Where You Host is Important WordPress is everywhere. According to ManageWP, as of April 2016 WordPress powers around 26% of the web. That’s pretty crazy for such a massive open source project. Some of the most notable websites powered by WordPress are: The New York Times The Wall Street Journal People Magazine National Geographic That being said, for every well made WordPress website on the web there is a handful of slow and cumbersome installations. Due to it’s ease of access and the thriving premium WordPress theme market (Such as Theme Forest), it’s no surprise that there are a lot of common mistakes that are made when a new WordPress site is created & launched. Pick a WordPress Specialized Hosting Provider This is actually one of the biggest blunders I see companies and developers make. Contrary to popular opinion, not all hosting companies are the same. There is a reason some cost more than others. Some of my favorite providers that I have used in the past are: Media Temple SiteGround WP Engine There is a noticeable difference between your average run-of-the-mill GoDaddy hosting plan versus a specialized WordPress installation with one of these companies. It’s difficult to make a slow site fast on a good hosting provider. It’s near impossible with a bad provider. CDN/HTTPS Oftentimes, these better hosts will have a paid option for a content delivery network (CDN) & offer HTTPS support. If you aren’t able to get a premium solution for your site Automattic created the Jetpack plugin that enables your site to use their network for free. Remove Everything that Isn’t Used This may seem like common sense but it’s not unusual to see large installations with extra overhead. If your hosting company is providing backups, do you really need an extra backup plugin? Are you sure that you needed to add a plugin that has a feature list the size of a small novel when you only needed it for one small use case? It’s fairly easy to overlook a few small things but they really do add up. Plugin Bloat is a serious problem. Really. Try your best to custom code anything small because rarely is it worth it to add a new plugin to your website that you have to worry about updating. Keep Everything Updated There are improvements with every new update to WordPress. Don’t fall behind. Not only is it a serious security risk, but you also run the risk of your site slowing down because the version is becoming unsupported by developers. Do yourself a favor and have your site updated regularly! — Don’t shoot yourself in the foot and make sure you take some basic precautions when launching your WordPress sites!