For a long time till date, Site Speed can not be over emphasized. It plays a significant role on our website. Site speed is one of the major ranking factor devices. Ever since Google rolled out a Mobile First index, which officially take effect in July 2018, it has become necessity to maintain and improve site speed at all cost. Many sites has even lost their place on the search engine.

Let’s be frank, aside improving site speed, there are still other factors that boost a site that also needs concentration. The truth remains that all the SEO requirements is almost impossible to meet; when you improve one part you see another part lacking.

The more contents are added the more you notice what to improve on your site

On this page we have discussed about how to improve Site Speed because Google has made it a ranking factor.

Good news if you’re using WordPress, you have the opportunity of implementing applications called “Plugins” to help improve your site. That is the beauty of WordPress, someone will agree! And the Plugin used is called “LiteSpeed Cache” plugin. With the help of the plugin and Quic.cloud we were able to improve site speed.

LiteSpeed Cache Plugin:

LiteSpeed Cache for WordPress is a free WordPress all-in-one site acceleration plugin, featuring an exclusive server-level cache and a collection of optimization features. Most features on the plugins are offered as premium in other Cache plugins like WP-Rocket, W3 Cache plugin, etc.

The LiteSpeed Cache is easy to use by anyone. It has the ability to optimize images, Database files, Pages, Browser, Mobile, etc. Including to integrate third parties like CloudFlare and Quic.cloud.

Quic.cloud:

QUIC.cloud is a high-performance, LSCache enabled CDN service created by LiteSpeed Technologies. It is currently in beta and is available worldwide free of charge (up to a limit). It provides a free bandwidth quota that automatically resets every month. Learn more about QUIC here > https://quic.cloud/faq/.

HTTP3:

HTTP/3 is an improved third version of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), used to exchange data between client and server.

Why You Should Be Concerned In Improving Site Speed

From the SEO (search engine optimization) point of view, fast-loading sites dramatically are featured more on the search results, convert better, and with less bounce rate. Lite pages allow readers to stream through the contents smoothly even with a poor network.

For successful page load speed optimization, you should review the following factors:

• Unoptimized images
• File size minification
• Web host efficiency
• The use of apps, such as Flash
• Overly complicated themes and designs
• Embedded media such as videos being pulled from another site
• Heavy widget usage

Getting Started With LiteSpeed Cache Plugin

The first step to take is installing and activating the LiteSpeed Cache WordPress Plugin directly from your WordPress Admin dashboard.

General Settings

1. Afterwards, navigate to your “LiteSpeed Cache Plugin Settings”, then go to “General“.

Requesting for Domain Key:

2. Click on “Request Domain Key”, You’ll have to wait for minutes for your request to be granted. Usually, I wait for 5minis then refresh the page to see the domain key automatically inputted in the field.
   
   You will get a notification like this (below):
   Requested: 1s ago Next available request time: After 14m 59s

Input Server IP:

3. By default, LiteSpeed should fetch your Server IP address when you click on “Check my public IP from DoAPI.us” (below the input field) which you will copy and paste in the “Server IP address input field” provided.
   
   In rare cases, you may not see the Server IP, but you could as well get it from your web host account or contact your developer to provide it to you.

4. Then turn on the “Automatically Upgrade” and click on the “Save Changes“.

Done on this part.

CDN Settings

5. Navigate to “CDN” under the LiteSpeed Cache menu.
6. On “QUIC.cloud CDN” section Click on the button to Enable QUIC.cloud CDN API functionality.
   Then click on the “Save Changes” because you don’t have to make any further changes after turning on the QUIC.cloud CDN API functionality.

Dashboard

Then navigate back to the “Dashboard” area of LiteSpeed Cache, click on the “Go to QUIC.cloud dashboard“, it is a link to redirect you to the official QUIC.cloud page.

Now, you’re moving to another level of improving your Site Speed.

QUIC.cloud Account Setup

You will have to create a Quic could account before commencing on the settings. From LiteSpeed cache, you will be redirected to the Quic.cloud site to either Sign In or Sign Up (see the steps below to Sign Up).

How to Create QUIC.cloud Account:

Creating a new Quic.cloud account will need your email address and password. First, when you go to the site;

• Enter your email address, then click on the “Sign In/Up” button
• Next, enter a password you should be using to log in to your Quic cloud account
• Go to your email account, open the message sent by Quic.cloud to verify your account.

Done! Account creation completed.

After creating the Quic could account, navigate back to the LiteSpeed Cache General under the General Settings (where you had requested to Generate domain key) Click on the “Link to QUIC.cloud” button to link the domain to your QUIC.cloud account. (see image below).

You will be redirected to Quic.cloud site again.

Setting Up Quic.cloud To Improve Site Speed

First, you should confirm your email address used to create the Quic cloud account by selecting “yes” from the pop-up and click “Continue”.

In as much as you’re still logged in to your Quic cloud account on the same browser you’re setting up your site from, your email will show up.

Back to LiteSpeed Cache General under the General Settings (where you had requested to Generate domain key), click on the “Visit My Dashbaord on Quic.cloud” button to open your QUIC.cloud account. (see image below).

You will be redirected to Quic cloud dashboard.

Click on the your domain to see the status of your settings so far. Image Optimization, CSS Optimization, and LQIP showing an “OK” status, expect CDN this is because the it is not enabled. Now it is the CDN you will be focusing to complete the configuration.

Enabling CDN

1. Simply click on the CDN tab/menu at the top of the page, click on “Enable CDN”

2. Select the first option “I want to use CNAME”, then click the “Confirm Choice” to continue.

3. On your CNAME, you will be replacing www.yourdomainname.com to the new Quic.cloud generated and has provided. Copy the new CNAME

4. Go to your Hosting account, go to the DNS Zone Editor, locate the domain you’re working on (if you have more than one domains on your hosting account.
   
   Note: At this point your interface might differ from ours.
5. Click on “Manage” button for that domain you’re setting up to improve site speed.
6. Locate the www.YourDomain.com row and click on the “Edit”, then paste the new Quic.cloud CNAME.
7. Then click on “Save record”.

Note: any changes made on the DNS area takes time (about 1 to 3hours) to propagate. So, you wait for this propagation process to complete before it reflects on the QUIC.cloud CDN area.

Also ensure that your website is loading from the www. because that is what tires the CDN.

DNS Config

8. Go back to your QUIC.cloud CDN area (where you left from) and click on”Continue”.
9. You will be redirected to “CDN Config” page.
   
   The Following Should be Turned On:
   – Static Cache (for Cache)
   – Enable QUIC Backend (for Connection)
   – Protect From Bad Visitor (or Security). This should be ignored if your host provides such feature to your domain already.

While the rest of the settings should remain as they were by default.

DNS Status

Go to the DNS Status to check the current status of your CNAME propagation. The image below shows what to see when the propagation is completed.

Done!