Looking to speed up your WordPress websites and not sure what caching plugin to use? This WP Rocket Review will help you decide whether or not WP Rocket caching plugin is the right choice. Let’s get started!
Our Verdict
Best choice for speeding up WordPress sites, SEO rankings, and conversion.
The speed of your web pages directly impacts your conversion and SEO rankings. Ideally, your website should load as fast as possible. As page load time increases from 1 second to 3 seconds, the probability of bounce increases by 32%.
A reasonable page load time is under 2 seconds. The faster, the better. Even an improvement of a few milliseconds can have a positive impact on your bottom line. So, you must strive to speed up your WordPress performance.
WP Rocket is a beginner-friendly WordPress caching and performance optimization plugin. Improving your site performance has just got easier with WP Rocket. We personally use this plugin to level up our WordPress sites and conversion rate.
If you’re not sure how this caching plugin works, let me explain it to you. Your web pages don’t change much once published unless you tweak design elements or add new things. The function of a caching plugin is to store a cached version of your web pages on a user’s browser. When a user returns to your site, they immediately get the cached version. Your pages load faster because they have already been stored on users’ devices.
Before digging deep into features, cost, and installation, let’s take a quick look at some of the pros and cons of WP Rocket.
Pros
- Ease of use – no coding knowledge required
- Improved load time right upon activation
- Database optimization
- Minimal configuration
- Static files compression
- Caching for mobile devices
- Ecommerce friendly
Cons
- No free version
- The preload bot can cause CPU overload
- No live support
- No lifetime license
What Is WP Rocket? Is It Really The Best WordPress Caching Plugin?
As a blogger, business owner, or marketer, you know how crucial it is to have a fast site that doesn’t make your visitors wait. If a user clicks on one of your web pages and finds himself waiting, they will simply leave your website. As a result, you’ll lose your potential customers or clients to your competitors.
WP Rocket solves this problem once and for all. It speeds up WordPress sites by page caching, GZIP compressions, cache preloading, and optimization. The good thing about the plugin is that you don’t need to be a developer to install and activate WP Rocket. You’ll be able to get it installed in a few clicks.
But is WP Rocket really the best WordPress caching plugin available in the market? What makes it a better WordPress caching plugin? WP Rocket isn’t the first WordPress caching plugin, but it’s certainly the first one that offers support and a range of features. We will talk more about the features of WP Rocket later in the blog.
If you want to keep your site fast and optimized, WP Rocket would be a great solution. Optimal web page speed and site performance will keep your visitor engaged and happy. So, it makes sense to invest in a tool like WP Rocket to resolve your website’s performance-related issues.
How Much Does WP Rocket Cost?
Pricing should be a key consideration when buying a tool to improve your online presence. A couple of wrong decisions and your cost can go up. So, here is an important question to ask: is WP Rocket worth the cost?
Before answering this, let’s take a look at WP Rocket Pricing:
I’ve been using Cloudways since January 2016 for this blog. I happily recommend Cloudways to my readers because I am a proud customer.
- Single ($49): 1 year of support and updates for 1 website
- Plus ($99): 1 year of support and updates for 3 websites
- Infinite ($249): 1 year of support and updates for unlimited websites.
As mentioned earlier, there’s no free trial or version. For one website, you have to spend $49 every year. For 3 sites, the cost jumps to $99. In case you want to optimize more than 3 WordPress websites, $249 is the price.
Let’s say you have one WordPress website that you want to speed up with a caching plugin. Should you be spending $49 a year? If you look at the benefits you can get from a high-performance site in a year, this small investment surely worth it.
Now, let’s discuss how to use WP Rocket!
How To Use WP Rocket Caching Plugin
First of all, don’t just assume that your site is fast just because it uploads instantly on your computer or mobile device. A person visiting your site for the first time may not be able to get the same experience.
So, test your WordPress website’s speed and performance on different devices before you use any plugin. There are plenty of free tools that help you assess the overall health of your site. For example, Google offers a tool called PageSpeed Insights that examines a website’s performance across devices.
Once you find out the stats, start working to improve them. Installing WP Rocket will be a good first step towards ensuring a robust site.
Coming down to the installation process, all you have to do is install the plugin and activate it. Anyone who doesn’t have coding or technical knowledge can perform the installation and activation process with minimal effort. This is great news for non-techy WordPress users.
When you buy a WP Rocket plan, you’re given a download link that you use to download the zip plugin file. All you have to do is download that file and upload it to WordPress using the “Add New” button under Plugins.
Once uploaded, go ahead and click “Install Now”. After the installation process, find and tap the “Activate Plugin” button. Page caching starts automatically right after you activate the plugin. Upon activation, 80% of web performance best practices are applied right away.
But the story doesn’t end here. If you go to the settings area under WP Rocket, you’ll find a variety of options from file optimization, and media loading to cache preloading and CDN.
Learning more about the features will further help you understand how WP Rocket works.
Features Of WP Rocket Plugin
You probably have used other caching plugins for your website and are not happy with them. Here are some prominent features of WP Rocket that make it better than others:
Ease Of Use
Most of the WordPress caching plugins are complex and difficult to configure. Since WordPress is an easy-to-use website creation platform, people with rudimentary technical knowledge can set it up. It is hard for non-techy people to use a complex plugin.
That’s where WP Rocket comes into play and makes your life easier. As mentioned earlier, only a few minutes are what it takes to install and activate WP Rocket.
Page Caching
Page caching technology allows you to make your WordPress site load faster. That’s what you need to perform better in terms of SEO, conversion, and user satisfaction. In the case of WP Rocket, page caching is one of the performance-optimization features. It stores selected page content once someone visits a page for the first time.
People who’ve already visited your site see the cached pages when they revisit your site. WP Rocket caches your pages and creates static HTML files.
To configure caching settings, go to WP Rocket’s settings area and click “Cache”. From there, you will be able to modify user caching, mobile caching, and cache lifespan settings.
Minification
Removing all the unnecessary data can also improve the speed of your WordPress site. For example, reducing the weight of your CSS, HTML, and JavaScript results in faster page load time. WP Rocket caching plugin minifies those files by removing unnecessary characters and codes.
The speed of your site also depends on the size or number of files you upload to your website. The function of WP Rocket is to optimize your file size by removing things that are not repetitive or unnecessary. Besides, you don’t have to touch the code.
Lazy Loading
WP Rocket enables you to tweak the display of your images and iframes on your website. Lazy loading defers the loading of visuals until your users need them. It’s an excellent way to improve your WordPress performance. From a user perspective, lazy loading saves bandwidth because they don’t have to download all of your images.
Cache Preloading
As we mentioned earlier, WP Rocket creates a cached version of your content right after you activate the plugin. That’s how to get the cached version in a blink and ensure your visitors enjoy the faster version of your site. WP Rocket automatically preloads your content or you can do it manually.
Database Management
Removing bloat and reducing the size of your database also speeds up your website. WP Rocket lets you clean up and optimize your database. In just two clicks, you can clean up trashed posts, spam comments, and optimize your database. You can easily schedule cleaning or manually perform it whenever you need to.
To optimize the size of your database, you have to configure database optimization settings. Go to the setting area and tap “database”. Here you’ll be able to delete extra files such as auto drafts, posts, and comments. If you want to schedule cleanup and don’t want to do it manually, find the option “Schedule Automatic Cleanup” at the bottom. You can schedule daily, weekly or monthly clean-ups.
CDN
CDN (Content Delivery Network) is a highly distributed network of servers that helps website owners improve page speed by reducing the physical distance between servers.
When you build a WordPress site to connect with a broad international audience, a CDN plays a key role in speeding up your website for international users. If you’re already using a CDN, you can integrate it into your WP Rocket’s dashboard. If not, be sure to use WP Rocket’s custom CDN. The configuration process is automatic, which means you don’t have to go through configuration headaches.
eCommerce Friendly
Most caching plugins are not e-commerce friendly. For example, these plugins cache everything from carts and checkout to account data pages. As a result, users don’t see their updated carts and other details.
To resolve the issue, WP Rocket comes with an e-commerce friendly plugin. All of your commerce pages are automatically detected and not cached which allows your customers to see updated information.
Support
WP Rocket stands out when it comes to customer support. Unlike other caching plugins, WP Rockets provides day-to-day assistance to its valued customers. Their support team serves more than 150,000 customers worldwide. So, if you ever face a technical issue, you can reach out to WP Rocket’s support and get your technical issues resolved. However, there’s no live support.
More Features
We’ve identified 8 premium features of WP Rocket so far. Let’s see what else this plugin offers:
- Compatibility with translation plugins
- Compatible with Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel
- GZIP compression
- Sitemap preloading
- Mobile detection
Everything You Need To Know About WP Rocket
This comprehensive WP Rocket review will include everything you need to know about WP Rocket. We’ve discussed the pros, cons, and features of this amazing caching plugin so far. Let’s talk about some of the benefits WP Rocket can bring to your business.
Benefits Of WP Rocket
What does WP Rocket do? Discover the benefits of WP Rocket (cache plugin for WordPress).
Better SEO
Your website speed directly impacts your SEO. Why? Because page speed is a direct ranking factor. If your WordPress site is slow, search engines will take it as a red flag.
It happens because Google wants to provide its users with the best experience. So, you have to make sure you meet the expectations of Google and its users. You don’t want your site to show up on the second or third page of the search results. Do you?
On the other hand, if your pages take too long to load, your visitors will not only leave your site but also feel reluctant to open it the next time they see it in SERPs. 37% of your users will bounce if your website takes 5 sends to load. This can have a devastating impact on your conversion rate.
One of the benefits of using WP Rocket is that it helps with most of the speed and performance-related issues. Instead of manually removing elements that make your page load slow, you can get it done in a few minutes without doing any coding or technical stuff. Simply put, WP Rocket helps you satisfy both search engines and users.
More Visitors
What will happen if people enjoy browsing your site? When people like to spend time on your site, it sends a positive signal to search engines. Which ultimately results in higher rankings for your pages. And that means more visitors and sales.
Every business understands the importance of word-of-mouth and how it impacts their bottom line. When a user likes your site and solutions, they will tell others about the amazing experience they had with your business, and vice versa. So, you must use WP Rocket caching plugin to gain all the benefits of a super-fast website.
More conversions
70% of consumers say that site speed influences their purchase decisions. Along with other factors, page speed can impact your conversion rate. Considering the significance of page speed, only 15% of websites cooperate at an acceptable speed. If you want to be one of them, you have to do everything to optimize your site. Tools like WP Rocket will help you along the way.
Who Should Use WP Rocket WordPress Plugin
This is an important question. Who should be using WP Rocket? Ideally, everyone who uses WordPress to build and run websites can use this caching plugin. If WordPress is the content management system you want to go with, you should consider using WP Rocket. The following are key users of WP Rocket:
Bloggers
One of the top priorities of bloggers is to engage and entertain their audience with amazing content. At the same time, they have to make sure their great content is coupled with some extraordinary website performance.
As a blogger, you put a lot of effort into creating content for your audience. If your site doesn’t perform well, all of your content creation efforts can go down the drain. So, WP Rocket is a must-have tool for every blogger who uses WordPress and wants to deliver the optimum user experience. Regardless of your niche or industry, this plugin will help you ensure a well-performing site.
Agencies
Let’s say you run an agency and your business depends heavily on your website. Now, your prospects can take your website performance as an indicator to gauge your credibility. A poorly optimized website will reflect the quality of your product or services.
Don’t let that happen. As an agency owner, you can use WP Rocket to deliver a top-notch online experience to your prospects and customers.
Ecommerce Platforms
People use WordPress to build e-commerce platforms. If you’re one of them, WP Rocket offers some incredible benefits. As a caching plugin, WP Rocket doesn’t present the cached form of e-commerce pages. In other words, it doesn’t mess up with your e-commerce processes.
Freelancers
Freelancers should also consider using WP Rocket to empower their WordPress sites. Your clients also expect a robust user experience no matter the nature of your services.
The key thing to consider here is that the digital is a noisy world. Whether you’re a blogger, business owner, or agency, you have to stand out. Improving your site performance is one of the steps you can take to start the journey toward a perfect online presence.
FAQs
Looking for WP Rocket frequently asked questions? Here are answers for some general questions you need to know.
How To Install And Activate WP Rocket?
Here are three simple steps you need to follow:
- Buy your WP Rocket plan and get the download link.
- Use that link to install the caching plugin to your WordPress.
- Manually activate the plugin and feel the impact immediately.
Should I Install WP Rocket To Speed Up My WordPress Website?
If your WordPress website is slow and delivers a bad user experience, you must consider using WP Rocket. Instead of manually removing the junk and optimizing the size of your files, let this tool do it for you.
Why WP Rocket?
We know there are other caching plugins available for WordPress users. WP Rocket stands out when it comes to rich features, ease of use, and support.
Is WP Rocket Really Worth The Cost?
Yes. It is worth the cost if you take into account better SEO rankings, website performance, and conversion. You get all of these benefits for just $49/year. When used properly, this tool can deliver a high ROI.
WP Rocket User Reviews
If we go to credible tech review sites like G2, we find that WP Rocket has some pretty incredible user reviews there. It got 4.4 stars out of 5. Most of the existing WP Rocket users rate the plugin higher for its ease of use, support, and ability to improve WordPress performance with ease of speed.
WP Rocket Review: Final Thoughts
[wp-review id=”16084″]In a competitive world, you need a website that is better than that of your competitors. WP Rocket is the best WordPress caching plugin you can get to up level your website and credibility.
