Guide : How to Install and Setup Do you want to install W3 Total Cache on your WordPress site and configure it?
W3 Total Cache is a popular WordPress caching plugin that may help you speed up and enhance the performance of your website.
We’ll teach you how to install and configure W3 Total Cache on your WordPress website in this beginner’s tutorial. Beginners
What is W3 Total Cache Guide ?
W3 Total Cache is one of the finest WordPress caching plugins for improving the efficiency and speed of your site.
When a user requests a page on your website, WordPress defaults to using PHP to dynamically build it.
PHP is a computer language that runs on the server. This implies that each user request puts more strain on your server. This has an impact on the performance, user experience, and SEO of your website.
By avoiding PHP and providing a cached copy of your webpage, WordPress caching plugins can help you save time.
Installing W3 Total Cache Guide in WordPress
Make sure you uninstall any other caching plugins on your website before installing the W3 Total Cache plugin in WordPress. This will allow you to conserve server resources while also avoiding plugin conflicts.
The W3 Total Cache plugin may then be installed and activated after that. See our step-by-step guide on installing a WordPress plugin for more information.
W3 Total Cache will add a new ‘Performance’ menu option to your WordPress admin sidebar after activation. The plugin’s setup wizard will open when you click on it.
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Simply click on the Next button to continue.
First, you will be asked to turn on Page Cache. Click on the Test Page Cache button to continue.
W3 Total Cache will show you different storage engine options. You need to choose one that saves you the most time. Usually, it will be the ‘Disk: Enhanced’ option for most shared hosting platforms.
Click on the Next button to continue.
Now, you will be given the option to Test Database Cache. We recommend choosing None. For most small to medium sized websites your MySQL server will be able to fetch data more quickly than the Database cache.
Click on the Next button to move on to the next step.
This will bring you to the Object Cache section. Object Caching allows W3 Total Cache to store database queries for dynamic pages and reuse them to improve performance.
If the test result shows barely a few milliseconds difference then you can choose None.
Click on the next button to continue.
After that, click on the Test Browser Cache button and then select the ‘Enabled’ option under the test results.
This option requests user’s browsers to store a copy of the web page for a limited time. Loading a page from browser cache is much faster than loading it from your web server’s cache.
Click on the next button to move on to the next step.
Lastly, the setup wizard will ask you to enable lazy loading for images.
Now, WordPress comes with built-in lazy loading for images. However, some older browsers may not have support for that feature.
W3 Total Cache uses JavaScript to add lazy loading for images, which can be even faster and more efficient.
After that, click on the Next button to finish the setup wizard and view W3 Total Cache dashboard.
Advanced Caching Options in W3 Total Cache
The basic settings would work for most websites. However, there are many advanced options that you can configure to further improve performance.
Let’s take a look at the most important ones.
Minifying JavaScript and CSS in W3 Total Cache
The term’minify’ refers to a technique for reducing the amount of your website’s files. It accomplishes this by deleting extraneous characters, lines, and white spaces from the original code.
Note: Reducing the size of your JS and CSS files may cause your website to malfunction. If you enable it and your website still doesn’t appear correct, simply turn it off.
You may simply minify JavaScript, CSS, and HTML source code with W3 Total Cache. However, only JavaScript and CSS files should be minified.
Simply scroll down to the JS section on the Performance » Minify page.
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Check the box next to ‘JS minify settings’ to enable it.
Now, scroll down to the CSS section and enable CSS minify settings the same way.
Don’t forget to click on the Save All Settings button to store your settings.
For alternate methods, see our guide on how to minify JavaScript and CSS files in WordPress.
Enable CDN Support in W3 Total Cache
Content delivery networks, or CDNs, help you enhance the performance of your website by providing static items such as graphics, CSS, and JavaScript from a global network of servers.
This lowers the burden on your WordPress hosting server and speeds up page loading time.
W3 Total Cache has compatibility for a variety of CDN systems.
Bunny.net is the greatest CDN option on the market, and we suggest it. This is what our OptinMonster website looks like.
To begin, you must first create a Bunny.net account. You must establish a Pull Zone for your website after signing up.
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A pull zone adds a hostname to Bunny.net CDN. This hostname is then used to serve static files for your website.
Add a name for your pull zone and then provide your website’s domain name.
After adding the pullzone, you need to visit the Performance » General Settings page and scroll down to the CDN section.
Check the Enable box next to the CDN option and choose Generic Mirror next to the CDN Type option.
Don’t forget to click on the Save All Changes button to store your settings.
Next, you need to visit the Performance » CDN page and scroll down to the Configuration: Objects section.
From here, enter the hostname for your pullzone that you configured before and click the test mirror button.
When W3 Total Cache determines that your hostname is available, it will display the Test Passed message.
You can now save your changes by clicking the Save All Changes button.
W3 Total Cache will now use the CDN server to provide your static resources.
Cloudflare’s free CDN also works nicely with W3 Total Cache. You may also use it in conjunction with Sucuri, which is the finest website firewall solution with a built-in CDN.
Troubleshooting W3 Total Cache Issues
W3 Total Cache should operate in the background to improve WordPress speed and performance once you’ve setup it appropriately.
You may occasionally run into situations where you don’t immediately notice changes you’ve made to your website or a plugin isn’t operating properly.
The most likely cause of those problems is that you are seeing an old cached version of your website.
It’s simple to remedy this simply emptying the cache in WordPress.
Simply pick Purge All Caches from the Performance menu at the top of the page. W3 Total Cache will remove your website’s cached content.
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Try emptying your browser cache as well if you’re still seeing the previous version of your website.
We hope you found this guide useful in installing and configuring W3 Total Cache in WordPress. You might also be interested in our comprehensive WordPress security guide for beginners, or our evaluation of the top GoDaddy competitors that are both cheaper and more dependable.
