How to Clush the Cache in Your WordPress Website

The first thing you’ll want to do when you build a WordPress website is cache everything. Every. Single. Thing.

This might mean storing images for faster access, storing copies of previously downloaded assets like scripts and stylesheets, or even storing video content. All of this can speed up your site’s loading time, reduce the number of requests made to your server, and even improve the overall experience for your users.

While you could technically implement these features using third-party tools like CDNs (Content Delivery Networks), cache-invalidation headers, and the like, using the right WordPress features can speed up the process and remove the need for you to install any extra software.

Turn On BitDefender CloudCache

BitDefender CloudCache is a WordPress feature that caches your content in a serverless environment. This means that whenever a user visits your site, the content is served from a nearby server. When the content is subsequently requested, the original copy is served again from the CloudCache (a small network of servers owned and operated by BitDefender that are located near the user’s geographic location).

This can result in some rather interesting optimizations. For instance, if you’re running an eCommerce store, having nearby servers to serve content significantly speeds up the checkout process. Instead of having to load content from a remote server (which can sometimes be hours or even days apart from the actual content), users get a quicker experience because the content is already waiting for them on the local device.

BitDefender CloudCache also supports other popular caching techniques like Vary headers and ETags, which you can learn more about in this comprehensive guide to caching in WordPress.

Use Query strings and AJAX

One of the simplest yet most effective ways to speed up WordPress is to use query strings and AJAX. These are just two ways that WordPress allows you to create “lazy-loading” content—that is, content that doesn’t fully load into the DOM (Document Object Model) until the user clicks on something or performs an action on the page. The content can be anything from an image to a full-blown page.

When the content is initially requested, a query string is appended to the URL, and an AJAX request is made (which stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML). This means the content is loaded in the background while the browser continues to page through HTML content.

This is particularly useful for image galleries and similar content-heavy pages, where the user experience can be improved by loading content as they navigate through the site. It can also be used for video content where the user might not always have enough bandwidth to play the video all at once.

Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly

WordPress makes it incredibly easy to create a mobile-friendly website. All you have to do is install the WordPress Mobile plugin, activate the Right Navigation theme (which comes with responsive design), and then create a simple mobile-friendly menu. The plugin will then generate the code you need to make sure your website looks great on mobile devices (and not just on mobile devices—the plugin also automatically makes sure everything looks good on desktop browsers as well).

If you want, you can use other WordPress plugins like Zenphoto to enhance your photo albums and Jetpack to create a custom dashboard for managing your website. These are just a couple of the hundreds of plugins that you can install to make your experience on the web just a little bit better.

Reduce The Amount Of Data You’re Sending To The Point Of Need

One crucial way to speed up your WordPress site is to reduce the amount of data you’re sending to the point of need. If you make heavy use of images, particularly on your homepage, you’ll notice a significant improvement in loading time and performance simply by removing the unused images. This might mean getting rid of large albums of blurry, unedited images on your site and replacing them with a few carefully selected images designed for online display.

You can also reduce the size of your font files and other online assets by using tools like the CSS compressor, Mini Meta, and GZIP to compress your stylesheets and other online assets. You also need to make sure your website is running the most up-to-date version of WordPress. Keeping your plugins up to date can also boost performance.

Last but not least, you need to ensure you have the necessary hardware to handle the increase in traffic. For instance, bigger websites typically use dedicated servers to host their content due to the amount of traffic they receive. A good rule of thumb is to allocate the same amount of hardware (processor, memory, and storage) to your development and production environments.

Use A Content Delivery Network (CDN)

A CDN is a service that distributes content (such as web pages, videos, and software) across many servers (which could be in different geographic locations). This results in faster load times for the end user because the content is closer to them (typically located across the Internet).

The benefit of using a CDN is that you don’t necessarily need to store all the content in one place, which can speed up your hosting needs. In fact, many web hosts provide their users with the option to store content in a CDN. If a CDN is available, you can use it to cache your content and speed up your website’s load times. Otherwise, you can use traditional caching techniques (like Vary headers and ETags) combined with offline storage to achieve a similar effect.

If you decide to go with a traditional hosting provider instead of a managed hosting provider like WP Engine or Bluehost, you’ll want to look into purchasing a dedicated server that’s large enough to handle your website’s needs. A good rule of thumb is to allocate the same amount of hardware (processing, memory, and storage) to your development and production environments.

Manage Your Server Load

Another important factor to consider is managing your server’s load. The number of resources (such as the number of processors and amount of RAM) your server can consume is known as its “capacity.” When your server is under heavy load, it becomes sluggish and unresponsive. This often results in the site being unavailable or having significant delays while the server tries to catch up.

There are a few things you can do to prevent this from happening, such as upgrading the server’s RAM and increasing the amount of processors. If possible, you might also want to consider purchasing a bigger server, since bigger servers typically have higher capacities.

To prevent delays and unavailability due to heavy server load, you must ensure your server is always ready to serve content. This can be easily accomplished by caching as much content as possible (using the techniques discussed above). When your server is not under heavy load, it can serve the cached content, resulting in a significant improvement in speed and responsiveness.

If you decide to go with a managed hosting provider, they will take care of all the technical details for you, including making sure your server is always ready to handle the increased traffic. If you want, you can also use their services to scale up or down as needed.

Reduce Redirects

Last but not least, we have the redirects. Redirects are HTTP responses that tell the browser to redirect (or, essentially, “guide”) the user to a new location. Simply put, when a user follows a link on your site that takes them to a new location (say, http://example.com/foo/bar), their browser will make a request to the server at http://example.com/foo/bar, which will then return an HTTP redirect response that takes the user back to the original location (http://example.com/).

As you might imagine, this can be terribly annoying for the user (when they’re redirected to a new location several times within a single session), so you want to avoid this as much as possible. To do this, create a redirect logout in which you kill the user’s session when they logout of your site. You can then use the redirect logout to send the user back to the homepage (or some other default location) when they attempt to access a restricted area of your site (like their account dashboard).

You can also use the redirect logout to send the user to a specific location (like http://example.com/foo/bar or http://example.com/foo/foo) when they attempt to visit a restricted area of your site. This can be helpful in terms of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) if you want to direct certain users to a different location within your site than others.