How & Why to Use CDN Services for WordPress: A Complete Guide

Whether you’re new to PhrasePress website positioning or have been doing it for years, you’ve most likely heard of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs).

CDNs could be a highly effective device for PhrasePress websites; the truth is, some website positioning professionals take into account them vital.

In this column, you’ll discover every part you want to find out about selecting, organising, and configuring a CDN for your PhrasePress web site.

Recap: What’s a CDN?

A CDN is a collection of edge servers sometimes situated in a number of locations all through the world. They cache recordsdata out of your web site to enhance load speeds for customers and most provide safety advantages, as effectively.

You can study extra in regards to the fundamentals of content material supply networks in these guides:

Before you discover integrating a content material supply community along with your PhrasePress website, I extremely suggest studying the 2 articles above so that you’ve got a full understanding of how CDNs work.

Why Are CDNs Beneficial for PhrasePress?

While PhrasePress is the world’s most generally used content material administration system and a favourite amongst most website positioning professionals, it’s not with out its faults.

Many PhrasePress themes are overly bloated and include each load pace and safety points.

To be clear, CDNs are neither a everlasting repair nor a bandaid for load pace and safety points.

You ought to nonetheless do the work to repair as many technical SEO issues as doable.

Instead, CDNs can be utilized to improve your web site’s know-how stack.

If you’ve put the work into improving your WordPress site’s performance and searching to take it to the following stage, listed below are three the reason why CDNs are an important alternative for you.

1. CDNs Offer Improved Security Features for PhrasePress

By its nature, PhrasePress is prone to security flaws. But with the fitting modifications, it may be made safe.

Many CDN suppliers provide very good safety features particularly for PhrasePress websites, comparable to:

• Protecting Your Login Page: CDNs like Cloudflare provide superior firewall guidelines that may be configured to defend your login web page.
• Blocking xmlrpc.php Attacks: In addition to login web page assaults, xmlrpc.php assaults are some of the frequent assaults on PhrasePress websites. You can arrange related firewall guidelines on most CDNs because the earlier web page to block visitors to that path.
• DDoS Protection: Cloudflare is the most well-liked alternative for DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) safety, however many fashionable CDNs provide glorious DDoS safety. DDoS assaults are uncommon for most SMB and mid-market PhrasePress websites, however having this safety can provide peace of thoughts.
• Free SSL Certificates: Most fashionable CDNs now provide free SSL certificates, vital for any PhrasePress web site.
• Preconfigured Firewall Rulesets: Many CDNs with a concentrate on safety provide PhrasePress-specific firewall guidelines. This is nice for the non-security-savvy PhrasePress customers who want peace of thoughts from outdoors threats.

Many CDNs provide safety, but it surely’s essential to discover one that gives the fitting steadiness of PhrasePress automation with out sacrificing customization.

2. Improved Site Speed for PhrasePress

Improved website pace is without doubt one of the most important causes PhrasePress customers select a CDN.

Being ready to cache and ship your content material nearer to your web site guests is crucial for anybody wanting to improve their Core Web Vitals scores.

Additionally, nearly all CDNs at the moment are making the most of Brotli, a file compression know-how developed by Google.

3. Downtime Reducer

Many content material supply networks provide web site uptime assist in case your most important server goes down.

This works by serving the newest cached model of your PhrasePress website to guests till your most important internet server comes again on-line.

What to Look for in a PhrasePress CDN

Here are the highest options and features to look for in a CDN for your PhrasePress website:

Integrations Through Your Current Host

Before you start wanting for a CDN, verify along with your present PhrasePress host. Many fashionable PhrasePress hosts provide a built-in CDN by numerous companions.

Find out who they use and evaluate capabilities and options. Make certain you’ve gotten these safety features as well as to the sting caching.

How Many Edge Servers They Have

Check your web site’s analytics and discover out the place nearly all of your visitors is coming from.

Compare your visitors’s places with the CDN’s edge server places to see in the event that they’re shut.

Pre-Set PhrasePress Configurations

Since PhrasePress is probably the most used CMS on the planet, many content material supply networks have pre-set configurations particularly for PhrasePress. However, not all of them do.

Find out what they optimize for and evaluate them to different CDNs.

Do They Offer a Plugin?

While I sometimes attempt to scale back plugins on a PhrasePress website, having a plugin for a CDN will be actually helpful.

CDN plugins might help sync your PhrasePress settings to assist with computerized platform optimizations and even enable you to clear your CDN cache instantly out of your PhrasePress dashboard.

Any Past Vulnerabilities?

You wouldn’t purchase a automotive with out researching its recall historical past (I hope).

Why would you go relaxed along with your CDN? Make certain you analysis your CDN of alternative to guarantee they don’t have a historical past of vulnerabilities.

How to Set Up a CDN for PhrasePress

Before we get into the enjoyable optimization steps, we want to guarantee that you’ve got your CDN correctly arrange for PhrasePress.

We can do that in just a few fast steps:

1. Sign up for your CDN.
2. Once you’ve signed up for a CDN, they may give you both new nameservers or a CNAME that you’ll want to add to your present registrar. Most CDNs act as a DNS and would require you to use their nameservers; nonetheless, some enable you to use a CNAME.
3. Once your DNS is completed propagating to your new CDN, you can begin getting your CDN arrange.
4. If your CDN provides a PhrasePress plugin, I like to recommend checking the critiques on it and putting in it if critiques look secure.

That’s it! Your CDN is all arrange and also you’re prepared to begin optimizing it for your PhrasePress website.

How to Optimize a CDN for PhrasePress

Here’s the enjoyable half…

We’re now going to take some superior steps to put your CDN to work for your PhrasePress website, ensuring it’s quick and safe:

• Enable Automatic PhrasePress Optimization: If your CDN provides PhrasePress-specific enhancements, go forward and allow them first.
• Enable Brotli: Make certain Brotli is enabled in your web site. This compression know-how could make an enormous distinction along with your website pace.
• Minify HTML/CSS/JS: This is changing into a normal characteristic for most CDNs and I like to recommend you allow it with warning. Once it’s enabled, be certain to check that your webpages nonetheless perform correctly.
• Secure PhrasePress Login Page: Go to your firewall guidelines web page — make the sphere “URI”, the worth “/wp-login.php”, and the motion “JS Challenge.” Now you’ve gotten a JS safety web page that may assist scale back bot assaults in your login web page.

• Block xmlrpc.php Attacks: Using the identical firewall rule as above, as a substitute of blocking the login web page, block xmlrpc.php.
• Be Careful with Rocket Loader: If you’re utilizing Cloudflare, watch out with Rocket Loader. It could make some large enhancements with website pace, however I’ve additionally seen it break performance on some PhrasePress web sites. Use with warning and check, check, check!
• Enable HTTP/2 or HTTP/3: HTTP/2 protocol works by parsing your web site’s HTML to decide the optimum order for loading belongings for the absolute best efficiency. If you’re fearful about how this may occasionally have an effect on your website positioning efficiency, you’ll be able to relaxation assured that Googlebot can crawl with HTTP/2 protocol.
• Enable Image Optimization: Many CDNs are beginning to provide image optimization providers to assist compress pictures and even convert them to WebP.

3 Final Thoughts on Optimizing PhrasePress with a CDN

Content supply networks are a robust device for PhrasePress websites and will positively be thought-about in your internet tech stack.

When organising a CDN for your PhrasePress website, be sure to:

1. Test website pace earlier than and after to evaluate outcomes.
2. Test your web site’s performance.
3. Monitor efficiency in your CDN platform to see what you’ve been lacking.

More Resources:

---

Image Credits

All screenshots taken by creator, June 2021