Explaining the Wp Rocket add-on to speed up WordPress sites

Are you suffering from a problem with slow loading of your website pages? Or have you noticed a decrease in the number of monthly visits to your website from Google search engine results and a decrease in the ranking of your website compared to what was the case during the previous period? If your answer to these questions is yes, then you are not alone. This indicates that your website was affected by one of the recently issued Google updates that led to the re-ranking of websites in the search engine results, which led to some sites being ranked first and others being lower in ranking. Tests later revealed that this is due to the speed of loading the pages of websites affected by the update.

In June of the year 2021, Google launched a new update to the search engine, so that there were additional criteria for ranking sites within the search results, and one of the most important of these criteria that was added in this new update is what is known as basic web performance indicators or (Web Core Vitals), which is a set of measurements that determine how quickly pages load on your website. During this period, many website owners noticed, perhaps one of them, a significant decline in the ranking of their sites in the Google search engine results, which ultimately turned out to be due to a slow loading of the site pages, and the affected sites not achieving acceptable results in the basic web performance indicators tests that were added to the new Google update and can be measured using various page loading speed measurement tools such as PageSpeed ​​Insight, GTMetrix, and others. Read also: The best tools to test website speed and solve problems resulting from the test Read also: What is the fastest WordPress template?

If you are one of those affected by updating the basic web performance indicators or you want to increase the loading speed of your website that runs using WordPress, this article is for you, as we will learn how to increase the loading speed of your website pages in general. Our focus will be primarily on explaining the Wp Rocket add-on, which contributes greatly to increasing the loading speed of WordPress website pages and solving the problems of basic web performance indicators in performance tests. Core Web Performance Indicators are a set of metrics that calculate loading speed, layout transitions, and interactivity of website pages immediately after a user has requested to view them. The importance of improving basic web performance indicators comes from the fact that it has become a key factor for the Google search engine in ranking websites.

Therefore, it has become necessary for owners of websites and blogs to pay attention to measuring the basic web performance indicators of their sites and work to fix any problems that affect the speed of loading website pages. One of the most prominent methods available for WordPress users is by installing and using one of the caching plugins, which contributes significantly to increasing the speed of loading website pages. Read also: Learn about the importance of enabling cache in WordPress. Of course, there are many free caching plugins that you can install directly from within the WordPress control panel, but if you are looking for the best caching plugin that is characterized by ease of use and the ability to significantly increase the loading speed of your website pages, then the Wp Rocket plugin is the best choice for you.

The contents of the article explain the Wp Rocket add-on and the advantages of using it

Wp Rocket add-on 1- Easy user interface 2- Additional acceleration features 3- Minification 4- Combine files 5- Optimize CSS files 6- Optimize JavaScript files 7- Optimize media files 8- Lazy loading of images and videos 9- Preload links 10- Facilitate connectivity with content delivery networks 11- Clean databases 12- Set the WordPress Heartbeat feature Increase your site speed using Wp Rocket 1- Control Panel tab 2- Caching tab 3- File optimization tab 4- Media tab 5- Preload tab 6- Advanced settings tab 7- Database tab 8- Content Delivery Network (CDN) tab 9- Heartbeat tab 10- Add-ons tab 11- Tools tab 12- Tutorials tab Explanation of the Wp Rocket add-on The Wp Rocket add-on is It is one of the cache plugins for WordPress. It is a paid plugin and does not have a free or trial version. It is distinguished from other caching plugins in that it has an easy and simple user interface and also contains a set of speed increase settings that save you from using a large number of plugins. With more than 1 million websites using the Wp Rocket add-on, it is the first add-on recommended by WordPress experts and is used to speed up websites of all kinds. Although it is a paid add-on and there are many free caching add-ons, the Wp Rocket add-on is worth every cent you spend on it and is considered an add-on that offers high value for the price, so we highly recommend getting it and installing it on your website.

Advantages of using the Wp Rocket add-on 1- User interface

Easy. What worries users when installing the caching plugin on WordPress is the large number of settings and their complexity, with the possibility of fatal errors occurring that lead to the website crashing if set incorrectly. The caching plugin is considered one of the most common types of plugins that can cause the website to crash, so the development team behind the Wp Rocket plugin worked to improve this aspect by developing an add-on with an easy and simple user interface away from complications and directed primarily to inexperienced WordPress users. Technology. 2- Additional acceleration features. What also distinguishes the Wp Rocket add-on is that it contains a group of additional acceleration tools in addition to the caching feature. Thus, it is considered an integrated acceleration add-on for WordPress that provides you with all the website acceleration tools in just one add-on, as the add-on contains the following acceleration tools: 3- File minimization (Minification): This feature reduces the size of the source code of the website pages by deleting unnecessary codes and removing white or empty spaces, which works to reduce the time. Loading pages without affecting the performance or appearance of the website. 4- Combine Files: This feature combines different files into one file to speed up download time. You can set the add-on to collect different CSS files into one file, or to collect CSS and JavaScript files into one file.

5- Improving CSS files: This feature loads the website pages at the beginning without the CSS files that are loaded after the page is displayed, which increases the speed of displaying the pages significantly, but may lead to the page appearing at the beginning in an unorganized manner and the occurrence of the problem of cumulative design variables (CLS) due to the failure to load the CSS files at the beginning. The latest version of the Wp Rocket add-on also provides the ability to activate the feature of removing unused CSS files (Remove Unused CSS), which is a feature that increases the speed of loading pages significantly and noticeably, but it is still an experimental feature (Beta) and can affect the appearance of your website, so you must deal with it with caution and take a backup copy of the site before activating it. Read also: Explaining HTML and CSS and how to use them and modify their codes completely 6- Optimizing JavaScript files When this feature is activated, the JavaScript files are loaded after the HTML files for the page have finished loading. It is also possible to activate the feature of delaying the processing of JavaScript codes (Delay JS Execution) until the user interacts with them, which works to increase the speed of loading the page very significantly.

Read also: Explaining JavaScript for beginners and its use in the structure of the WordPress system 7- Optimizing media files. In this feature, the size of the image files in the media file is compressed and reduced and converted to the Webp format, which is characterized by a smaller size and higher quality. It also works to convert the YouTube videos that are included in the article into thumbnail images to reduce the loading time while displaying them to the user. 8- Lazy loading of images and videos. The lazy loading feature delays the loading of images and videos until the user scrolls to the bottom to view them. Thus, only the part of the article that is displayed to the user is downloaded, and the loading of the entire article is postponed until the user reaches the end. 9- Pre-loading links: This feature downloads the internal links in the article in the background and stores them temporarily after the page has finished loading. Thus, the site pages and related articles are downloaded immediately as soon as the user clicks on them. It is a feature that improves the user experience and makes browsing your site extremely fast.

10- Facilitating connectivity with content delivery networks. If you want to use the CDN content delivery service and link your website with providers of this service such as Cloudflare, BunnyCDN, or the content delivery service for this add-on, Rocket CDN, then the add-on enables you to connect your website with ease just by pasting the API code that you will get from the service provider in the place designated for it within the add-on settings for the connection to be done automatically. Read also: Explanation of CDN services and how they work to increase the speed of your site 11- Cleaning databases Often when you deactivate an add-on and delete it from your website, a group of data tables are left behind that take up space within the website’s database, and annoying comments, draft articles, and change history also take up space from the database. Therefore, the Wp Rocket add-on provides a database cleaning feature that can be done manually from within the add-on control panel, or allowed to work automatically to clean databases periodically.

12- Set the WordPress Heartbeat feature. This feature in WordPress sends real-time notifications to the site owner when he is logged into the control panel to receive notifications about the logins of other members of the site and other notifications that the plugins show when changes are made to the site. The Wp Rocket add-on enables you to control the extent of actual synchronization or stop this feature completely because it consumes some of the hosting server’s resources, and some users prefer to reduce its synchronization rate or dispense with it in order to save server resources. Increase the speed of your site using Wp Rocket. To download the add-on, you must go to the official website and choose the plan that suits you, as there are three different pricing packages that differ only in the number of websites you are allowed to install the add-on on. They start with the (SINGLE) plan, which allows the add-on to be installed and used on only one website, the (PLUS) package, which allows it to be used on three websites, and the third and final plan is the unlimited plan (INFINITE), which allows the add-on to be installed on any number of websites.

After choosing the appropriate plan and completing the purchase process, you will receive an email containing a direct link to download the add-on so that you can upload and install it on your website from within the WordPress control panel in the same way we upload and install any other add-on. Once the Wp Rocket plugin is installed on your website, it completes 80% of the tasks required to speed up your website automatically. It also activates additional recommended and recommended features in the settings. This means that once you have installed the add-on, the loading speed of your website should increase significantly and most of the problems with basic web performance indicators that you suffer from in performance tests will be solved.

Now we move on to a practical explanation of how to adjust the recommended settings in the Wp Rocket plugin, step by step, by referring to each tab separately and specifying the options that are recommended to be activated to obtain the best performance of your website. 1- Control Panel tab: From within the main WordPress control panel, we go to the Settings tab and then click on the Wp Rocket option to move to the plugin’s control panel. The first tab is displayed, which is the Control Panel (Dashboard), through which you can view the type of purchase license and the expiration date of the subscription to the technical support service. It should be noted here that the cost of obtaining the Wp Rocket add-on is paid only once, but the license is renewed annually if you wish to continue receiving updates and the technical support service. If you do not wish to do so, you can unsubscribe from the automatic renewal from within your account control panel on the Wp Rocket website or by canceling the link with the payment method that you used during the purchase process.

Also, in this website, we unsubscribe from add-on analytics, which is non-sensitive data about the add-on’s performance on your website that is sent to the development team to help them improve the add-on in the future, but it can affect, even if only slightly, the speed of the site, so it is better to disable it. 2- Temporary Storage Tab: In this tab, we activate the caching option for mobile devices. It is preferable not to activate the second option, which is the option to create separate files for temporary storage for mobile devices, due to the fact that most of the templates designed for WordPress are responsive templates and rely on the same design for all types of devices. At the bottom of this tab, we specify the duration for keeping the temporary storage files before they are deleted. For example, we specify 72 hours to keep the files for three days before deleting them.

3- File Optimization Tab: In this tab, we activate all options for CSS files except the Remove Unused CSS option, which is considered in the development stage and could cause any malfunctions in the website design. We also activate all JavaScript file optimization options except for the second option, which is the Combine JavaScript Files option, activating which could cause some problems on the site. 4- Media tab: In this tab, we activate all the lazy loading options for images, videos, and frames that are included on the page. We also activate the Image Dimensions and Embeds options, which also contribute to increasing the page loading speed.

As for the WebP Compatibility option, it is preferable not to activate it if you are using one of the image compression plugins that convert and display them in WebP format, and to activate it only if you have not installed this type of plugin on your site. 5- Pre-loading tab: Here we activate all the options in the pre-loading tab and add the link to your sitemap manually if it is not automatically detected by the add-on. 6- Advanced Settings Tab: This tab contains advanced settings that enable you to exclude some pages and cookies from the temporary storage process. If your website contains a login page for members or stores cookies, they must be added to the location specified in this tab to be excluded from temporary storage.

7- Database tab: In this tab, we select all parts of the database that you want to be cleaned, such as article reviews, drafts, annoying comments, deleted articles and comments, and activate the database cleaning and automatic cleaning feature. 8- Content Delivery Network (CDN) tab: If you have not manually linked your website to a content delivery network, you can link it from this tab by adding CNAMEs in the specified place, but we recommend linking your website manually as it is easier and does not cause errors on the site. 9- Heartbeat tab: Here you can activate the option to control Heartbeat activity by reducing the rate or stopping this feature completely.

10- Add-ons tab: This tab enables you to activate some tools with just one click and give the Wp Rocket add-on permissions to synchronize with this service to get the best performance experience. 11- Tools tab: Through this tab, you can download or import your current settings for the Wp Rocket add-on. It is a feature that helps you quickly adjust the add-on settings if you want to install it on more than one website. Also, from this tab, you can undo the update of the add-on and install the previous version of it in case you are facing problems with this version installed on your site. 12- Tutorials tab: Here you will find a group of video explanations on how to start using the Wp Rocket add-on, adjust its settings, and get the best performance for your website in terms of performance and page loading speed.

A final look at the Wp Rocket add-on to speed up WordPress websites. We are at a time when speed has become one of the most important factors that determine the success or failure of your website, whatever its type, as the majority of users tend to avoid visiting websites whose page loading time exceeds only one second! Therefore, every care must be taken to improve the loading speed of your website and provide the best user experience by following the correct methods and methods, starting with choosing a hosting server that is characterized by speed and stability, installing a light-sized and well-configured template, then compressing images and video files before uploading them to the website, using content delivery networks, and activating the page caching feature. There are many free caching plugins for WordPress, but there is no plugin with features and characteristics superior to the Wp Rocket plugin, which is considered the first plugin in this field, as its role is not limited only to caching, but rather works to improve a group of other aspects of the site, all of which contribute to significantly increasing the loading speed of your website.

If there is a list of the most important basic plugins that every WordPress user should obtain and install, then the Wp Rocket plugin will of course be one of these plugins, as it is a distinctive addition in that it performs its function with high quality and provides the best value for the price, and it is considered one of the investments that your website definitely deserves.