Without the right optimization, your content will never reach the target audience, resulting in poor conversion rates and success. One of the tasks involved with optimization is speed, and delayed page responses translate to reduced conversions. As a website owner, you may have seen other bloggers use the term CDN here and there. If you have been wondering what CDN is and why bloggers find it useful, you are at the right place. Let’s get to know about a CDN and why you should be using it.
Understanding CDN
When a person visits your blog, they are directed to your website’s host server, which is situated somewhere in the world. This server is being accessed by every person who is currently on your website. This high traffic volume often leads to the server becoming overloaded, resulting in slow web page responses. Users are not impressed by slow responding websites. It can cause them to become impatient and frustrated, eventually leaving the site in search of one that works better and faster. This translates to reduced conversion rates for your business. During worst-case scenarios, the host server can crash, leading to your blog becoming inaccessible. A CDN is a great solution to prevent these problems because it is a network of servers that are spread all over the world. A CDN, which stands for Content Delivery Network, is a tool that delivers website content to users based on their geographical locations. A good illustration by Cloudflare. When a site implements a CDN, the static (and some dynamic) content of its website is cached and saved on these servers around the globe. The static content could be anything like javascript, CSS, images, videos, fonts, etc. Once implemented, when a person visits the site, the CDN redirects them to the server that is closest to their geographical location. For example, if the main server for your website is situated in California, and a user from Cape Town is trying to access it, the CDN will automatically redirect them to the nearest server, which may be located in Cape Town. The closer a user is to your host server, the more it impacts your website’s load time. By scattering content to servers around the world, it allows your pages to load faster without applying too much pressure on the host server. The closer a user is to a CDN, the quicker your website response will be for them. CDN has become popular in the past couple of years. User experience plays a huge role in the success of a website, which is why it is a good idea for you to invest in a CDN.
Why does your site need a CDN?
As mentioned, CDN can significantly impact the success of a website. Without one, you could be at risk of losing potential customers. Here are some benefits. Load the site quickly: Once CDN is implemented, web pages will open in seconds. This applies to big websites with a lot of video content as well. Crash protection: A CDN allows you to deploy content to servers all over the world. This relieves pressure from your main host server, reducing the risks of it becoming choked or crashing. Improved SEO: Quick responding websites often have better rankings on search engines, according to Google. CDN helps with website optimization, giving your blog an edge over the others. Better user experience: Using CDNs can help reduce your website’s bounce rate, which is a good thing if you are looking to improve user experience. A site owner who uses CDN has also reported an increase in traffic as well as page views by individual users. This concludes that fast websites result in a more satisfying user experience. Ready to use CDN on your site or blog?
Sucuri
Sucuri offers an all-in-one solution – performance, protection, response, backup, and monitoring. Sucuri WAF is integrated into their CDN, so content delivery is faster and, at the same time, the site is secured from online threats and vulnerabilities. If you are wondering how fast is SUCURI, then check out these test results.
Gcore CDN
Adding to the list of capable CDNs is Gcore CDN. Blogging is boundary-less, and so is the free tier offered by Gcore. It serves from 28 points of presence with an ample 1TB data limit. And you will be having 140+ locations in every corner of this planet should you ever feel to upgrade to its premium tier. This excellent CDN service gives you tons of features like:
Next-generation security like DDoS protection, spam bot prevention, origin validation, etc.Web Application Firewall (WAF) to protect your site from HTTP L7 attacksForced HTTPS redirects and HTTP/2Free SSL for your website30ms response for a speedy websiteWebsite traffic monitoring and controlReal-time analytics
Not just for the blog, but you can use Gcore CDN for gaming, streaming, videos delivery, media, advertising or any web application. You can get it started for FREE to see how it helps your site load faster and protect from security vulnerabilities and attacks.
CDN77
CDN77 has been deemed a frontrunner among the big names in the market. CDN77 servers are strategically located in more than 30 data centers around the world. It provides lightning-fast content processing and transfer and comes with an assortment of features suitable for both small and large websites. HTTP/2, TLS 1.3, Gzip/Brotli compression, DDoS/origin protection, CMS integration, and a lot more is offered.
Cloudflare
The popular CDN for small to gigantic websites and is available in free and paid versions. Cloudflare is easy to integrate through a user-friendly interface. The great thing is pricing. You pay a monthly flat fee and don’t have to worry about bandwidth usage. Their network is available in more than 180 data centers, so you can imagine users from anywhere would get the content faster. Hundreds of performance and security features are offered by Cloudflare, and I would strongly recommend trying their platform.
Bunny CDN
Try Bunny CDN to experience high-grade performance with lightning-fast content delivery in a few clicks. For every request from the user, offer consistent performance utilizing the best features of Bunny CDN. Bunny’s infrastructure is designed to scale from terabytes to petabytes every month. It operates on a global, fine-tuned network with a 30Tbit+ backbone and Tier 1 network power. All the servers use SSD and NVMe technology to achieve millisecond latencies. You will benefit from a free SSL certificate, instant purging, log forwarding and monitoring in real-time, edge rules, and best-in-class security. The latest network and technology help you deliver your content worldwide and allow you to take complete control over your content. You get features like HTTP/2, Brotli, GZip compression, bandwidth protection, and a lot more. Furthermore, get DDoS protection, hotlinking protection, IP blocklisting, S3 origin authentication, full origin SSL, and many other security features. With over 50 global data centers in 6 continents, Bunny guarantees 99.99% uptime, Anycast DNS, 95%+ cache HIT rate, automatic healing, and more network features. Moreover, you can control statistics like raw logs, traffic usage statistics, error statistics, request count records, etc., in the control panel. Start a 14-day free trial or go for paid plans starting at $0.01/GB that varies from continent to continent.
KeyCDN
Get it started in minutes with KeyCDN. KeyCDN is fast, scalable, and reliable. They offer all the latest tech stacks such as HTTP/2, compression, protection from DDoS and bad bots, live-streaming solution, etc. It integrates well with popular CMS like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, Magento, PrestaShop, etc. If you are using WordPress, then you may also try Kinsta, which got free CDN powered by KeyCDN. Conclusion There are many other CDN in the market, but I found the above ones are reliable and trusted by a large number of sites globally. You won’t go wrong in choosing one of the above solutions.
