Having a fast website is equally important as having a good looking, well laid out site. Your visitors will be happier, they’ll come back more often, and Google will even rank you higher. Implementing at CDN (or Content Delivery Network) on your website may be just what your site needs to help deliver that fast user experience.
How Does a CDN Work?
Websites and their respective files (code, pictures, databases, videos etc) are stored on a server with your web hosting company. You pay money each year to have their servers manage the traffic, store the files and facilitate visitors to your site across the internet. Most website hosting companies have a server located somewhere that houses these files. When a request is made to your website the browser reaches out to the server, fetches the files, and returns them. Physics determines how fast the computer looking for your website connects to your hosting company and returns the site, so attempting to access a server in China from a computer in the Canada will take longer than trying to access a Canadian server from within Canada. Content Delivery Networks operate by keeping copies of your website files on a network of web servers that are geographically closer, and usually faster performing, than the origin server that your website resides on.
Why Does This Matter?
Speed: Speed is the number one reason. Once visitors start visiting your site through the CDN they will experience a faster loading website. A faster loading website makes visitors and Google happy.
Google Rank: Google ranks websites that are fast higher. If your site loads slow then visitors are more likely to leave before it finishing loading, thereby increasing your bounce rate (% of people that leave in the first 5 seconds). High bounce rate = lower Google ranking.
Improved User Experience: Because users aren’t waiting for static content, such as images and videos, to load all the time, they are more likely to spend longer on your website and visit more pages.
How Do I Setup a CDN On My Website?
We can do this for you. Give us a call and we can determine if it makes sense for a CDN on your site. If you get a lot of traffic, or have a lot of static content, such as videos and pictures, then a CDN might make sense. The setup is seamless and most CDN’s less than $100 / year.
