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Best Practices for Query Optimization

• Table should have primary key
• Table should have minimum of one clustered index
• Table should have appropriate amount of non-clustered index
• Non-clustered index should be created on columns of table based on query which is running
• Following priority order should be followed when any index is created a) WHERE clause, b) JOIN clause, c) ORDER BY  clause,  d)  SELECT clause
• Do not to use Views or replace views with original source table
• Triggers should not be used if possible, incorporate the logic of trigger in stored procedure
• Remove any adhoc queries and use Stored Procedure instead
• Check if there is atleast 30% HHD is empty – it improves the performance a bit
• If possible move the logic of UDF to SP as well
• Remove * from SELECT and use columns which are only necessary in code
• Remove any unnecessary joins from table
• If there is cursor used in query, see if there is any other way to avoid the usage of this (either by SELECT … INTO or INSERT … INTO,     etc)

Source : SqlAuthority