How website caching can make your website faster

If you want to make your website faster, improve your user experience and conversion rates and rank higher on Google so you can attract more visitors, then consider looking at how you can leverage caching on your website.

Website caching is a technique that can boost your website’s performance and SEO and in this article, we’ll look at what website caching is, why it’s important, and how to set it up and optimise it for your website.

Table of Contents

What is Website Caching?

Why is Website Caching Important?

How to Set Up Website Caching

How to Optimise Website Caching

Summary

What is Website Caching?

Website caching is a technique that stores a copy of your website’s content in different places, so that it can be delivered faster to your users. When someone visits your website, they don’t have to wait for the original content to be fetched from the server. Instead, they can get the cached version of your site that is already stored closer to them.

There are different places where your website’s content can be stored, depending on how often it changes and how fast you want to deliver it. Some of the most common places are:

Browser

The software that visitors use to view your website is known as a browser. This has its own cache which it can use to store content that doesn’t change often, such as images, styles, and scripts. You control how long the browser stores your content by setting an expiration date and time in your website’s settings.

Server: This is usually where your website is hosted. It can store content that changes based on user input or other factors, such as web pages. You can use plugins or tools that create and store your content in advance, so that the server doesn’t have to generate your website every time someone views it.

CDN

A CDN, or Content Delivery Network, is a network of servers that store a cached version of your website’s content. This network can span different countries, or even continents. When a visitor views your website, it’s delivered to them from the nearest server, reducing the time it takes for it to load on their screen.

Why is Website Caching Important?

 As we mentioned earlier, website caching can significantly increase your website’s performance and SEO, as well as offering a more pleasant experience to those using it. Here are some of the benefits that caching can offer:

Performance

Website caching can make your website faster by up to 300%, according to a study by Cloudflare. Faster websites can make users happy, loyal, and engaged. They can also make them stay longer on your website and visit more pages.

SEO

Website caching can help your website to rank higher on Google and other search engines. Google considers how fast your website loads as one of the factors for ranking websites, so faster websites can also get more traffic from search results.

User experience

Website caching can make your website smoother and more responsive. Users can access your website’s content without waiting too long or facing errors or interruptions.

Conversion rates

Faster websites can increase the chance of conversions, such as getting users to sign up, buy a product, or subscribe to a newsletter. If they don’t have to wait around for your pages to load, customers are also less likely to leave your website without completing a purchase.

How to Set Up Website Caching

To set up website caching for your website, you need to consider different types of content and situations. You’ll have to decide where you want to store your content. How often do you need to update it? How will the content be delivered to your visitors? Here are some of the things that you should think about:

Content type

Where your content is stored should be based on how often it changes. For example, files that don’t change often can be stored on the browser for longer periods than those that do. Look at whether the content is public or private. Can it be shared with all users or only with specific users?

Content update

How often do you want to update your cached content? How do you want to tell the users about the changes? You can use different methods to remove or refresh your cache. You can set expiration dates and use version numbers or sending requests.

Content delivery

You should choose how you want to deliver your cached content to website visitors. Different techniques can be used to make your delivery faster and better, such as compressing, simplifying, combining, or resizing your content.

How to Optimise Website Caching

To optimise website caching for your website, it’s best to follow some tips and best practices. It’s important to find the right balance between keeping your content fresh and keeping your performance high. Here are some of the tips that we recommend you follow:

Use appropriate expiration dates: Consider how long your content stays in the cache before it expires. If the content on your site changes regularly, you will want to consider a shorter period. If the information on your web pages rarely changes, a longer period of time may be more suitable.

Clear cache regularly: Clearing your cache on a regular basis helps to remove old or unnecessary content and free up space. You can do this manually or automatically, using timers or scripts.

Test cache performance: Test your cache performance regularly to measure its impact on your website’s speed, SEO, user experience and conversion rates. You can use various tools and measurements to run these tests, such as Google PageSpeed Insights, WebPageTest, or GTmetrix.

Summary

Website caching is a technique that can make your website faster and better. You can use it to speed up your website and increase your chances of ranking higher in search engines. A faster website will also help convert a curious visitor into a happy customer. By following the outline and tips in this article, you can easily set up and optimise website caching for your website.