Page speed is a crucial factor in the success of any website. If your website takes too long to load, visitors will quickly lose interest and leave. Faster load speeds have been proven to result in greater engagement and more sales, as demonstrated by Google and Amazon. Additionally, a slow site could lead to being flagged by Google. Fortunately, WordPress offers a great balance between functionality and speed. However, it’s important to know which WordPress tools to use and how to use them. In this article, we’ll take you through several ways to enhance the speed of your WordPress website, from free plugins to hosting solutions.
What is Caching?
Caching is a technology that optimizes the reuse of previously requested data. By keeping frequently requested objects in a readily accessible place, caching minimizes the need to re-fetch the same data repeatedly when it’s not necessary. Static images like logos are perfect caching candidates because they never change and are part of many page requests. Caching enables such objects to be stored locally on the user’s computer so that they don’t need to be repeatedly downloaded with every new page load.
Why Should You Care About Caching?
While there are many factors that can positively affect your site’s load speed, caching is one of the most important. WordPress’ infrastructure practically demands that you incorporate a caching solution to ensure that page speed is as fast as it should be. Without caching, it’s possible to have a reasonably fast website, but incorporating a caching solution will ensure that impatient visitors aren’t turning away from your site.
Three Key Ways to Enhance Your WordPress Site’s Load Speed with Caching
1. Choose a WordPress Caching Plugin
Installing a WordPress caching plugin is a basic part of any WordPress installation. The following five plugins are among the best available:
– W3 Total Cache: This plugin offers general settings for Page, Database, Object, and Browser Cache, CloudFlare compatibility, and options for specialized Varnish servers.
– ZenCache (formerly Quick Cache Lite): This plugin has many options, but basic installation is very simple. The Pro version currently supports Amazon CloudFront but will also work with many other popular CDNs.
– WP Rocket: This plugin leverages both a client-side browser cache and server-side cache building static pages to limit PHP code processing. The developer also provides web-crawling software that locates and caches files for you. The plugin is CDN-enabled and compatible with CloudFlare.
– WP Fastest Cache: This plugin creates static HTML files from PHP and MySQL, automates HTML and CSS minification, CSS and JS concatenation, enables GZIP compression, and leverages browser caching. It is compatible with CloudFlare and MaxCDN.
– WP Super Cache: This plugin is CDN enabled with MaxCDN but not compatible with CloudFlare. It caches files in three different ways according to speed: Mod_Rewrite, PHP code, and legacy caching.
2. Choose an Optimal Hosting Solution
While most people don’t need a specialized hosting platform designed to optimize WordPress performance, it can make life an awful lot easier if you can afford it. Managed services require a greater financial investment but provide additional support features like administration, backup, and security. They also provide peace of mind. Popular WordPress managed hosting platforms include WPEngine, Media Temple, and Flywheel Hosting. When choosing a WordPress-optimized hosting platform, compare features, price, and possible technical limitations or restrictions.
3. Choose a Content Distributed Network
A Content Distributed Network (CDN) enhances page load performance by using a network of geographically separate physical servers sharing cached static pages of your website content. The closest accessible server will efficiently service random requests for content. A CDN is available through many WordPress plugins like W3 Total Cache if your website content can be distributed to your readers as static files. Hosting plans also offer this delivery option. CDN certainly isn’t a necessity, but it can make a big difference to page load speed.
Conclusion
Caching can be overwhelming, but the three steps above are in their particular order for a good reason: You should tackle each in turn, in line with your requirements. Utilizing a caching plugin is highly recommended. Choosing a specialized hosting provider can make life an awful lot easier for you – albeit at a price. Finally, utilizing a CDN isn’t necessary, but it would be the next logical step in terms of boosting load speed. Your website will never be “fast enough,” but making reasonable efforts to ensure that it isn’t too slow is essential. Even free solutions like W3 Total Cache can get you a long way towards your goal.
