How to Improve Page Speed Using W3 Total Cache WordPress Plugin
In this tutorial you're going to learn How to Improve Page Speed Using W3 Total Cache WordPress Plugin. As you may or may not know, page speed is a consideration in the Google ranking algorithm. So, your SEO (search engine optimization) will benefit from faster loading pages. The first thing you'll need to do is install the plugin, so let's do that. To install this plugin please log into your WordPress dashboard, hover over Plugins and then click on Add New. On the next page type "W3 Total Cache" into the search bar. The plugin we want should be the first one in the top left. Click on the Install Now button and then click Activate after it's installed. This is a new menu item in the left hand menu called "Performance". Hover over that menu item and then click on General Settings. This is where we access the majority of the page caching options to improve page speed. The sections listed on this page include: 1. General 2. Page Cache 3. Minify 4. Database Cache 5. Object Cache 6. Browser Cache 7. CDN 8. Varnish 9. Monitoring 10. Miscellaneous 11. Debug 12. Import / Export Settings In the General section you can mass-activate the caching options. In the Page Cache section you will be able to enable caching of individual pages. This means that when a page is accessed, the website will query the database and then save a hardcopy of that page on the server. The next time that page is access the hardcopy will be loaded rather than querying the database again. This improves page speed. In the Minify section you enable the shrinking of CSS and Javascript files. This removes excess white space in the files, which can lead to substantial saves in file weight and consequently page load times. In the Database Cache section you enable the caching of database queries. In the Object Cache section you enable to caching of database information for quick retrieval. In the Browser Cache section you allow further caching on the visitor's browser. In the CDN section you configure a Content Delivery Network which stores media files on super fasters servers. This can lead to substantial load time improvements. In the Monitoring section you can activate your New Relic subscription to monitor your website's performance. All of these options add up to faster page speed, which is what everyone wants, including Google. Read the full article
