What is a CDN?
A CDN or Content Delivery Network will make your website load much faster for users from all around the world. The system is simple – instead of having a single host, the CDN allows for multiple hosts all around the world and when a visitor logs in to your website they will see it through the host that’s closest to them. Starbuck’s website loads very fast no matter where you travel – they use CDNs as well.
Web hosting
As you all know, each website requires its own web host in order to work properly. After you build your website, the hosting will hold all of your website’s content on a server in a data centre with other servers. These are large warehouses where companies rent servers to keep data on.
Web hosting with content delivery network
The content delivery network is like an add on for your web hosting – it doesn’t replace it fully but it enhances its capabilities, effectively making your website faster. When using a CDN, the network will copy your website and store them in different servers around the globe. When a visitor comes to your website, it will now load from different countries such as the USA, Canada, England, Germany, France, etc. It will automatically load from the server that’s physically closest to your visitor.
How can this help load your website faster?
All your website’s scripts and images are loading from different servers located in different countries across the globe but how does this speed up your website? Latency!
Think that latency is a piece of string – the longer the string the greater the latency and the longer it takes to get to the end of it. The same concept can be applied to physical distances between data centres – the further the visitor is from the server, the further the data needs to travel and this can create delays in loading. If a user visits your website from Germany but the site’s hosting is in Atlanta, your website will still load very fast because of the data centre in Berlin. This reduces latency by a great deal.
Do you need a content delivery network?
This question is often redundant as CDNs offer plenty of advantages including:
Better performance
One of the first reasons why you should implement a CDN is the better performance – your website will load much faster to users regardless where they are located in the world.
SEO perks
Google loves fast loading websites and takes loading speed into its ranking algorithm. With a faster loading website you’ll also get lower bounce rates and increased conversion rates, as well as higher ranking. Your content will also be indexed much faster by Google.
Higher conversion rates
A one second delay in page response can result in 7% lower conversion rate – take that into account for a moment. If you increase your website’s speed by just 3 seconds that means your conversion rate will jump 21%! That’s huge!
Content delivery networks are affordable
You might think the system is extremely expensive but that’s not the case at all – CDNs are quite cheap and well worth the investment.
Websites using content delivery networks are reliable
Technical difficulties can be a real drag but with a CDN those problems are long gone – If one server goes down, the closest server to it will take its place. This ensures a more pleasurable web experience for your visitors.
It’s easy to switch to a CDN
CDNs are not complicated to setup – they can be used on just about any platform in just a couple of minutes – Magneto, Joomla, Drupal, Wordpress, etc
Conclusions
Content delivery networks are especially valuable to websites or companies with international clients or visitors – with minimal investment costs and fast returns it’s one of the best ways to grow your business.
