The following are some ways you can improve the performance of your WordPress blog. First, install WP-SuperCache so that some o ft the php files will be converted into static ones. That will give your database some well deserved rest. The impact? Faster loading.
Caching is only one part of making a website faster. Here are some other plugins that will help:
- WP Minify reduces the number of files served by your web server by joining Javascript and CSS files together. Alternatively you can use WPSCMin, a Supercache plugin that minifies cached pages. It does not however join JS/CSS files together.
- Yahoo! Yslow is an extension for the Firefox add-on Firebug. It analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. Also try the performance tools online at GTMetrix.
- Use Google Libraries allows you to load some commonly used Javascript libraries from Google webservers. Ironically it may reduce your Yslow score.
- The CDN Sync Tool plugin will help upload files to Amazon S3/Cloudfront if you would rather not depend on origin pull. See the plugin support forum if you have any queries about this plugin.
- Advanced users only: Speed up your site with Caching and cache-control explains how to make your site more cacheable with .htaccess rules.
- Advanced users only: Install an object cache. Choose from Memcached, XCache, eAcccelerator and others.