In this highly competitive online world, every second counts. No one wants to visit a website that takes even five whole seconds to load, and no one wants to build such a website—this can lead users to storm off your site as fast as they can, leading to potential losses and bad site performance.
Since speed is everything in this online landscape, choosing the fastest WordPress hosting provider is crucial. WordPress is essentially one of the biggest and most popular CMS, so if you want to get the best of it, you need to have a decent hosting provider that can make all the difference in security, performance, and, of course, speed.
In this article, we will explain what to consider and what is recommended when choosing the fastest WordPress hosting provider.
What Is Recommended When Choosing the Fastest WordPress Hosting Provider?
Choosing the fastest WordPress hosting provider depends on various factors, including:
- SSD Storage
- Server location and performance
- Caching and performance optimisation
- Content delivery and network (CDN) integration
- Managed hosting
- Other factors to consider
Different hosting providers offer various hosting plans, and it’s tailored to speed and performance.
SSD Storage
Solid-state drives (SSDs) are essential when it comes to choosing the fastest WordPress hosting provider. As a general rule, the bigger the SSD storage, the faster the data access speed, and the better the user experience. SSDs are significantly faster than traditional HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), and this results in faster loading times for websites hosted on servers equipped with SSDs.
Overall, using hosting servers equipped with large SSD storage:
- helps improve website responsiveness, making the website snappier with a smooth interface for users,
- enhances SEO rankings as Google considers website speed a ranking factor,
- provides a better user experience and makes users stay longer on the website page, hence lowering the bounce rates,
- helps CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) deliver content to users with minimal latency and
- allows hosting providers to handle increased website traffic efficiently, as SSDs are highly scalable.
We will present two examples of hosting servers equipped with SSD storage. Note, however, that these are not the only website hosting providers, and there are many more options tailored to your needs. Remember to do your own research and choose the fastest WordPress hosting provider for you.
namecheap
As you can see, namecheap offers three different plans for WordPress hosting: EasyWP Starter, EasyWP Turbo, and EasyWO Supersonic. Each plan comes with specific SSD storage; the higher the plan, the larger the SSD storage.
Ionos
Ionos has much cheaper plans than namecheap and offers more services at a lower price than namecheap. That’s why it’s important to do your research.
Server Location
This is another important step to check when choosing the best WordPress hosting provider, as it can greatly affect your site’s performance, speed, and user experience.
You want to make sure that the physical distance between your server and your target audience is short. Otherwise, the data will take a longer time to travel between them, resulting in increased latency.
Latency describes the amount of time it takes data to travel from one point to another in a network or internet connection. Generally speaking, high latency means that the website is performing badly, and low latency means there are almost no delays, resulting in less waiting time.
Choosing the best server location can help lower your bounce rates, increase your website’s speed and, hence, rank you higher on SERPs. Having low latency will also guarantee that all your users access your website quickly, navigate through the different pages with no delay, and make sure they stay engaged and explore more content on your website.
Caching and Performance Optimisation
These are essential techniques used to improve the speed and responsiveness of websites and web applications. They contribute to faster load times, enhance user experience, and optimise server resources.
Caching is a technique that is used to store certain data and retrieve them when necessary in a faster and more efficient manner. This way, certain content won’t have to be generated from scratch every time the user visits the page and, instead, be delivered faster, contributing to the overall page’s loading times and SEO.
Different Types of Caching
There are many types of caching, but we will focus on two here:
- Browser caching: When you visit a website for the first time, your browser downloads and stores copies of static assets like images, stylesheets, and scripts on your computer. This is called browser caching. If you visit the website again, your browser can load all of this from its cache instead of downloading it from scratch again. This can significantly improve page load times.
- Server-side caching: Server-side caching is a way to store and deliver frequently accessed data or content from the server instead of having to generate it from scratch each time a user requests it. This can make websites and web applications faster and more responsive. Popular server-side caching mechanisms include opcode caching, object caching, and page caching.
Both browser and server-side caching are complementary techniques that work together to optimise the page load times and responsiveness of the website.
Likewise, performance optimisation describes a set of techniques to improve the overall speed and responsiveness of the website page. This can include reducing image sizes, optimising server configurations, and minimising code.
Content Delivery Network (CDN) Integration
A CDN can distribute your website’s content to multiple servers globally, reducing the distance between users and the content they request. In terms of caching, it allows users to access cache resources from a server closer to their geographical location. So, when you are picking your WordPress hosting provider, make sure they offer CDN integration, so your content can be accessed from any point worldwide with the same fast speed each time.
To simplify this, the origin server passes the same information to different CDN servers distributed around the continents, duplicates it, and then this information reaches the users.
Managed WordPress Hosting
This is designed specifically for WordPress websites. Hosting providers optimise the server environment for WordPress, handle automatic updates, provide daily backups, and offer top-notch security.
This type of hosting is perfect for users who want a hassle-free WordPress experience; you get to operate your website and focus on design, content, and other fundamental ingredients of a website rather than worry about all the coding and technicalities. This kind of service provided by the hosting provider is best suited for those who are just starting out their WordPress and website journey.
There are other hosting services like:
- Shared hosting: this is the most basic and cost-effective option. In this setup, multiple websites share the resources of a single server, hence being affordable. However, this can lead to slower loading times and limited performance since many websites share the same resources.
- Virtual Private Server (VPS) hosting: this type of hosting offers a higher level of performance and customisation than its previous peer. In VPS hosting, a physical server is divided into multiple virtual ones, each has its own dedicated resources, such as CPU, RAM, disk space, and bandwidth. VPS hosting is good for growing businesses that need a scalable hosting solution.
- Dedicated server hosting: this one dedicates a whole physical server to a single website or user. Dedicated server hosting offers maximum control, customisation, and performance. It’s best for big websites with high traffic and resource-intensive applications.
- Cloud hosting: Cloud hosting is a type of web hosting that uses multiple virtual servers to store and deliver website content. This makes cloud hosting more reliable and scalable than traditional web hosting, which can be pretty helpful for websites experiencing traffic spikes.
Other Factors
In terms of other factors to consider when choosing the fastest WordPress hosting provider, you may want to consider a provider that offers scalable plans so your website can deal with sudden traffic spikes. Similarly, you should check the uptime guarantee that the hosting provider offers to make sure that your website is accessible to your users all the time. The perfect uptime guarantee that you should aim to have is 99.9% or higher, so don’t compromise this factor.
Look for providers with a fast server response time that can deliver your site’s content to users quickly and without any delay, further contributing to faster page loading times. Providers with optimised configurations for popular web servers, the latest PHP versions, and technologies like HTTP/2 can offer improved performance and faster page loading times, which are all desired ingredients for a fast WordPress website.
The last service the ideal and fastest WordPress hosting provider must offer is reliable and fast-responding 24/7 customer support to help you with any potential technical issue that might come your website’s way and fix it on the spot.
Popular WordPress Hosting Providers Recommendations
- Kinsta
- SiteGround
- WP Engine
- Flywheel
- Cloudways
We recommend checking these ones out, but there are many good ones out there as well; all you have to do is do your research, check your priorities, and choose the one that most aligns with your website’s needs.
In this article, we’ve delved into the essential factors you need to consider when choosing your fastest WordPress hosting company. From caching mechanisms, SSD storage, and server location to CDN and managed WordPress hosting, make sure to study all your site’s needs to make an informed decision without losing any time, potential customers, or hard work.
At ProfileTree, we can help you further with the help of our professionals to maximise your site’s speed, page loading times, responsiveness, and content quality. You are just one call away!
Nouran Ashraf
ProfileTree // 26th November 2023 
