If you have requirements for the speed of your website and you have -already- optimized it (smushed images, mined CSS and JavaScript, caching...), it's time to think about subscribing to a content delivery network, or CDN.
What is CDN?
Simply put, a CDN helps drastically reduce the distance between your website and your website visitors.
So, no matter how many large media files, images, or pages you have on your website, a CDN allows your visitors to experience and interact with your website just as quickly as if they were local.
For websites with high traffic and/or a large global audience, this is a huge deal.
Those few seconds you lose in loading time (and potentially converted business) are extremely valuable.
Αντί να απορρίψετε την εισαγωγή βίντεό ή να χάνετε χρόνο για να συμπιέσετε τα αρχεία εικόνας, μπορείτε να μεταβείτε σε ένα CDN hosting για να βελτιώσετε την απόδοση του ιστότοπού σας (καθώς και ασφάλεια, σταθερότητα και πολλά άλλα).
Στο παρακάτω διάγραμμα μπορούμε να δούμε λεπτομερώς την έννοια του πώς λειτουργεί ένα CDN .
For example, you see the global network of servers of a CDN service.
If your website is hosted in the U.S. and the visitor is in Europe, the heavier images will be served from the European data centers.
Conversely, if your server is located in Europe and your traffic comes from the US, one of the data centers in the US will be used to serve the heavier content.
Determining factor in speed
Apart from physical location, pore size is another determining factor in speed.
Your website speed can affect more than just the user experience and ROI conversions on your website.
It is known that search engines try to rank relevant and high-performing websites with better search rankings.
If visitors abandon ship within seconds of entering your site, or if Google's PageSpeed Insights tool deems your site underperforming, you could potentially be losing traffic due to negligence.
Also, keep in mind that visitors will continue to demand more and more from your website, especially after you have established yourself as a trusted brand.
As their expectations increase and as your website puts more pressure on the Internet (along with everyone else), investing in a CDN would be a smart move.
According to Statista (www.statista.com), global CDN web traffic is forecast to reach 252 exabytes per month in 2020 – up from 54 EB per month observed in 2017.
How does CDN work?
There are three main components to a CDN:
Website Archives
Images, theme files, scripts, videos, and other static files need to be easily and quickly accessible when someone visits your website. This is the distance between your website visitor and those files that usually cause your website to load slowly.
Pulling URLs
When working with a CDN, you need to have a location from which global servers can create duplicates of your files. This directory of files is known as a 'Pull URL'.
Edge Servers
Typically, your main hosting server is located in one or two locations. So when someone visits your website, they are trying to access files from that specific location on that server.
A CDN, on the other hand, has a global network of servers.
So, when someone visits your website running on a CDN, they can access your files from a server location that is closer to them, thus increasing page load speed as there is less distance to cover for those files.
What are the benefits of CDNs?
Most people associate CDNs with increasing speed, however, there are many more benefits associated with this service.
User Experience / Speed
Using a CDN not only improves loading times but also allows you to handle more visitors to your website.
If your website experiences a sudden and unexpected increase in traffic (e.g. due to a large response to an advertising campaign you are running), a CDN could have prevented it.
Furthermore, a one-second delay can lead to a 7% decrease in conversions. Φανταστείτε όλα αυτά τα χρήματα …!
Using a CDN and serving your visitors static data from the servers closest to them will help you see a huge improvement in loading times and bounce rates.
So, of course, if you can reduce load time for visitors, local or global, you can improve their perceived user experience from the get-go.
Search Engine Optimisation - SEO
Search engines don't rank certain sites higher simply because they "feel" it. Their main goal is to provide users with the best results when conducting online searches.
Think of it this way: if Google started directing people to websites that didn't meet search requirements or that forced them to abandon the site because it took too long to load, those people would stop using Google and Google would lose billions of dollars in revenue.
Regardless of how this may seem, search engines are businesses whose sole goal is to provide the most accurate results. So, by ensuring that your website is optimized with the fastest loading times around the world, you will also help improve your SEO.
Safety & Quality
CDNs offer additional layers of security to prevent DDoS attacks, keep data secure, and process customer transactions.
One of the main reasons why CDNs are seeing such huge adoption rates right now is due to the increasing use of video in marketing, sales, social, and everywhere else online.
Video requires more resources, so to keep your website packed with all the high-resolution images, high-performance videos, and extras you desire, partnering with a global network of servers will eliminate failures or loading difficulties and allow you to deliver a quality User Experience (UX) to all visitors.
Support
At MARIOZ.GR, the CDN provides you with all the support you need.
Analytics about your website performance and information about upcoming web trends that may impact the customer experience.
Do you want help in case a customer complains about a problem they are experiencing on your website? Στη MARIOZ.GR σας προσφέρουμε 24/7 the support you need.