What to look for for fast page loading?

[Dr Bazooka]

I'm using IXwebhosting, Saver's Plan.. it's 1500 MB space, 10 GB monthly transfer, really cheap for 7 dollars a month. I was storing images on it in the past and hotlinking in some forums, and images were loading fast.

I set up vB on it a few days ago, and I have a few members registered... around 30, and not all of them log on at the same time. It's mostly around 4 or 5 at a time, and the pages load really slowly when I browse the forum.

I'm thinking of changing host, but I don't want to be paying a lot because I don't expect to get more than 100 members or so within the next few months at least. What should I look for in a host to ensure that the pages load fast and around how much should I expect to pay?

My site is here: http://www.cultureforums.net

[rh2004]

Good uptime, support and reliable and something that meets your budget overall.

No unlimited, disks space or transfer packages.

Where are these images?

[Dr Bazooka]

You mean the images that I used to hotlink in other forums? Oh I still have them stored on the server but I took off the links from the forums I linked in so that it doesn't affect bandwidth use.

So there's nothing using up bandwidth really except the browsing of the forum by people.. and there aren't many people.. so wonder why it's slow.

[rh2004]

All you need to do is add a small .htaccess file and store your images in the file system rather than database, images will only then load off your site and if hotlinked they will receive an error or image that you wish to display :)

Can't see though how that could be causing any slowness