How to Set Up Cloudflare for WordPress
Few things are as important in digital publishing as having assets that load quickly, that are consistently up and running, and that have some level of resistance to common digital attacks. Those are things you can build upon to create an awesome online presence, which is why speed, reliability, and security are some of the most important things to check when choosing a web host, for example, or when measuring the performance of a website. It’s also why people decide to use content delivery networks or CDNs, and why setting up Cloudflare for WordPress is something a WordPress website admin should consider doing.
If you’re at that point when you’re considering employing a CDN for your WordPress website and you’re eyeing Cloudflare for the part, this is the right place for you to be. Setting up Cloudflare is easy – and it’s free – but we’ll still take you through it one step at a time. So stick around and you’ll get to learn:
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The major reason to use Cloudflare with your WordPress website is to enjoy the many features of its CDN service. That’s not the only service Cloudflare provides, of course, but it might be of most interest to an admin of an existing WordPress website.
Cloudflare provides the basic CDN service free of charge. From there, you can get more from Cloudflare by employing add-on services – the Automatic Platform Optimization you get with the Cloudflare WordPress plugin is a great example – or by opting for one of the paid plans.
The full list of features you get with Cloudflare is pretty extensive, but the ones that matter to its CDN the most include:
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A worldwide network for static and dynamic content delivery, with traffic routing for maximum speed.
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Great overview of the caching Cloudflare performs for your website, with customizable cache expiration periods and fast cache purge.
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Video-optimized content delivery capabilities, with support for MPEG-DASH, CMAF, and HLS video files.
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Support for bring-your-own-IP and http/3.
Cloudflare’s CDN service is consistently highly rated across websites such as g2.com, TechRadar, and TrustRadius. You’ve probably visited websites that use Cloudflare whether you knew it or not. It’s one of the top CDNs on the market, with an unbeatable offering at the low cost of zero dollars, and as we’ll soon see, it’s fairly easy to use.
If you already have a WordPress website you want to connect to Cloudflare, your next step would be to create a Cloudflare account. It’s as simple as visiting the account creation page, and entering your email address and a password – that’s all you need to do. You’ll be welcomed by a home screen that says that you don’t have any websites. Let’s see what we can do about it.
Add the Website and Choose a Plan
On the homepage of your Cloudflare dashboard, you’ll be able to see a list of the websites you’ve connected to Cloudflare. If this is the first website you’re connecting it to, then you should notice an “Add a Site” button, which will take you to a page where you can enter your website’s address. Keep in mind that you don’t need the “HTTP” part of the address and that you should link to root domains, not subdomains.
After adding a site, you’ll be forwarded to the page where you can select the plan you want to use with this website. This is a great place to check out the offering.
After picking the plan, you’ll be able to move on to the next step.
Review the DNS Records
Cloudflare will scan for the website’s DNS records after you’ve added a website. You should keep in mind that the service might not be able to catch every single DNS record for your website. That’s why you’d want to review all of the records, make sure that the settings are correct but also that no records are missing. Pay special attention to the root domain, subdomain, and email records.
In case you find some of the records missing, you’ll be able to add them manually. The tool will let you pick the type of record and access all of the fields that are necessary for that specific type of record. Once you’ve included all the DNS records, you can continue to the next step.
Change the Nameservers
The final step in setting up Cloudflare for your WordPress website is changing the nameservers for your website. Cloudflare will let you know which nameservers you need to replace, and which nameservers you need to replace them with. This will effectively ensure that your web address points towards Cloudflare, allowing it to do its job.
Changing the nameservers is something you should do either at your registrar or your website’s hosting provider if you registered the address with them. There are a couple of things to keep in mind here – you need to make sure that you’re replacing the right nameservers with their Cloudflare counterparts exactly as they’ve been provided to you. You should also make sure to disable DNNSEC for your domain.
Finally, know that you need to be patient, as it takes up to a full day for the nameserver change request to be processed. Once it’s done, you’ll be notified via email by Cloudflare.
The very first thing you should do after connecting your website to Cloudflare is to go to the Cloudflare dashboard, navigate to the DNS section of the settings, and scroll down until you reach DNSSEC. You’ll want to enable it on Cloudflare since you’ve disabled it with your registrar, and it’s an important security feature that protects your website from forged DNS servers.
Next, you’ll probably want to check any domain settings that Cloudflare recommends you do check in their Quick Start Guide. You could enable automatic HTTPS rewrites or decide to always use HTTPS. The guide will also include some performance optimization steps you should look into.
The Cloudflare WordPress plugin might be worth installing even if you don’t plan to use the APO. It’ll bring some of the Cloudflare options to your WordPress website’s dashboard, probably saving you some time and click in the long run. Finally, you should wait and see how Cloudflare performs, monitor the features you have available at your subscription level, and make sure you publish some great content for your website visitors to enjoy.
