As a blog owner, you’re very likely to be pretty passionate about writing to engage your readers. It’s also fairly certain that you’ve crafted the look of your online presence to appeal to your readers with features that improve their experience.
What you may not have considered, however, is the value of optimizing your blog through the use of speed-enhancing technologies like a content distribution network, or CDN.
And so here, in this article, we are going to talk you through the topic of CDN benefits in clear-cut and jargon-free English:
Getting to Grips with What a CDN is
There are many myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings around CDN services. So let us start with a quick explanation of what a CDN is.
A CDN, short for Content Delivery Network, is a network of servers that deliver content for website users, with the content being served up from a server that is as geographically close to the user as possible.
The content that does get served up is cached, rather than requiring fresh files to be grabbed each and every time. This means that the files and data are copied on each of these servers so that they can be delivered faster. The aim here is to reduce the load on your main server or database. Here is a good infographic to illustrate this.
Using a CDN does not negate the need for hosting. Instead, it provides a distributed network of server machines around the world to help your blog in serving up pages to your readers.
5 Significant CDN Benefits for a Blog Owner
1. Super speedy serving of your posts and pages
A CDN provides for drastically improved speed for your readers. It does this by serving up all of your static content, such as images, scripts and stylesheets, from the server that is nearest to your reader.
This ultimately means that all of the data that makes up these parts of your website takes the fastest route possible to your visitor, wherever he or she may be.
For more detailed information about these site speed CDN benefits, take a look at this case study.
2. Improved uptime
Because a CDN network helps out the central host by sharing out the work, your blog’s readers will be treated to a far more reliable user experience. A modern CDN ensures improved uptime and high availability.
This results in more consistent load times, even where your blog may be experiencing a notably high number of hits.
3. More options when it comes to super-fast website features
The point of any blog is to engage, and todays’ world of website design provides for many features that help break down the virtual walls between reader and blog writer.
A CDN lets you deliver more interesting content without worrying about crippling your web host or using up your bandwidth allocation.
4. A consistent experience regardless of where your readers are in the world
Given the differences in access points and network conditions encountered by your users’ ISPs, this may result in some visitors experiencing slow connections.
Running your static content off a CDN will help transform user experience to something far better. Doing so ensures that readers around the globe feel like they are sitting right next to your server because of these CDN benefits.
5. And finally… A CDN delivers ultimate scalability
Due to the highly scalable nature of a CDN network, your blog can grow and grow without negatively affecting your reader’s experience. This means no more hosting or hardware upgrades.
This is perhaps the most notable of CDN benefits, in that you can provide a seamless experience for all whether you have one reader online, or millions.
Conclusion
As a blog owner, you need to know a thing or two about seamless online experiences for your blog readers and beyond. And a CDN service provides a solid network that publishers and users can rely on.
Have the 5 CDN benefits outlined above given you some food for thought?
Let us know what you think in the comments area below. 🙂
About the Author
Cormac Reynolds is passionate about many SEO-related topics, like content marketing and link building. Although he often finds himself totally immersed in the work that he does for several different niche blogs, he still finds time for his favorite pastime, playing rugby.
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