The following articles provide background information on improving web site/page speed:

Optimizing WordPress for Speed (PDF presentation) — https://stevesbizblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Wordpress-Meetup-–-Site-Performance-and-Speed.pdf

Eleven low-hanging fruits for increasing website speed — http://conversionxl.com/11-low-hanging-fruits-for-increasing-website-speed-and-conversions/

How to optimize the WordPress front-end for speed — http://wpmu.org/how-to-optimize-the-wordpress-front-end-for-speed/

High performance websites — http://gomakethings.com/high-performance-websites/

Speed Awareness Month – Help make the web faster (A collection of speed-related articles) — http://www.speedawarenessmonth.com/

Why is my WordPress site running slow? — http://www.speedawarenessmonth.com/why-is-my-wordpress-site-running-slow/

Google Webmaster Central Blog – Site performance — http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/05/you-and-site-performance-sitting-in.html

Google incorporating site speed in search rankings — http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/site-speed/

Web performance basics for the marketing team — http://www.sideqik.com/lead-generation/web-performance-basics

Incorporating the free Photon CDN from the Jetpack plugin — http://jetpack.me/2013/07/11/photon-and-themes/#more-1822

Using a caching plugin to reduce load time — http://c3mdigital.com/reduce-page-loading-time-w3-total-cache/