On the NetTuts.com site today they've posted the first part of their "Speeding Up WordPress" series - Using Plugins to Speed Up WordPress. In this start to the series, they show you how to use two methods to speed up your WordPress installation: using caching and database optimization.

One of the most popular talking points in the WordPress community is speeding up WordPress and optimizing web pages. I don't think there is a WordPress blog without an "X Tips to Speed Up WordPress" article. Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing. But we need better articles about this topic instead of dull plugin round-ups. This may look like yet another "tips for speeding up WordPress" tutorial, but in this three-part series, we're going to go through every aspect of optimizing and speeding up your WordPress website.

They start with caching and show how do both client and server-side caching using techniques both inside and outside of WordPress itself. They also link to two plugins to help with the server-side handling. Following the caching talk they look at optimizing the database. They point you towards the WP-Optimize plugin as the best way to squeeze the most performance from your database (without breaking how WordPress works).