Improve WordPress Speed With Better Themes, Plugins & Hosting

May 12, 2026 | Written by Mike Carton (Founder)
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How To Speed Up Your WordPress Website

A slow WordPress website can hurt SEO rankings, increase bounce rates, and frustrate visitors. Speed also affects conversions, whether you run a business website, blog, or online store.

The good news is that most WordPress websites can become significantly faster without rebuilding the entire site from scratch.

Below is an example of a lightweight WordPress website built from scratch using fast WordPress hosting.

Choose a Lightweight WordPress Theme

Hello Elementor
Astra

Choose Your Plugins Wisely

One page builder Elementor
One SEO plugin Rank Math SEO
One caching plugin Litespeed Cache
One performance plugin Flyingpages
Security plugins Defender + BBQ Firewall
Form plugins if needed Forminator + WP SMTP
Additional Plugins Any additional plugins used for functionality should be kept to a minimum.

Use Modern WordPress Hosting

Shared hosting often struggles with WordPress performance, especially during traffic spikes.

A quality WordPress hosting provider should offer:

  • Fast NVMe or SSD storage
  • LiteSpeed or NGINX servers
  • Australian server locations for local audiences
  • Modern PHP versions
  • Server-level caching
  • Optimised WordPress configurations

Faster WordPress hosting improves Time To First Byte (TTFB), backend performance, and overall site responsiveness.

Performance Tips

Image Optimisation Make sure to resize and reduce images before uploading them. Software like Pixlr can convert images into WebP format. Images are important because every extra megabyte increases load times, so you should reduce file sizes as much as possible while still maintaining high quality.
Caching Setup Look for the fastest WordPress hosting with managed LiteSpeed servers, redis caching, OPcache and high-performance servers optimised for WordPress.
PHP Optimisation Use the latest PHP version available for your website. After updating your PHP version, make sure to test all pages and functionality to ensure everything is working correctly. Additionally, you can optimise your PHP settings to help improve WordPress performance.

All servers at Web Host Wizards are optimised and ready to go out of the box, no configuration needed.

Improving WordPress speed not only helps SEO, but also creates a better experience for your visitors and customers.
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