Today, it’s not enough for your business to simply have an online presence. You have to make sure your website is fast, and responsive or risk losing visitors to your competitors.
One way to make sure your site is loading quickly is by using a CDN.
Keep reading as we answer the question, “What is a WordPress CDN and why is it important?” We’ll also share the benefits of having a CDN so you can see why you might want one for your company.
What Is a WordPress CDN and Why Is It Important?
CDN stands for “content delivery network.” It allows your website content to be distributed on servers all over the world so that it can quickly be loaded from anywhere.
In today’s fast-paced world, speed matters. One study found that when people browsed on a mobile device, over half of the pages were abandoned if they took longer than three seconds to load.
Most of the load time experienced by users is for your assets. These could be images, videos, or text. When this information has to travel a long distance, it takes longer to load.
With a CDN in place, these assets will load from a server based on an algorithm. The best server is one that is:
- Geographically closest to the user
- More available to deliver content quickly
This helps ensure every user gets a fast response time when loading your website.
Benefits of Using a WordPress CDN
When you use a WordPress CDN to speed up your website, there are a number of additional benefits that you can gain. Let’s dig deeper into each of these so you can have a better understanding of just how essential this service is.
Improved User Experience
If you’re like most businesses, your goal when creating a website is to use it to guide people through your sales funnel. You want visitors to become leads and leads to become customers.
As we mentioned, speed is an essential part of a great user experience. People want to be able to click on anything on your website and get instant access to the information.
One way a CDN does this is by keeping a cache of the most popular content on your website. This ensures it’s always available for visitors.
Better Website Performance
Your website performance contributes to positive user experiences. This goes above and beyond the speed of pages. It also means any tools you have on your website work quickly and the way they’re supposed to.
When you have a WordPress CDN in place, your website will be able to perform better, allowing users to get full access to it. Once again, this helps build trust with your potential customers.
Because a CDN uses an algorithm to determine the best server rather than simply using geographic location, it ensures your users get a fast experience. If the closest geographical server doesn’t have the capacity, a CDN automatically locates one that does.
SEO Boost
You already understand the importance of using things like keywords and metadata to optimize your website for search engines. However, search engines have complex algorithms that look at nearly every aspect of a website today.
One thing search engines look at is the loading speed of a page. This is because the goal of the search engine is to provide the best possible user experience, and Google knows people love when pages load fast.
Content that loads quickly is a “green flag” for search engines and they’ll move your site up in the rankings.
Additionally, search engines look at how long a person stays on a page. When people are bouncing because they have to wait for more than a few seconds, that sends a negative signal to search engines.
Handle Traffic Surges
You want a post to go “viral,” but what happens when it does and you suddenly get a huge influx of traffic? When you’ve only got one server working to provide the content to every visitor around the world, it’s going to slow everything down.
In some cases, large traffic surges can even cause a website to crash which could end up costing you thousands or more in lost revenue. This can also damage your company’s reputation, something that’s hard to maintain.
However, when you have a WordPress CDN in place, your content is distributed throughout a number of servers around the world. By balancing the load, every person trying to look at your site will be able to.
Built-In Cybersecurity
Unfortunately, one of the things you have to worry about as a business owner today is cybersecurity. Cybercrime is on the rise because of how easy it is to get started and how lucrative it can be for these hackers.
For businesses that aren’t using a CDN, a cyberattack can completely shut down access to content for both the business and the visitors. This means lost customers and damaged reputation when people can’t get your content to load.
With how Pressable CDN works, your content is spread out around the globe and will still be accessible by at least some of your users. This helps limit the damage caused by a malware attack or other server malfunctions.
Data Loss Protection
One danger of cyberattacks is a loss of data. Losing important information can range from being a minor inconvenience or a major problem. If your business relies on data, it could even be enough to shut you down.
Although there are other things you should be doing to ensure you’re protecting your data, using a CDN is another way to help ensure that nothing is lost if there’s a cyberattack or an accident that leads to data loss.
A WordPress CDN stores your information across numerous servers. It automatically creates backups of all of your data so there’s a much lower risk of losing it when one server or location loses data.
Ready to Get Started With Our CDN?
As you can see, there are a number of benefits to using a CDN to improve user experience and your bottom line. But, did you know every site hosted on Pressable comes with a free, global CDN service?
If you want to learn more about how we can help your business grow, contact us today. We would be more than happy to answer any and all of your questions and help you get started with Pressable – where WordPress works best.
Zach Wiesman
Zach has 12+ years of experience with WordPress, from creating and maintaining client sites, to providing support and developing documentation. A knack for problem-solving and providing solutions led Zach to pursue a job with Automattic providing customer support in 2015 working with WooCommerce support, and now Zach has recently joined our team here at Pressable. Outside of work, Zach enjoys spending time with his family, playing and watching sports, and working on projects around the house.
