Optimizing WordPress Sites with LiteSpeed Cache plugin

Wordpress Tutorials Sep 27, 18 by Criss N 13 min Read

List of content you will read in this article:

1. What is caching?
2. Litespeed Cache for WordPress
3. LSCache Plugin Sections
4. LiteSpeed Cache is the Best Plugin for WordPress
5. How are cached web pages served?
6. Conclusion

This post will cover all the details to take full advantage of the LiteSpeed WordPress cache plug-in. Before getting started on SEO WordPress Site with Litespeed Cache, you must know some basic terms related to the same.

What is caching?

It means to store data temporarily. By caching, you store data in some storage device to quickly access data when called upon in the future. A web cache performs the same task of caching a website's assets like images and programs. When a browser requests a web page, it is easier to retrieve the page if there is a web cache.

This may be clearer by an example: Consider a situation where someone visits a website page. For the first time, the server loads the page from the database. But if caching is on, a copy of the page will be stored in the web cache. When someone visits the same web page, the server will load the page directly from the cache, not the database. This makes the task easier and faster.

There are several benefits to using cache on your WordPress site. Here are the top 5 benefits that come with using cache extensions:

1. Increased speed

Once the data is downloaded into the cache, retrieving it gets much easier and faster. It enhances the performance of the website.

2. Save bandwidth

Some website content remains safe for every page of the website, for example, the website's logo. If you don't use the cache, the same data needs to be retrieved from the server repeatedly whenever we click on a new page. It consumes a lot of bandwidth in retrieving data in addition to the slow pace. This can be avoided by utilizing the web cache.

3. Better customer experience

Did you know that a user will not wait more than five seconds to load a web page? Using cache allows users to enjoy a smooth experience with your website and give better customer ratings. The cache is like the cherry on top, which will result in a better customer experience and, in turn, you will get more conversions.

4. Better rankings in Google

Google has announced that site speed is an important feature that will affect SEO page rankings. A faster page is going to get a higher rank per Google than a slower one.

5. Reduces load on the server

Cache reduces the load on servers and databases as caching reduces the processing on the server. It proves quite helpful to those that have limited hosting plans.

Litespeed Cache for WordPress

Page and image optimization are the most important benefits for any WordPress website, and when it is done right by using Litespeed cache, it makes your website respond quickly. This gives a boost to SEO results and hence leads to higher search rankings. Litespeed cache for WordPress serves two basic functions, and they are:

A full-page cache for a website's dynamically generated pages.
A site optimization plug-in.

Although many people install LS cache to utilize its caching functions, its site optimization plug-in offers joy to a pool of joys. However, it is your choice to enable its caching functions and ignore the rest. This astonishing fact attracts many users to install Litespeed cache for WordPress.

When you first install and activate the LS cache, you will find everything in disabled mode. It would help if you turned caching on by going to LiteSpeed Cache > Cache > Cache. Enable the cache by switching "Enable cache".

With this mode, the WordPress cache plugin will cache your website flawlessly. Depending on your choice, you can leave the cache ON or enjoy its additional settings.

Basic Tabs

Let us now consider the cache's first four tabs and their settings that comprise the most basic settings.

Cache tab:

The first option here enables or disables the functionality of the cache. You can define different types of content to be cached with the remaining settings. However, it must be noted that default settings enable everything. If you are a beginner, I suggest you keep them set to their respective defaults for some time.

TTL tab:

TTL is an abbreviation for time to live, and it defines the length of time the page can stay in cache before it is titled stale. The time is measured in seconds usually. When the TTL of a page reaches, it is put out of the cache.

Default TTL is primarily suitable for most websites, although you can change it per your website's requirements. Feel free to adjust the setting as it may suit your website.

Purge tab:

In some situations, it is required to clear pages from the cache before their expiry has reached. This is where a purge tab is needed. In this section, you are going to set some rules for this kind of behaviour. The default setting will play well for most websites; however, you can tweak the settings per your requirements.

Here is a quick sneak peek at how it works:

Imagine you create a new page with the name baked cake and publish it in the cooking category. Several changes happen, like the number of page changes- the homepage, the cooking category archive page, the cooking tag archive page, the author archive page, and many others.

Such a page needs to be cleared to avoid any stale content from being served. The purge tab helps with the settings that will make it easier to change rules per your website's requirements.

Exclude tab:

Sometimes, you encounter some pages that you don't want to place in the cache. Exclude tab plays wonders for specific pages you don't want to cache. It enables you to define which part of the website should be excluded from caching.

It is unlikely that most websites will need to adjust the setting. However, you can customize the settings to make cache changes per your requirements.

Additional Tabs

You may encounter additional four or five tabs depending upon if you have enabled WooCommerce. These tabs help you with advanced settings and cover advanced caching options. Learn more about them by continuing the LSCache configuration guide.

ESI tab:

An ESI stands for edge side and is a method to punch holes in public content. It allows you to fill them with either uncached or private content. It offers many functions like personalized greetings, shopping cart widgets, and more. However, it is deactivated by default, and you need to activate it to enjoy its benefits.

Object tab:

This tab enables you the flexibility to control an external object cache such as LSMCD, Redis, or Memcached. The external object cache is otherwise enabled and configured by the server admin.

Browser tab:

It is a kind of client-level cache that is meant for static files like images. When static files are requested for the first time in the browser mode, they will be stored locally on the user's computer storage device. And then, the content will be retrieved from the computer's local storage in the future until the browser cache expires. This is the tab that controls the browser's cache settings.

Advanced tab:

It is quite evident from the name for advanced settings, and those more experienced with the field must check this tab. You are unlikely to use this, and it may conflict with different cache plugins.

WooCommerce tab:

LiteSpeed Cache can be fully utilized with the WooCommerce tab as it enables you to configure settings for caching shop content with full flexibility. The tab will appear when you enable this function.

LSCache Plugin Sections

In addition to the sections mentioned earlier, we will review some other notable tabs you can use in LiteSpeed cache Plugin.

Dashboard:

You can view the QUIC.services and LS cache status with the LS cache dashboard. These include Low-Quality Image Placeholders, Image Optimization, Cache Crawler, and Critical CSS Generation.

Also, options are available to assess page load times and page speed scores that are important to any user.

General:

This section helps to control QUIC. Cloud service usage. It also updates the plugin automatically and determines which message should be presented on the dashboard.

CDN:

CDN stands for Content Delivery Network, and you have to configure CDN to be used with WordPress. By default, CDN is deactivated.

Image optimization:

You can optimize images to make them smaller and less time-consuming for transmission. QUIC.cloud service helps you to achieve this and can control it.

Page optimization

It is a non-cache feature that speeds up a WordPress site. It provides various CSS and JavaScript minification measures, HTTP/2 push, asynchronous, deferred load, and much more to achieve the same. By default, all of these are deactivated.

Database:

With this option, you are free to optimize the WordPress database. This helps to speed up the WordPress site. The Litespeed for WordPress cache DB optimizer performs several tasks in the WordPress database site quite easily, resulting in fast speed accomplishments.

Crawler:

Crawler helps you travel through your site and refresh pages that may have expired from the cache. However, the crawler is a resource-intensive process and is deactivated by default settings. Every hosting provider does not permit it, and if your hosting provider wants a crawler, it ensures an effective way to keep your cache fresh.

Toolbox:

If you are looking to export your site settings, urge the cache manually and debug issues, then a toolbox is your weapon.

LiteSpeed Cache is the Best Plugin for WordPress

The Litespeed cache for WordPress plugin helps improve website performance by using the LiteSpeed web server's built-in page cache that stores content from dynamically generated pages.

This, in turn, helps faster page load time for site visitors. The plugin provides a comprehensive user interface that enables you to customize the website per your requirements. The plugin is packed with easy-to-use yet powerful features and comes up with a server-level cache.

Litespeed cache for WordPress supports many plugins like WooCommerce, Yoast SEO, bbpress, and many more. Here is a quick sneak peek at the list of its advantages:

Object Cache- Memcached or LSMCD or Redis.
Image Optimization and can minify CSS, JavaScript, and HTML.
Minify inline CSS/JS and the ability to combine CSS and JS
Lazyload images or iframes
Support multiple CDN and Loads CSS/JS Asynchronously
Browser Cache has a smart preload crawler that supports an SEO-friendly sitemap.
Database Cleaner and Optimizer, PageSpeed score optimization.

It is a cliché, and there are many more advantages of using Litespeed cache for WordPress. If you want your website cached without much manual trouble, Litespeed is the right choice. There are many configuration options available in the cache plugin. All you need is to adjust them according to your own specific needs.

How are cached web pages served?

Web pages are served in the following way depending upon the caching plugin. On activating caching, the server stores an HTML file of the webpage or number of pages. Usually, it gets stored in the server's RAM and hence means faster execution of the work.

When the browser requests a web page, it simply serves the page it already has on file. This leads to a much faster page load time.

For those who wonder what happens when you make changes to your website or add a new page, here is a quick read: Every cache plugin, including LS cache for WordPress, has a way to deal with this scenario. However, it depends upon the setting you have made.

A caching plugin properly configured for your website would delete cached versions of the home page, archives, and other website pages you may have set. It creates a new version of the same to serve up to future visitors.

However, other pages may remain untouched depending on your specified settings.

Conclusion

Litespeed caching is one of the best technologies for optimizing websites and is an all-in-one site acceleration plugin. With advanced cache management tools and many optimization features, Litespeed cache for WordPress is perfect for you.

You can take full advantage of what it offers with proper learning and digging. I have covered all the details you may need to set up an SEO WordPress Site with Litespeed Cache quickly, efficiently, and confidently. Your site can now employ various practices that lead to less bounce rate and better SEO results.

People also read: