Speed is one of the most important factors when it comes to selecting a web host for your website. When deciding on a web host for your WordPress site, you must choose one that can guarantee fast page loading speeds. By choosing a slower web host, you can expect lower search engine rankings, higher bounce rates, and an overall much worse user experience. Your loading speeds directly influence your SEO rankings, which can make or break your website. In fact, the probability of your visitors bouncing increases by 90% as your page load time goes from 1 to 5 seconds.
To ensure you have the best possible speeds for your website, we’ve narrowed your choices down to just three of the fastest web hosting providers for WordPress in 2023. These web hosts have proven to be both super-fast and packed full of features that can help maximise your website’s potential.
The fastest web hosts for WordPress quick guide
- Siteground – Best overall choice
- Kinsta – Great for beginners
- WP Engine – Ideal for easy website creation
Why choosing a fast web host is important
Your website’s speed is the main factor that determines its success. Fast loading speeds can impact your bounce rates, SEO ranking, conversion rates, and profits, and therefore should be prioritised when selecting a web host. Of course, other factors also slow down the loading speed of your pages such as having too many plugins, poorly written code, or large media files. However, even a website that has been fully optimised for speed can still be slow due to having a sub-par web host.
As a result of having slow loading speeds, your website will rank much lower on search engine results pages (SERPs). Over the past few years, Google has highlighted the importance of fast page speeds and has even encouraged developers to use various speed tools to help their website rank higher. The search engine’s ranking system is based on promoting pages that offer fantastic user experiences and, of course, speed plays a huge role in this. If your pages take ages to load, then users will get frustrated and leave, which is why Google will rank your website lower. If you’re unsure how fast your website is, then you can test out Google’s impact calculator to check out your loading speeds and find out how speed is impacting your business’ potential revenue.
Aside from SEO, customers that do land on your website will likely not return if they have a bad user experience due to slow loading speeds. Studies have found that nearly half of consumers expect a web page to load in 2 seconds or less and 40% will abandon a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Your website’s first impression is incredibly important, so if visitors are faced with slow speeds, then it will negatively affect their perception of not only your website but your entire business. You don’t want to drive visitors away before they even reach your website’s content.
Overall, if you want to rank high on SERPs, retain visitors, lower your bounce rates, and maximise your profits, then you need fast page loading speeds. Despite certain elements on your page impacting your speeds, the main factor that determines your website’s overall performance is the quality of your web host. After all, with a fast web host, you can add more content such as video and image files to your pages. This will make your site even more appealing to visitors without you having to sacrifice loading speeds.
Did you know? Almost 70% of consumers admit that page speed influences their likelihood of making a purchase.
Our top recommended fastest web hosts for WordPress
We understand that there are so many web hosts to choose from with each provider claiming that they’re the fastest. Therefore, we’ve carefully researched and narrowed down your choices to just three of the best based on their speeds –
- Siteground
Siteground is one of the most popular web hosts around, and for good reason. This web host caters to all types of websites and has an abundance of affordable and feature-rich hosting plans. Additionally, there are plenty of helpful tools provided for Siteground that can make your WordPress site optimised for speed.
For a start, Siteground has industry-leading speeds, with an average server response time of 3 ms in the US and 92 ms in the UK. Even if you’re based elsewhere in Europe, you can expect similar speeds. This web host also goes a step further by providing users with its specialised WordPress plugin, SG Optimizer. This plugin can ensure that your site has the fastest loading speeds possible through dynamic caching and frontend optimizations. There is even a speed test functionality that checks the website’s average speeds and displays optimization suggestions.
Aside from speed, Siteground has plenty more to offer in its WordPress hosting plans. The mid-tier plan, GrowBig, allows unlimited websites, unmetered traffic, 20 GB storage space, and can support up to 100,000 monthly visits. Also included in this plan are unlimited sub and parked domains, free email accounts, free SSL, automated daily backups, and spam protection.
To make building a website more streamlined than ever, Siteground provides users with a range of WordPress-specific features such as WP auto-updates, free automated transfer, advanced security, one-click staging, and pre-installed WP-CLI. Additionally, several other performance-boosting features provided by Siteground include HTTP/2 enabled servers, free Cloudflare CDN, SG SuperCacher, and ultrafast PHP implementation.
Siteground has plenty of resources at hand, including guides for website speed optimization, WordPress tutorials, and an extensive knowledge base. If you have any specific questions or issues, then you can contact Siteground’s 24/7 customer support team who are available via phone, live chat, and tickets.
Try out one of SiteGround’s WordPress hosting plans now!
- Kinsta
Kinsta is a beginner-friendly web host with a stable uptime and an easy-to-use interface. If you’re new to the web hosting world but are still looking for a fast and reliable web host, then Kinsta is the ideal choice for you.
Kinsta has an average response time of 95 ms in the US and 10 ms in the UK, making it a top-notch choice for those who want fast loading speeds. This web host has 29 data centers that span across 5 continents, so you can speed up your load times and lower your latency by having your website based near your visitors. Additionally, Kinsta uses Google Cloud Platform’s (GCP) premium tier network which minimizes distance and hopes to result in a secure global transport of user data and an overall decrease in loading speeds.
Kinsta has a wide range of WordPress hosting plans to choose from. The Pro tier plan can support two websites, 20 GB storage space, and up to 50,000 monthly visits. This plan provides users with free CloudFlare CDN, automatic MySQL optimization, site cloning tools, and a multi-user environment. If you’re worried about the security of your website, then you can benefit from Kinsta’s hack and malware removal service in addition to manual backup points, automatic daily backups, 14-day backup retention, DDoS protection, and free SSL.
The Kinsta control panel is extremely intuitive and has been built specifically for WordPress. This control panel is available in 10 languages and contains plenty of one-click tools available that can help you optimize your website for speed. You can even check your site’s performance metrics using Kinsta’s Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tool. Users can also easily track analytics such as website traffic and resource usage in addition to PHP, database, and cache performance metrics.
All Kinsta users can make use of built-in 24/7 customer support that’s available through live chat. There is also a detailed knowledge base that’s packed to the brim with answers to common questions, tutorials, and checklists. There’s even a site speed cheat sheet that informs users how to fine-tune WordPress settings to minimise their page loading times.
Try out one of Kinsta’s WordPress hosting plans now!
- WP Engine
WP Engine is a leading managed WordPress web host that has hosted over 1.2 million websites across 150 countries since it was founded in 2010. This web host can provide users with lightning-fast page loading speeds without compromising on security. Using WP Engine’s one-click tools and drag-and-drop interface, users of all skill levels are able to craft a practical and mobile-friendly website in just a few minutes.
WP Engine performs incredibly well for speed, with an average server response time of 32 ms in the US and 93 ms in the UK. This web host also utilises MaxCDN for their free CDN offering in all WordPress plans, which makes all hosted websites even faster. Even better, WP Engine has a wide array of data centers to choose from, including ones based in the UK, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Having plenty of server locations to choose from ensures that your visitors are close-by and guarantees optimal site performance.
This web host has 6 managed WordPress plans to choose from, all of which can be customised with various add-ons. The Professional WordPress plan offers support for up to 3 sites, 15 GB storage space, 125 GB monthly bandwidth, and up to 75,000 monthly visits. With this plan, users can choose from 10 premium WP themes to help them quickly build a beautiful and functional website. Other features include one-click staging, local developer tools, automated migration plugins, and daily/on-demand backups. For those with security concerns, WP Engine offers MFA password authentication, free SSL, and a proactive threat detection tool.
Users can use the admin portal to contact WP Engine’s 24/7 customer support team who are available via live chat or phone. Alternatively, users can take a look at the informative resource center for guides, video tutorials, and helpful infographics. There are even some articles on WP Engine’s website which discuss how to measure your site’s performance through WordPress tools.
Try out one of WP Engine’s WordPress web hosting plans now!
A final note
Still not sure where to start when it comes to web hosting? Discover the different types of web hosting solutions or find out answers to common web hosting questions!