I all, I am running a wordpress blog on namecheap shared webhosting currently and a little upset with the site speed. It seems like my competitors are quite a bit faster and I think this could be impacting results. However one good thing I have is that it costs less than $5 per month to host the site. My biggest competitor is using ServInt, which looks to start out at $50 a month. I read a blog post saying someone is using Amazon's micro cloud hosting for their blog for about $15 a month, and the site loads really fast. I used to work with someone that ran their servers through RackSpace - however these are extremely expensive, I think he paid $500 per month for dedicated servers with them. I also don't think I want FULL access, I want someone to update the cpanel software, etc. for me so I don't have to worry about the operating system, etc. However I do want to get some faster speeds, that being within the US as well as internationally (europe and asia specifically). Do you think paying the extra money (for example, paying $25 to $50 per month instead of my current $5) will actually draw more visitors in, keep them longer, etc. if I'm not topping out at my hosts limits? I haven't exceeded any of their thresholds regularly, however the site is the occasionally (once per week according to cpanel, which only shows it as happening in a certain hour) shut down for a few seconds due to exceeding. Thanks in advance for your help
You don't need to pay $25-50 per month for good hosting. In fact, that's on the quite expensive side for shared hosting. The people with their own dedicated servers (i.e. through Rackspace) are definitely going to get some good performance, since they are the only site on the server. That said, your problem is definitely with Namecheap. You should never use a domain registrar for your hosting. Namecheap, Godaddy, etc., all specialize in domain registration (and they are great for that), but don't run decent web hosting services at all. Would definitely move away from Namecheap.
WSWD, the $25-50 would be VPS hosting I believe. Do you think if I upgrade to this then it will drive a significant new traffic, or retain current traffic better?
You're not going to get new traffic because your website is faster. The two are not related at all. You might keep existing traffic though, if people are leaving because your site is slow.
It could be your site causing the slows speeds and it could be the shared hosting (if another site on the server is using all the resources). I agree get away from using a domain registrar for your hosting. Go without a hosting provider that specializes in hosting and not domain name registration and then hosting as a side venture. Moving to a VPS will give you more reliability in knowing you have dedicated resources and not being affected by another site on the server. But more then likely you will need to go through your site and make sure everything is optimized to run the way you need it for max performance. Your host should be able to do this for you and make the server fly.
Have a look on ASmallOrange.com - I'm using them to host some of my sites and am content with them. They are also quite cheap.