A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a network of servers delivering cached static files to a website’s users. As each major city has a local CDN, the server, which delivers the content, is the server that has closest proximity to the user. Let us look at a basic example of how this works.
Let us say you have a Wordpress blog - whenever someone visits your blog, the user is unknowingly redirected to your web host’s server, which is located in a central location. In other words, everyone coming to your website is doing so via the one server. As you can imagine, if you are getting a high number of hits to your website (which is ideally exactly what is happening), the server becomes overloaded. The result? Either your website becomes painfully slow in terms of loading speeds or in the worst-case scenario, your server crashes altogether.
This is where a CDN becomes incredibly useful. As we explained earlier, a CDN is a network of servers, meaning there is not an over-reliance on one server for every user. Most importantly, the servers within the network are located throughout the world, so each user is redirected to the server nearest to his or her location. Whenever a CDN is used, static content is cached and stored across all of these servers ready for download. When we talk about static content, we are referring to images, javascript, flash and so on. Usually, whenever a user loads a web page, the web server needs to load all of the files. CDN technology means that all static content is delivered via the local CDN server.
So should you consider a CDN for your Avenue ecommerce website? The answer to this question is a big yes! Here are our top 5 reasons why:
#1: The system’s capacity is increased
When you switch to a CDN network, you’re reducing the overload and over-reliance on the Avenue server, allowing the server to handle more users at the same time. A proper CDN and caching set-up provides your ecommerce site with a level of crash resistance that arms you with peace of mind as it avoids 100% of your website traffic going through the one server.
#2: Speed
Most internet users these days have the need for speed. We are conditioned to expecting super-fast load times. Poor website speeds can definitely see users bouncing off your website before they have had a chance to read about your product or service. We have all of the metrics on-hand to prove that CDN enabled sites result in faster website loading times. That is a huge plus!
#3: Better user experience and overall performance
Ever looked at your Google Analytics and wondered why your bounce rates are so high? Switching to a CDN network is an affordable and cost-effective way of keeping people on your site. We have worked with clients who have made the switch and been rewarded with lower bounce rates, higher page views and more repeat visitors. A faster ecommerce site is definitely a user-friendly website!
#4: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) benefits
SEO is the acronym on everyone’s lips and switching over to a CDN can prove beneficial in relation to SEO as Google (and other search engines) consider site speed within their Page Rank algorithms, which determines your ranking on search result pages.
There really are many benefits to switching your Avenue site over to a CDN. The great news is that Woven now offers CDN services at a pay as you use basis. This results in minimal costs for most of our customers!
Contact Woven today to discuss how enabling a CDN onto your website can result in faster page loading times and a better overall user experience for your customers.
