Improve Magento Performance

In any eCommerce store site performance & its speed is best thing to grab more customers..
Here are few points:

- Turn Compilation ON: To compile file & scope into accessible blocks of html.
( Through Admin panel: System-> Tools-> Compliation-> Run compilation process button)

- Combine CSS & Javascript: To improve the site speed
( Through Admin panel: System-> Configuration->Developer-> Select 'Yes" for both :Javascript Setting" & "CSS setting")

- Turn Logging OFF:
( Through Admin Panel: System->Configuration->Advanced->Mage_log->disable)

- Enable Magento Flat catalog:
( Through Admin panel: System-> Configuration->Catalog->Set "Yes" for "Flat catalog Product" & " Flat catalog category")

You may use any of the below extension to improve the performance of your store & disable extensions which are not in use.
http://magento.ocodewire.com/extensions/

Ocodewire, I am Fully agree with this point the factors you have listed here.
The site speed means your website load time is very important. One should keep note of this that your side loads in 2-3 sec, if this will not happen you will not only lose your customer but also the reputation for your business on market.
So it is much better to bare some reasonable expense than to lose the business reputation by finding Magento maintenance service provider on internet which improve the performance, the speed of your website and the trust of your customers.

Its easy to make your front end performance better but if any body wants to optimize admin panel of magento so its complicated for user/dev.

Some steps are here:

1)Delete unused extensions
2)Keep your store clean by deleting unused and outdated products
3)Reindexing
and many more necessary step are here: 5 Ways To Optimize Magento Admin Panel