I do the following: 1. Use a python profiler and look for problems, which usually means rewriting db calls to tradeoff storage space vs CPU time and/or front l

I do the following: 1. Use a python profiler and look for problems, which usually means rewriting db calls to tradeoff storage space vs CPU time and/or front loading tasks so they're heavier on write than read 2. Write memcache layers wherever possible 3. Optipng or cut the backgrounds out of gifs 4. Clean up redundant css / js 5. Minify 6. I set really long modified headers, but use a version number that I can increment in my statics files' query strings