WP Super Cache – Easily Set It Up In WordPress

Caching plugins are a dime a dozen.  A lot of them are very complex for beginners and even intermediate to advanced users.  In this article I will show you why you can use WP Super Cache versus other paid plugins.  It works very well and doesn’t require you to bust out a huge manual to setup.  In fact, you can configure it in under 2 minutes.  I’ am sure that at one time you have considered a number of different caching plugins.

Here are why people seek caching plugins:

• Faster loading times.
• Increased rankings in Google.
• Reduce server workload.
• Save resources before having to switch from a shared to VPS server.
• Better user experience.

Obviously, we want our websites to load as quickly as possible.  Every extra second our website takes to load our visitors think  about closing that window and never returning to our website again.  Believe it or not, your website should load in under 3 seconds.  No this is not set and stone but as a general rule of thumb I like to develop websites that load in under 3 seconds.  According to this article posted on Pingdom.com they found that websites are becoming bigger and bigger.  In fact, they are becoming bloated because of all the bells and whistles you can install on your WordPress website.

It’s been said over and over again that loading times are a key element in Google’s algorithm.  Meaning that if your website takes forever to load (10 seconds) people will be get frustrated, and leave your website.  This in turn causes your bounce rate to skyrocket and Google actually will lower your rankings.   Don’t believe me, just check this article on Moz.com.  Simply put, if you want to maximize your SEO you need a good caching plugin.

So, if you’re looking to get the most out of your server before upgrading to a higher priced server there is an excellent option that isn’t going to cost you one single penny.  Let me introduce to you WP Super Cache.  This is a WordPress plugin I personally use on tbwhs.com.  It’s much easier to configure than WP Total Cache and you won’t have to pay a monthly fee like you would with MaxCDN ($9/month) or CloudFlare ($20/month).

Lets Install WP Super Cache

Obviously, your going to want to go to https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-super-cache/ and download the WP Super Cache plugin.  Optionally, you can go to your WordPress dashboard and search for it and install it.  Once you have done that make sure you activate the plugin.

Configuring WP Super Cache

When have activated the WP Super Cache plugin you’re going to want to go to Settings>WP Super Cache.  Then click on the “advanced” tab.  From here you are going to want to check a number of different options:

• Cache hits to this website for quick access.
• Use PHP to server cache files.  (If not you can use “use mod_rewrite to server cache files).  Sometimes different servers have problems with this option though.
• Compress pages so they’re served more quickly to visitors.
• 304 Not Modified browser caching.
• Cache rebuild.
• Mobile device support.

Extra home checks.  (don’t miss this one its near the bottom)

Then click “update status”.

Next, click on CDN tab.  Then make sure “enabled CDN support” is checked.  Then click “save changes”

Then go to “easy” (first tab).  Click caching on and “update status”.  You should be good to go now!

Results With WP Super Cache

So I went to Pingdom tools and tested my site tbwhs.com there.  I didn’t have the caching plugin installed and here were the results:

As you can see my loading time was 2.15 seconds.

Now, let’s install the WP Super Cache plugin onto my hosting  review site.  Here are the results once we installed and configured this plugin:

As you can see my loading time is now 979 ms (milliseconds).  That is more than 200% faster!

Final Thoughts

WP Super Cache is a great WordPress plugin.  it’s quick and easy to setup.  I have installed it on a number of websites and it’s the “real deal”.  It didn’t cost me one penny and only took 2 minutes out of my life.  I highly recommend this plugin to anyone looking for a easy to use caching plugin.  Go ahead and install it on your site and post the results you have found with this plugin.  I bet you will be amazed!