Cache preloading makes copies of your website and stores them on servers around the world. When someone visits your site, they get the copy from the server closest to them instead of your main server. This can make your website load 2-4 times faster and keeps more visitors from leaving due to slow loading times.
How to set it up
There are two ways to do this – using Cloudflare’s paid service or a free plugin.
Option 1: Cloudflare’s WordPress service
This is the easier option but costs around $5 per month. Some paid Cloudflare plans include it for free.
What you need to do:
- Add your website to Cloudflare and make sure traffic goes through their servers
- Buy or activate their WordPress caching service in your Cloudflare account
- Create an API token in your Cloudflare account so WordPress can talk to it
- Install Cloudflare’s WordPress plugin and connect it using your API token
- Turn on the caching feature in the plugin
Option 2: Free plugins
Several free WordPress plugins can work with Cloudflare to cache your pages. We recommend Super Page Cache for Cloudflare which works well with free Cloudflare accounts and uses modern caching rules.
What you need to do:
- Get an API key from your Cloudflare account
- Install the Super Page Cache plugin (or similar Cloudflare caching plugin)
- Enter your Cloudflare email and API key in the plugin settings
- Configure the caching options and save your settings
Testing if it works
Visit your website in a private browser window, right-click and choose inspect element, then look at the network tab. Refresh the page and look for something like “CF-Cache-Status: HIT” in the response headers. This means your page is coming from Cloudflare’s cache.
You can also use speed testing tools that check from multiple locations around the world to see the real improvement.
Important things to know
Cache preloading only works for people who aren’t logged into your website. Anyone signed into WordPress or shopping accounts will still get pages directly from your server.
You might need to turn off other caching plugins at first to avoid conflicts, then test if turning them back on helps or causes problems.
The speed improvement depends on where your visitors are located. People far from your server will see the biggest improvement.
Final thoughts
Cache preloading is one of the most effective ways to speed up a WordPress website. Whether you choose the paid Cloudflare service for simplicity or a free plugin for cost savings, both can dramatically improve your site’s performance by serving content from locations closer to your visitors worldwide.
