You may have noticed that BuzzLogic loads faster than it used to…
A lot faster.
I didn’t change hosting plans.
But I did do something I now regret not doing a lot sooner: use CloudFlare, combined with the WordPress plugin, W3 Total Cache.
I’ll get into them both in a second.
But first…
What is CloudFlare?
I’ve seen the name, CloudFlare a bunch of times before in the past, but never really took the time to research what it actually is.
According to their website, CloudFlare “supercharges” your website.
At first, I assumed it was just another hosting company.
But after digging around, I learned that it isn’t a hosting company at all.
Then what is it?
The short answer, according to their website:
I won’t get into the technical aspects, because I don’t even fully understand everything myself.
Essentially, it’s not a CDN, but acts like one.
Instead of files being served directly from your web host, it goes through one of CloudFlare’s globally distributed data centres instead.
It protects your site from attacks and serves up your webpages at lightning speed.
And the best part is… it’s free.
You’re not changing your hosting company by using CloudFlare.
CloudFlare works on top of your existing hosting plan.
As you’ll see later in the tutorial, you don’t need to configure anything in your hosting settings, and only need to change your nameservers.
Let’s take a look at the results of using it.
What happened when I moved to CloudFlare?
To test my page load speed, I used Pingdom.
Take note of the “Load time.”
Here are the results before using CloudFlare:
I was actually pretty shocked to see that.
That’s not good at all.
And here are the results after installing the W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin (without CloudFlare)
Much better.
But not good enough.
Here are the results after using CloudFlare combined with the W3 Total Cache WordPress plugin
Without spending any money, and less than 10 minutes of set up… that’s awesome!
I shaved nearly 8 seconds off my page load time.
How to set it all up
Now that you’ve seen the results, I’ll show you how to set everything up.
CloudFlare makes it really easy to set up.
You don’t need to install any software or hardware.
You only need to change your nameservers.
And it only takes about 5 minutes to do.
STEP 1: Go to your hosting C-Panel
You can sign up directly from CloudFlare’s website, but I chose to do it from my hosting account C-Panel.
I’m using Bluehost for this example, but most hosting plans will have the same options.
Under the “Upgrades” tab, you should see an icon labeled, CloudFlare.
Click it and you’ll see this page:
Enter your email and click, the “next” button.
Your email will be your username.
On the next page, your account is set up. All you have to do is log in.
On the next page, click the button highlighted in red to log in.
You don’t need to set up a password.
Instead, click on “Forgot your password?” and you’ll be emailed instructions to create one.
STEP 2: Adding your website to CloudFlare
Once you set your password and log in, you can now add your site.
It’s pretty straightforward from here.
Click on “Add site” and enter in your domain.
CloudFlare will scan your site.
When it’s done, click on continue.
On the next page after that, just click continue.
You don’t need to change anything. Don’t touch any of the defaults if you’re not familiar with what they are.
If you have a subdomain for your site, then see this guide on how to set it up.
And that’s that.
CloudFlare will then give you 2 DNS nameservers, and all you need to do is go to your registrar where you bought your domain, and change your current nameservers with the new ones that CloudFlare gave you.
It will take a few minutes before your new nameservers take effect.
There will be no downtime, and your website will remain online so you don’t need to worry about that.
And that’s it!
You’ve just set up your site with CloudFlare.
Now it’s time to go even further by using W3 Total Cache.
Step 3: Install and set up W3 Total Cache.
If you’re not using W3 Total Cache on your websites already, you’re missing out on a ton of speed.
It’s the most robust caching/speed plugin available for WordPress, and it’s free to use.
First, install the plugin.
Link: https://wordpress.org/plugins/w3-total-cache/
Because the software is so sophisticated, there are a lot of things you can configure in the settings.
It isn’t too difficult to get running, though.
Just follow these steps outlined by WP Beginner.
Step 4: Connect CloudFlare
Now that that’s set up, we want to connect the plugin with our CloudFlare account so that they run synchronously.
In your W3 Total Cache settings, click on “Extensions.”
Then activate CloudFlare, and go into “Settings” to configure.
Click on Enable, enter in your email (the same one you used to register to CloudFlare) and enter in your domain.
Finding your API Key
Simply click on the link that says “find it here” and it will take you directly to your CloudFlare settings page where you can find your API key.
Copy and paste it into the field and then save changes.
That’s it.
You’re all done.
Are there any problems running CloudFlare and W3 Total Cache together?
Not at all. They work very well alongside each other.
The only thing you have to remember is not to turn on the “minify” options for both CloudFlare and W3 Total Cache.
Only one of them should be turned on.
They’re both turned off by default so you shouldn’t need to worry about this, though.
I have mine turned off for both.
Conclusion
If you’re looking to maximize your site speed, then I highly recommend going through the steps in this tutorial.
The best part is that you won’t need to spend a penny to improve the speed – something important for new blogs.
You should see a huge improvement in your site load speed, especially if you’re using cheaper (shared) hosting solutions.
Test your website speed at Pingdom and you’ll notice a big improvement.
I always had questions about CloudFlare but this article pretty much answered all of them for me, thanks!
I’m glad I find your site it’s been a huge help and is very inspirational
Happy to hear that!
Great write up Chris! I think I will look Into cloud fare, I am currently using max cdn with W3 but that costs 9.99$ a month. Free is always better 🙂
Thanks Josh. Haven’t tried MaxCDN before, but heard great things. I’m sure it’s faster than just using the free method I outlined.
Not much… My site loaded in 1.25 secs but also use traffic planet hosting.
Thanks a lot Chris, for the awesome sharing. I really never hear this methode before. And I’ll try this methode to my site..
But How about different region or country? Is it influence for use this metodHe ( for speed) to our site?
Regards,
Genta
Different countries and regions are fine. CloudFlare has data centres all around the world.
Hey Chris,
. Thanks for the post. I had cleared all my doubts regarding to cloudfare.Thanks for a detailed post.expecting much more from you.
Thanks for reading.
Had no idea that you could make CloudFlare work with W3 Total Cache like that! Definitely gotta implement that on my sites.
Also, I don’t think you have to do the nameserver change if you do Cloudflare via cPanel…unless it’s different with Bluehost?
The nameservers are changed at your domain registrar, not your hosting, so you will still have to change it manually.
I just tried this on one of my websites and saw the page speed go up from 4.5 secs to 2.54 secs. That site is still on shared hosting and I think this is brilliant! Thanks a lot, Chris.
Nice!
Great Guide Chris!
I had already installed Total cache before, but with your Cloudflare idea i am able to reduce the load speed from 5 seconds to just 1.9sec!
Thanks again, you are doing great job for everybody!
That’s awesome. Glad to hear that.
Hello Chris,
Very useful information!
Perhaps I can add to the information you kindly shared: it might also help others seeking faster site loading speeds. I use https://gtmetrix.com/ to measure page loading speed ( Pingdom is very good, I use it though for measuring site uptime data for my own hosting company). GT Metrix also provides a very comprehensive plan to increase site speeds and optimise everything. To analyse one’s website one just needs to add one’s URL and the results take a few minutes.
Thanks again for sharing your tutorial: very useful!
Kind regards,
Richard
Thanks for sharing, Richard.
Thanks Richard, didn’t know about GTMetrix, that is a very good site. I personally use http://www.webpagetest.org and sometimes http://www.giftofspeed.com when I want to test from different locations.
This is an excellent tutorial. I haven’t used bluehost yet but soon I will use it & use this method to speed up all my websites. Thanks!!
Thanks for your feedback.
Till now I was in two minds whether to stay back with the same old hosting plan or move to Cloudfare, 100% convinced to move to latter after reading your article.Thanks a lot Chris.
No problem!
This is really awesome Chris,
I’ve also heard a lot about Cloudflare but have never bordered to check it out and see what impact it can create on my blog speed.
I guess i will have to go check it out at once.
Thanks for this awesome tutorial.
Thanks for your feedback, Theodore.
thank, since i ready your email newletters, my site improve significantly.
thank again
Glad to hear that!
Impressive results Chris!
Just one more tip to add: you can use the free wpsmushit plugin that will drastically reduce the file size of an image, while retaining visual quality. I have it on my blog and it shaves 10-30% off images during upload… you should definitely give it a try…
I’m gonna try and put cloudflare or maxcdn on one of my blogs. Thanks again, you are doing great job for the rest of us!
Thanks for the tip, Laura! I’ll give it a try.
I always had questions about CloudFlare but this article answered all of them for me, thanks!
This is the first time I am reading your blog. This is the kind of knowledge that impresses, educates and motivates me. Trust me i am floored. I am also just starting out on internet marketing stuff and have been trying to gather a lot of info regarding SEO, On page Offpage,affiliate, Adsense etc. Though your expertise seems to be a little more on the Adsense side. but I am planning to go for amazon affiliate first, solely because of the instant perks one may achieve. It would be great if you can guide me to the best possible resources that would help a newbie like me. Domain and hosting things done, Idea also created. Now I need the right methods using right techniques to follow my dream!
P.S: There is so much honesty in your article that it conveys the message that you truly want to help your readers with best of the knowledge you have gained over the years. Wish you more luck. thanks
Thanks Pulkit 🙂 Best of luck with your projects.
Hi Chris,
which is the most important, performance grade or load time? Mine is Perf. grade84/100 Requests31 Load time4.46s Page size406.6kB I only use W3 Total cache without cloudflare.
They’re both important. I focus more on load time. Try cloudflare, you could probably improve that pretty significantly.
hey chris what do you use for your CDN? wpbegginer says to use MaxCDN. thanks alot
Hey Gil, I don’t use a CDN. Just CloudFlare.
Hello Chris Lee, I read your article on nohatdigital “adsense millionaires…” that how came to know about your site. Same case is mine I too had seen at many places Cloudflare but did nothing about it.Thanks for posting such speed boosting article that too at zero cost !!!
No problem. Glad it was helpful.
I am interested to check things for a trail first
Before 7.52s loading and after w3 cloudflare = 852ms , thanks !
Sweet! Thanks for sharing your results with us, Jakob.
Hi Chris, Very nicely written post for understanding and implementing cloudfare. Keep up the good work mate strongly following you these days. Cheers!
Thanks Harry 🙂
Hi Chris,
Would you know if it’s possible to have one CloudFare account (with one email address) and using this for multiple websites? I am planning to implement this for all my sites in my shared hosting account.
Thanks, great post.
You should be able to have multiple sites on your one account 🙂
Hi Chris,
I use WP Super Cache to improve my site speed, whether W3 Total Cache is better?
You’ll have to google that. I’ve been sticking with total cache and haven’t tried super cache thoroughly enough to answer that.
Good stuff.
Changed my site from “faster than 37% of all tested websites” to “faster than 76% of all tested websites” in 2 minutes!
Sweet! Thanks for sharing, Mike.
Thanks bro for the great post.
No problem Goutam.
Hello chris,
This article cleared a lot of confusion that was going in my mind about the Cloudflare system. let me implement it on blog and one quick question. i am using WP Rocket plugin for speed optimization .
What’s your suggestion about it ?
i will be waiting of your answer
I haven’t tried WP Rocket so can’t comment on that.
i reduced my site speed from 4secs to 1.2secs using a simple..
anyways thanks much for your info
Awesome!
Im using hostgator hosting and i cant find cloudflare at there .
so what i have to do?
You can install it manually following the instructions through the Cloudflare website.
If one has cloud hosting, is there any need to use cloudflare and W3 total cache?
Thanks.
Not completely sure how much it will affect your speed in that case. You might want to ask your hosting provider.
Can I enable the SSL certificate with with that?
Yes, WPX gives you free SSL certificates once you sign up.
Yep, I just signed up to Cloudflare myself. All I had to do was change the nameservers at the domain name host site and they took care of the rest.
Backstory: I had some DDoS attack my VPS, or similar and it stood up to the attack (or whatever it was), but since then, I’ve been looking at ways to plug holes even further, do things better and speed up the site.
I’d had Cloudflare suggested as a CDN to speed up the load times, so I signed up. However, as it turns out it’s better than that, as it’s a DNS thing, so can protect your server from a flood of attacks and more. The caching and stuff is does is amazing.
All connections to the site run faster, and domains that I have on the VPS that are not run through Cloudfare are actually slower – seriously.
So, I’m sold. It’s a winner.
Yeah those would definitely scare me into getting higher security setup myself. Cloudflare is so awesome. Glad you share my opinion 🙂
Hi chris, thanx for this tip; I see that you have got ssl on your site – did u get it from cloudflare – if yes – can you describe how you did it
Hey Sarina, I didn’t get it from cloudflare. You can get it from anywhere you like and ask your hosting company to help set it up.
Chris,
Just wanted to take a quick moment to thank you, great post!! thank you for taking the time to and sharing this helpful info withus:)
Was just curious, if i went through all the cloudflare steps (including linking w3cache to it but, don’t actually switch my name servers to cloudflare do I still get the speed lift or is it only by me using the cloudflare dns?
Thanks, would really like to know.
Glad you liked it Joe 🙂 Not completely sure, but you should change it to cloudflare’s dns unless there’s a reason you can’t. Then contact your hosting (or cloudflare) to ask what the proper steps are.
Wow! Great post. I have been thinking why my site site loads so slowly, my customers have started complaining. This article have given me some great insights to improve my site speed. I had so many doubts if CloudFlare will work but with this article I am convinced.
Thanks Chris for these insights.
Thanks Matt! Glad it was helpful. Hope you can see some good results with it.
Excellent tutorial post!
I also recently added CloudFlare to my site before that it was around 8 sec but after CloudFlare, it’s down to 2 sec. but not tried with cache plugin bcoz I using SiteGround hosting, the company provide the default cache plugin it works very well. (sg cache press)
After reading this post now I have the plan to switch to W3 cache plugin but having confusion which cache plugin is best.
WP rocket or WP super cache or W3 total.
One questions Chris Before you use W3 total did you researched about best plugins?
Any suggestion chris?
Thank you John! That’s great to hear.
I haven’t tried the other ones. I saw that other marketers were using Total Cache so just installed that one. They’ll all give similar results.
Hi Chris. I’m looking for ways to increase site speed and TTFB (time to first byte) and I’ve been hearing people using Cloudflare. So thanks for the post and recommendation. I was wondering, do you know if Cloudflare affects local rankings? Since I heard it displays your site to a viewer closest to where the viewer is.
Not quite sure about that.
I liked this article very much.
Saved it for future reference.
Your writing style is also very easy to understand.
Thanks Swati.
Thank a lot for sharing a wonderful article about how to use cloudflare to speed up the website . I will follow and speed up my website . Thanks again .
Awesome!
Thanks a lot! I implemented the strategy for my WordPress site and results are awesome. Whether minifying files on both cache plugin and CloudFlare would get issues in the future? Hope, to get the answer. However, keep up the awesome work.
Yes, it’s been a while since I touched those options, but if I remember correctly, it does cause errors to minify on both.
Is there any serious issue while turning on the minify on both sides? I don’t get good speed when the minify options aren’t active on both the sides.
Sorry, I’m not sure. I don’t know about any serious issues because I’ve never tried it. It told me not to when I was setting it up so I didn’t.
Thanks Chris, CloudFlare Really Speed Up My Website And Also Help Me With SSL Certificate.
My websites loads faster than yours without using cloudflare.
Thanks for this article Chris. It helped a lot!
I installed Cloudflare and haven’t seen any increase worldwide. My website is on shared server in central Europe, and I wanted to have roughly the same speeds worldwide. For instance in Frankfurt and London, my site was fully interactive at around 1.5 secs. After setting up Cloudflare only, my speeds in Tokyo or Sydney were still the same – in the range of 6.5 secs to 10 secs.
But after combining Cloudflare with W3 Total Cache, I can confirm that my speeds have doubled! Europe under a second, USA just under 2 seconds, Tokyo around 4 secs, and Sydney 2.5 secs!
Thanks mate!