I am going to share some things in a video along with text on how a website is rendered to your screen and how speed is less related to the host than many people think.
What are the principal causes of a slow website?
- Server code
- Database connection and lookups
- Non optimised images/media
- Many scripts and external loading of resources
The first 2 you can get around with caching pages and compressing the transfer of the page across the connection between server and your browser. The others you need to limit (minimise plugin useage) and step 3 being the easiest fix with apps and things to compress images for you. Re-upload them after you are done. The first 2 are going to happen with a CMS based website. If you have a simple website then you don't really need a CMS and then you know exactly how every single page is going to be every time and it never changes (within reason) then a static responsive web page is best. If the plugins are correctly made their url's should be cached and provided by a CDN really.
Don't make the mistake of just throwing more money at your host. It isn't easy to get a website setup correctly and maintained and you should really have a good service contract with someone ask us if you need help with that.
Watch the video below and comment on your thoughts.