Ready to turbocharge your WordPress website?
WP Rocket is here to help!
This premium caching plugin can noticeably improve the speed of your site by providing features such as page caching, file optimization and lazy loading.
In this guide, we will provide a detailed introduction to WP Rocket and explain how it can help you optimize the speed of your WordPress website.
We’ll also explain why optimize website speed with WP Rocket today is important and provide some tips for further improving your website performance. With these simple steps, you can look forward to faster loading speeds and an improved user experience on your site!
Optimize Website Speed With WP Rocket Plugin
TL;DR Summary
- WP Rocket is a premium caching plugin for WordPress that helps improve the loading speed of websites by creating and serving a static version of the website from cache.
- It works by implementing various caching techniques, optimizing assets, and minimizing HTTP requests made to the server.
- To use WP Rocket on your WordPress site, measure your current speed using Pingdom or GT Matrix; remove unwanted plugins; install and activate it; configure settings such as file optimization, preloading tab etc.; check for improved speeds after configuration.
- Benefits include better loading speeds leading to better search engine rankings plus easy installation with wide range of features available.
The essence of website speed
Website speed is essential for various reasons, and it’s important for businesses and individuals alike to understand why it matters.
Here are just a few of the reasons:
User experience
A slow website can be frustrating for users and even cause them to abandon it altogether. This is especially true if users try to access a site on a mobile device, where slower speeds can be even more noticeable.
By ensuring that your website loads quickly, you can provide a better experience for your users and keep them coming back.
SEO
Search engines, like Google, consider website speed when ranking sites. A faster website is more likely to rank higher in search results, which can drive more traffic and increase visibility for your business or personal brand.
Conversion rates
Studies have shown that faster website speeds can lead to higher conversion rates. For businesses, a faster website can lead to more sales and revenue.
For individuals, a faster website can lead to more engagement and interaction with your content.
Cost savings
A slower website can use more resources and bandwidth, leading to higher hosting and maintenance costs.
By optimizing your website for speed, you can save money on these costs and invest in other areas of your business or personal brand.
Competitive advantage
In today’s fast-paced digital world, website speed is more important than ever. By ensuring that your website loads quickly, you can set yourself apart from your competitors and give users a reason to choose your site over others.
By taking the time to optimize your website for speed, you can increase the success of your business or personal brand and provide a better experience for your users.
What affects your WordPress site speeds?
A few factors can affect the speed of your website. It is essential to understand these factors to optimize your website and ensure that it performs at its best.
What is the WP Rocket plugin?
It is a premium caching plugin for WordPress that helps improve the loading speed of your website. It works by creating a static version of your website and storing it in the cache so that when a user visits your website, they are served the cached version instead of generating a new version of the page on the fly. This process helps reduce the load on your server and improves the loading speed of your website.
How does it improve the performance of the site?
WP Rocket WordPress plugin improves the performance and speed of a website by implementing various caching techniques, optimizing the loading of assets, and minimizing the number of HTTP requests made to the server.
When a user visits a website, their browser has to send a request to the server for the content and resources needed to display the page.
Caching allows the server to store a copy of this content so that it can be served more quickly to future visitors without sending another request to the server.
WP Rocket implements several types of caching, including page caching, database caching, and object caching, to help speed up the loading of pages.
Another way is through the optimization of assets. This includes optimizing images, minifying and concatenating CSS and load JavaScript deferred files, and enabling lazy loading for images and videos.
Optimizing these assets helps reduce their file size, which reduces the time it takes for them to load and be displayed on the page.
The plugin also helps to minimize the number of HTTP requests made to the server by combining and consolidating files whenever possible. This helps to reduce the overall load on the server, which can improve the site’s overall performance.
How to use WP Rocket on your WordPress site?
It’s not that hard to install and use WP Rocket on your website. If you have ever installed a plugin, then you know exactly how to do it.
But since we want to be systematic and measure the impact of the tool, you should follow some steps.
Let’s go over them.
Measure your speed using Pingdom or GT Matrix
I would encourage you to measure the website speed first to determine whether the speeds have increased after installing the plugin.
Measuring your website speed is easy and fast. Just log into GT Matrix and create a free account. You will then input the website URL and hit ‘run test’ before the tools begin to load. After a while, it will give a report of the website speed, and what’s slowing it down.
Pingdom does the same. It gives detail insights on the CSS and other files causing the slow loading speeds of the website and the recommendations to increase it.
Both of these tools are free. That means you should have no problem getting your website speed prior to installing the plugin.
Remove unwanted plugins
Sometimes, WP Rocket can fail to work properly if there are existing plugins that aren’t up to date or not in use. Old and outdated plugins will only slow down your site.
The best thing is not to deactivate them because they will still slow down the website. Just uninstall them on your site completely.
It’s okay to install many plugins when setting up your website. Most of these plugins are awesome and perform a great job of improving the site’s performance. However, not all of them are necessary. Therefore, conduct a plugin audit and get rid of them.
You should only do that after backing up your site. Sometimes, we tend to mistakenly uninstall essential plugins that may change the site’s outlook completely.
Restoring all the files and content would be easy if you had a backed-up version. You should also perform regular website backups even after installing WP Rocket.
Install the plugin
Once all that is done, purchase the plugin since it is a premium tool. It works on a subscription model. That means you should choose a pricing package, sign up for an account, and make a purchase. It’s not daunting a task as it may sound.
Click on the ‘download WP Rocket’ button to download the zipped folder. To install it on your site, go to the plugins section, click on ‘add new plugin’ and click ‘upload’ to begin the process. It should take a few seconds to complete the whole process. You should then easily install it.
The next part is to activate it on your website. Just go to the plugins section, choose WP Rocket, and click the ‘activate’ button to enable it on your website.
Configure the WP Rocket settings
There are a couple of settings you will need to apply to optimize your website’s speed. Some of them might be already in place, but it’s worth checking them out.
Let’s see.
This is an informative tab where you can access almost all the other settings. It contains your account information, the ability to edit and customize, check the status of your account, informative FAQs to answer the most common questions, and links to videos.
Here are some settings you can apply in the dashboard right away.
You will have two options here to optimize both the CSS and JS files to improve the performance of your website.
The first option is to minify CSS files to remove the whitespace and comments to increase speed, while the second option is to combine the files and bundle them into one to reduce the number of HTTP requests on the server.
Go with the first option since it’s the recommended setting. Even though you may get a warning that it could affect your site functionality, check the box and go to the next setting. But if you find that the actions have negatively impacted your site’s performance, uncheck the box.
You should enable caching since it is essential for the speed of your website. It stores data to serve future users faster. The end result is you are reducing the number of HTTP requests and boosting the website speed.
By default, this feature is enabled for mobile users. But if you use a different theme, the plugin can create separate cache files. You can also enable the lifespan of the cache files. Most should be about 11 hours or less.
The functionality is enabled by default as soon as you install the plugin. This is a little different from other caching plugins, which don’t have the feature or require you to enable it.
WP Rocket has a feature called sitemap-based cache loading. It’s when the plugin processes and caches all the URLs in the XML sitemap provided. But if you have a plugin such as Yoast installed, then it’s easy to generate an XML sitemap.
This is where you can apply optimization settings to your media, such as images and videos. As you may have known, these files occupy large storage space and slow down your site if not well-optimized.
The lazy load feature is essential in ensuring the images and videos load only whenever you are ready to view them. That means if you scroll down the web page, the images will load once you are ready to view them. The same applies to video.
There are a few boxes to check here. Enable them to ensure the lazy load is applied to images and videos. The image dimensions could be adjusted, too.
The whole point of enabling this feature is to ensure the content that you need the most loads first and reduce the number of HTTP requests on the web server. The end results of this delay javascript execution is a seamless user experience and higher SERP rankings.
The feature is essential since it sends requests to the server and accesses the health of your site with WP Rocket. It also notifies you if there is anything out of place.
And since these are HTTP requests on the server, it could easily contribute to the slow speeds. Therefore, reducing these requests is essential by enabling the ‘control heartbeat’ feature. You can also choose to reduce activity in the settings.
Check for improved speed
With the plugin installed and the settings applied, it’s time to check for the website speed again and see if there are any changes.
If you applied the settings correctly, you should see some changes in performance. The Pingdom or GT Metrix grade will have improved, onloads time, performance score, speed index, and others.
Why you would love WP Rocket
Here are some reasons why you should install WP Rocket on your website.
WP Rocket alternatives
There are many alternatives to WP Rocket, a popular WordPress caching plugin that helps improve website performance by caching pages and reducing the number of server requests.
Here are a few options that are worth considering:
W3 Total Cache
This plugin is known for its advanced features, including caching of pages and posts, support for minification of HTML, optimize CSS delivery, and JavaScript, and the ability to integrate with various content delivery networks (CDNs). It also includes options for database optimization and lazy loading images.
LiteSpeed Cache
This plugin is designed specifically for websites hosted on LiteSpeed servers, which are known for their fast performance. It includes features like object caching, database optimization, and support for CDN integration.
Cache Enabler
This plugin is a lightweight option that is designed to be easy to use and has a minimal impact on any server resource. It includes options for caching pages and posts and support to minify javascript files and CDN integration.
There are others, such as Autoptimize and SG Optimizer. The former focuses on minifying and optimizing website assets, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
The latter is available exclusively for websites hosted on SiteGround servers and includes features like caching, minification, and optimization of database and resources.
Topics & Questions
Conclusion
Ready to take your website to the next level?
WP Rocket can deliver a better user experience and potentially improve your search engine rankings. It is time to optimize website speed with WP Rocket.
With page caching, file optimization and lazy loading tools, you can look forward to faster loading times and enhanced user experience.
Make the most of your WordPress website and purchase the WP Rocket plugin today — you won’t regret it!
Affiliate Disclaimer: I hope you liked our blog. Please note that some of the links inside this article may be affiliate links to WP Rocket. That means that if you click on one of the links and sign up, I may be compensated for it. If you do happen to click, we really appreciate it! Any money we make keeps this site running smoothly and allows us to keep writing these high-quality reviews.
