Best WP Rocket settings for bloggers

In a previous post, I explained why I highly recommend the WP Rocket caching plugin for WordPress bloggers.

It can make a huge difference in your site speed (and perceived speed), which will give you a big boost for your SEO and also make your visitors happier.

A blogger client recently asked what the best settings were for the plugin, so I wanted to share with everyone.

Thankfully WP Rocket is very easy to set up, in fact just by installing and activating it, you can see improvements before you even tweak any settings.

However, there are some settings I recommend/don’t recommend for bloggers. To start from the top of the WP Rocket settings page:

Cache Settings

1. Check “enable caching for mobile devices.” DO NOT check separate for mobile (that’s for very very dated themes).

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File Optimization Settings

Very important note for this page: any of these settings could “break” (don’t worry, it’s very easily “fixed”) your design, layout, or certain functionalities of your blog. So make changes here one at a time. Then clear the cache, and test everything in a private browser. Just make sure all of your features (like a recipe index, jump buttons, table of contents, etc) all work, and that everything still looks as it should.

If things are wonky anywhere, go back and uncheck whatever it was that you checked, and everything will go back to normal after the cache is cleared.

1. Definitely minify CSS
2. Combine CSS files:
   DO NOT check this if you are using a quality host (BigScoots, Cloudways, WPOpt, WP Engine, etc).
   DO check this if you’re using a non-quality host (Bluehost, Godaddy, etc).
3. Check optimize CSS delivery
   For now (May 2022) I recommend Load CSS Asynchronously until “Remove Unused CSS” is no longer in Beta.
4. Check minify JavaScript files
5. Combine JavaScript files:
   DO NOT check this if you are using a quality host (BigScoots, Cloudways, WPOpt, WP Engine, etc).
   DO check this if you’re using a non-quality host (Bluehost, Godaddy, etc).
6. Check “Load JavaScript deferred”
   What this does is delay the loading of JavaScript (which is used for special features) until after the “looks,” text, and images are loaded–because JavaScript usually takes the longest and you don’t want to hold everything else up.
   But again, if it causes problems, just come back and uncheck it.
7. Maybe check “Delay JavaScript execution”
   What this does is delay the loading of JS until the visitor actually interacts with your page (usually by beginning to scroll down).
   This is not always the best idea if you have things that need to load right away, so test, test, test after turning this one on.

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Media Settings

1. Check everything on this page, especially “Add missing image dimensions”

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Preload Settings

1. Check “Activate Preloading”
2. Check “Enable link preloading”

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Advanced Rules Settings

You shouldn’t need to worry about this unless you sell things on your blog (like using WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads), but if you do, these will likely already be setup for you.

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Database Settings

These aren’t so much “settings” as actions you can take to clean up the files your blog is hoarding. I recommend coming in here and cleaning up once in a while to keep your blog loading fast, AND keep excessive files off your server, which could cause you to have to upgrade your hosting before you need to.

Just make sure, as it says, to have a recent backup of your blog before you do these each time.

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Heartbeat Settings

What this does is control how frequently WordPress “talks” to your server (your hosting) in the background–which can slow your blog down if it’s transferring a lot of data back and forth.

1. Check “Control Heartbeat”
2. Set all to “Reduce activity”

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Add-ons Settings

1. Check with your host to see if they use Varnish (Cloudways does)
2. WebP Compatibility
   I don’t recommend that bloggers use WebP images. They are a tiny bit smaller in file size than JPEGS, however no one will be able to upload your images to their blog in order to do round-ups, so you could miss out on a lot of external links, which are very helpful for your SEO.
3. Definitely turn on Cloudflare if you’re using it (and you should be) 🙂
4. Check if you’re using Sucuri cache

If you haven’t purchased WP Rocket yet, you can do so here. Once you have a quality theme, plugins, and quality host, it’s the best thing you can do to improve your site speed with Google. (Affiliate link)