if he doesn't care about that then he has no pride in his product to even invent his own name.

WEAK. 

That means his extension is probably also a copycat of one of the other speed extensions like JCHoptimize. 

I formerly used JCHoptimize starting way back in 2014 on another site and then again later.

It worked good in the beginning, but you know overtime you add different extensions and then some stuff doesn't work well with others. Then when I tried to use it again maybe a few years ago it didn't really boost my page speed so then I thought why not make my own super simple template?

I did and I named it Jspeed.

It's not for everyone (it's minimalistic) but what you will see on that page is that it gets 100% out of the box. But don't get too excited because if you use a lot of extensions and java script then it won't.

Anyways...

The owner of J!Extensions (ironically he puts a TM for trademark by his name) doesn't care about stealing the name of my product. So he doesn't care about stealing others work. He's got no pride. And I know as a creator that if you put the time into something then you will care about the name.

So my recommendation is that if you are looking for an extension to choose another.

In this article I am going to teach you how to make your Joomla website faster. And then at the end of this if you are still dissatisfied with your page speed scores I will suggest a minimalist template that's extremely fast (100% out of the box).

Before you start try opening this page speed tester in another window.

Now that you opened that up enter your url in the box and press analyze. 

What's your score?

Take a look at all of the potential problems there and let's start with the easiest possible solutions. 

But, before you start trying to make your Joomla website faster

It's a good idea to take a back up in case anything goes wrong. Also realize that many extensions or even optimization extensions can conflict with others. So some things will work below for you and others not.

Proceed carefully and constantly test things out.

Basic techniques to improve your Joomla site's page speed

Here are the basic techniques for making your Joomla site faster. Try these first before you do anything else.

1. Turn on caching

There are 2 places to do this.

  1. In the back end of Joomla go to System>Global Configuration>System>Caching>Conservative Caching and press save.
  2. In the back end go to Extensions>Plug ins and do a search for System - Page Cache and enable it.

2. Enable compression

Go to System>Global Configuration>Server Settings>GZIP Page Compression and enable it.

3. Optimize your images

You should compress and size all of your images before uploading them to your site. Smaller equals faster. Fewer images make for a faster loading page and no images are the fastest.

I currently use Tinypng.

4. Remove what you are not using or what is not working

LESS IS MORE.

The more components you have added to your Joomla site then the slower it will be. Go to the backend and remove any extensions that you aren't using. If you are not sure then disable them for now.

Have comments on your site? Are people commenting? Try disabling them to see what the difference is in page speed.

Intermediate techniques to make your Joomla site faster

Here are some techniques you can use to further your page speed.

5. Try an extension (but choose wisely)

You can try an extension, however they don't always work because they can conflict with other extensions on your site.

JCH optimize is a popular one for combining Javascript and CSS files. I used to like it back in the day, butYou can also minify them too. Results vary per website. I used to get good results from it back in Joomla 2.5 and then in Joomla 3 not so much.

Try it out and see if it helps. Keep in mind some things you can do without an extension.

Also you can check out other extensions that might help with page speed. 

But....

I do not recommend the "extension" called "Jspeed". That has no relation to the template I created called Jspeed. That was created in 2020 and my template was created in 2018. That is a rip off copy cat. I read once, "how you do one thing is how you do everything".

So...

If the guy would blatantly rip off the name of my template (for a related product which is a copyright violation) then I'd guess that he probably copied JCH optimize or another extension and then charges you money for it.

I have ZERO respect for copycats. 

Advanced techniques for making your Joomla template faster

Get deep into it. 

6. Combine all of your CSS files into one

One CSS file loads faster than two. And a compressed file loads faster than one that is not. Combine all of your template CSS into one file and then reference those files in the head of the index.php file.

You can do this for extensions that have separate CSS files too.

7. Remove unused CSS

The smaller the CSS file the faster it will load. It can be complex and confusing to find out what CSS is being used on some and all pages. 

So do so carefully.

8. Put it in your index.php file if...

You can put it in your index.php file if it isn't much after you removed the unused portion. This is uncommon advice and some will recommend against it. But it will make your site load faster if it's a small amount of CSS.

9. Eliminate the unnecessary JS files

Find out what JS files are not being used on your Joomla site and eliminate the calls to them, but as usual do so carefully. Sometimes you can do this with an extension and sometimes not.

Often you can put a line of code in the index.php file that will do this too.

10. Defer JS files

You can do this by using an extension or sometimes by putting a few lines of code into your index.php template.

Sometimes this extension worked for me and others it didn't.

11. Get rid of Google fonts

Or get rid of any unnecessary fonts as these add to the HTTP requests on a page.

12. Optimize .htaccess

This will not work on a shared server, but you can try it otherwise.

Go to your cpanel on the backend and add the rules to all the different files. For example:

  • ExpiresByType image/gif "now plus 1 month"
  • ExpiresByType image/jpeg "now plus 1 month"

Learn more about how to use htaccess to optimize Joomla.

13. Use a CDN

You can use Cloudflare for free. You can sign up and then get the process moving. You'll have to change the nameservers on your server too.

Want the fastest Joomla template?

Well, the fastest template is not going to have a lot of bells and whistles. It's going to be very simple. 

14. Get an optimized template

Your template might be the problem.

Your template makes a difference and every template is different. 

Out of the box few templates are fast and ready to go. But you can try out different templates to see which is faster. Some say they are fast, but not really.

This minimalist Joomla template that you are looking at right now gets 100% out of the box (with no extensions). See for yourself.

And...

I am a bit obsessive about things like page speed. I would go over and over again on how I could make my template faster. Sometimes extensions would increase my page speed considerably, sometimes they would just a little and others not at all.

But I never got a 100% until I made this template.

I also liked the idea of not using an extension to increase page speed, so I made my own.

Do you want to get a 100% on page speed?

I created a template that does just that and you are looking at it right now. It's extremely simple and fast.

Get 100% with this simple Joomla template that is extremely fast.

Or

Read more about this minimalistic Joomla template.

It is recommended that you use the following settings to get the most out of this template.

Content>Articles>Options

  • "Show icons" = hide.

Content>Articles>Options>Integration>

Better SEO settings.

  • "Url routing" = Modern
  • "Remove id's from url's = Yes

Contact page

The contact form may not function well with this template because javascript is disabled. You can remove this line of code if you like, but you will lose some of the speed.

One person who bought this template said that they used the extension... Here I just copied this from an email I received which might help.

"If it help, I loaded JD Simple Contact Form extension and that works very well with your template out of the box (except CSS of course). There is just something wrong with the inbuilt Joomla Contact component not playing nicely with your template. Thanks, Dan"

How can you edit the CSS?

Pretty easy if you ask me. You can just go directly to the index.php file in the template and edit it there. Of course you want to save a copy first as a backup. You can right click and see the page source on this page to see it. It's very simple. That is Jspeed. 

Do you want a minimalist Joomla template that is simple and fast? Well, take a look at the page you are on as this simple Joomla template gets page speed scores of 100% out of the box (without images). 

This is an SEO optimized Joomla template where you will start off winning vs. losing. With many other templates you will have to do a lot of modification to get something simple that is also fast loading.

I know because I would spend a lot of time modifying my templates to make them faster.

Tired of fancy, cluttered websites?

Well, take a look at this template. Does it look fancy to you? Nope. It isn't. It's simple. And the benefit is that it is fast because of it's simplicity.

Do you need a fancy website? What really matters?

No. For some people design is important. There's a lot of marketing out there that says that too. But think of Craigslist or Wikipedia. These websites are pretty popular, but they are simple. Why is that?

It's because of the content. 

They are not popular because they are fancy or pretty. They are popular because they help people. So what's the message here? Your content matters more than the colors and design of your website. You can have the coolest website around, but if the content sucks then you won't have any visitors, make any money or spread your message.

So you want something minimal that works so that you can do your thing. Besides this template comes with some other benefits like speed which your users and search engines like.

There are no big and heavy javascript libraries

Most Joomla templates will load many large JS files by default which slow down the page load time, but if you just want a really simple Joomla website you might not need them. 

Jspeed won't load any files, by default. But if you decide you need one then you can do that too by removing a small line of code in the template.

No large CSS files - No bootstrap

The Bootstrap css file that comes with the standard Protostar template is over 150KB. If you just want a minimal website then you don't need this. On another site I took that same CSS file and eliminated over 130KB of CSS.

Jspeed uses only a minimal amount of CSS which is inlined. This CSS is so small that it can load quickly on page.

Instead of starting with a heavy and slow site you can start with a super fast and lightweight site

Out of the box most Joomla templates are slow. Jspeed won't load any javascript files or CSS files by default. If you later decide that you need one or both then you can add them by removing and adding a few simple lines of code.

No sidebar - It's simple with only 1 column

There is no sidebar in this template. That lack of sidebar minimizes the CSS needed and helps keep your users eyes where you want them - on your content. According to eye tracking studies people don't actually read the sidebar much and on other sites removing the sidebar increased conversions.

Does Google search have a sidebar?

It's mobile friendly too

This template works in all devices. Test this page out for yourself with an online tool for speed and mobile friendliness.

Get Jspeed the minimalistic Joomla template for $29. 

Once I receive your payment I will send the template to you within 24 hours.

Or learn more about it.

Joomla is kinda slow. I have been using Joomla for around 7 years. And I can tell you that Joomla is fairly slow out of the box. 

There are things that you can do to it to speed it up, but most templates and Joomla sites are not natively fast or simple. Here is what slows down Joomla sites:

  • Javascript. Joomla and/or it's extensions load large Javascript files like Mootools or Jquery even when they are not needed.
  • CSS files. Many templates and extensions use multiple CSS files which slow down page loading. You only need one CSS file or actually if you don't have much CSS you don't even need one.
  • Templates. Some templates load extra javascript files and CSS. 
  • Extensions. Extensions often add javascript and css files to pages.
  • Javascript & CSS files are loaded in the head.
  • Images and icons. Some templates are made with images and core Joomla uses icons.
  • Fonts. If you are not using native fonts then you have to download them from Google or somewhere else. This adds a request and slows the page down a bit. 
  • HTTP requests. JS files, CSS files, images and extensions all slow down a page.

Things you can do to Joomla to speed it up

  • Use a CDN.
  • Combine CSS and JS files
  • Defer JS files
  • Compress or eliminate images
  • Remove icons
  • Get rid of Google fonts
  • Turn on the caching plug-in
  • Get an optimized template... like the one you're looking at... hint, hint, haha

How to make your Joomla site super fast.

Why speed up your website?

A faster website means that your users will be happier. If your users are happier with your site then you will get more traffic.

I don't know about you, but I hit the back button on sites that load slow. Do you? 

Want a super fast and simple Joomla website?

You're looking at one. Here is a Joomla template that loads extremely fast.