Here is a webinar from Yoast – the largest SEO plugin company for WordPress. At the end of the webinar a question was asked:
What is the best plugin to use for increasing website speed and performance?
The answer provided by Yoast, who is highly respected within the industry, is spot on. If the video does not start at 50:54, please forward.
Yoast recommends getting quality hosting instead of using various plugins for website speed and performance. Hosting servers that are optimized for WordPress websites use faster processors and usually provide server caching. Both of these speed up a website.
Many hosts also provide server security so your website is not as likely to get hacked, taken down unexpectedly, or just simply disappear.
Keep in mind, if you choose cheap, shared hosting, you will need a caching plugin, image optimization plugin, security plugin, backup plugin, and other performance plugins. Every plugin you use adds load time and decreases performance. The fewer plugins you can use on a website, the better your website will perform. By having all these functions performed at the server level, you are far ahead of someone that is using shared hosting. Way the actual cost of hosting against the performance and security cost of shared hosting before just going with the cheapest.
Get a quality host that is already optimized for WordPress. I have set the video above to start at the right section for this answer. If it starts at the beginning forward to 50:54. Listen for yourself.
I do offer WordPress specific hosting that comes with speed optimization, higher security, and WordPress core and plugin updating. Check out Managed WordPress hosting here!
