Best WordPress Caching Plugins and How to Install Cache Plugins
Introduction
If you have a WordPress website you may have noticed caching and cache plugins being thrown around here and there on the web. Well, there is a pretty good reason for this. Providing good website performance is one of the milestones of every serious and successful online venture. That’s is exactly where cache plugins fit in. In this article we’ll show you some of the best WordPress caching plugins and how to install cache plugins.
What are Caching Plugins and Why Use Them?
We all know that page load speed greatly affects the respective website’s visitor count. In case someone wants to access your site and it takes a long time to load, they could very easily give up and go elsewhere. In turn, this can also have impact on your SEO score. Consequently, this is why it’s paramount to have quick loading times for your website pages. And that’s exactly what caching plugins can help you a great deal with.
Simply put, caching plugins create ready-made HTML versions of your pages. This means that WordPress doesn’t have to create a HTML version of your pages each time someone accesses your site and there’s a finished one ready and waiting at all times.
Important to Note
In case you are using WordPress Optimized hosting, there’s a high chance you might already have caching enabled. To make sure, contact your host, as you should not use both plugins and server caching at the same time.
There’s another important thing to note. If you use WooCommerce, make sure to enable WooCommerce support when using a caching plugin.
Best Caching Plugins
Now that we covered some basics, let’s dig in – here are some of the best caching plugins out there.
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a premium caching plugin that is very beginner-friendly so even if you are not familiar with all the technicalities related to caching you will be able to use it to its full extent.
With WP Rocket you can immediately cache your WordPress website with a single click. The plugin’s crawler automatically takes over your website’s pages to produce the cache. The recommended WP caching settings that include page cache, cache preloading, and gzip compression are then turned on automatically by the plugin.
A big plus for this tool is that it also incorporates many additional features that can help you significantly improve your site’s performance and the Core Web Vitals scores.
W3 Total Cache
With more than 1 million downloads, W3 Total Cache has proven it’s more than a good solution. We’ve also seen it in action, and we’re really satisfied with what it has been able to do.
They are trusted by many well-established companies like AT&T, stevesouders.com, mashable.com, smashingmagazine.com, just to name a few. You can’t go wrong with this one. Clear your cache in a few simple steps with this easy to use WordPress plugin.
WP Super Cache
The WP Super Cache is also one of the standout choices when it comes to caching plugins. It boasts a simple mode and the static HTML files it creates can be served thousands of times.
It also has an extensive developer documentation file and is an all-round a solid solution.
Comet Cache
Comet Cache is yet another quite capable caching plugin. It’s user-friendly and well documented, and you can easily configure the way it behaves.
Comet Cache has over 60 000 downloads, and the number keeps growing.
Cache Enabler – WordPress Cache
With 50 000 + installs, the Cache Enabler is another example of a very good caching plugin. It’s quick and easy to set up, and it creates two cached files. It makes a plain HTML as well as the gzipped version.
Installing a Cache Plugin
As with all plugins, installing caching plugins is quite simple. We’ll now go through a few simple steps this process includes. For example purposes, we will install the W3 Total Cache Plugin.
First navigate to Plugins and click Add New from your WordPress admin.
In the upper right you’ll notice a search box. Type in the name of the plugin you are looking for. Then simply click Install Now next to the desired plugin.
After the plugin finishes installing, you should click the Activate button.
Next you’ll be able to see that there’s a new dropdown menu at the top – Performance.
One last thing that’s important to note is every time you make any changes to your site, you should click the Purge All Caches from the Performance dropdown. This is only the one way to install your caching plugins, so if it doesn’t work for you, don’t worry. You can always install WordPress plugins using other methods.
Conclusion
Caching plugins are an integral part of every WordPress site keen on becoming successful. Moreover, there’s a plethora of options available, and installing them is as easy as it can get. We hope you found our article on best WordPress caching plugins and how to install cache plugins useful.
We hope this article was helpful. If you liked it, feel free to check out some of these articles as well!
