Performance is a vital factor that affects your WordPress website and can have a big influence on the page. There can be lots of factors that affect your page performance, but predominantly, it’s the lack of a quality web hosting service.
However, there’s a solution to the problem – Content Delivery Networks (CDN). They have the power to immediately improve the loading speed of your WP website.
In short, CDN’s are servers placed across the world that offload the assets and images. Then, these assets are served to the user from the geographically-closest server.
In this article, we’ll outline the basics of content delivery networks and help you learn how CDN can improve the performance of your website.
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What Is a Content Delivery Network (CND)?
Simply put, a CDN is a collection of web hosting servers that are spread across the globe. This network is designed to host and distribute the static content of your WordPress website such as images, CSS, JavaScript, videos, music and more.
This is achieved by copying the static content from your website to these remote servers, so when a user requests access that content, the image or the CSS/JavaScript file is delivered from the closest server to the place where the user tries to access.
A Content Delivery Network works on the same principle as the Internet/Web. The CDN provider positions servers throughout the Internet just like the web’s network of service hubs. In most of the cases, CDNs are installed in locations that are directly connected with the ISPs (Internet Service Providers).
In essence, the CDN service is a group of big caching terminals that sync between each other. This provides the users non-centrally located content and it improves the age Speed so as to speed up WordPress website performance.
How Can a CDN Improve the Performance of Your WordPress Website
1. Speeding up Your Website
2. Reducing Bandwidth Costs
3. Improving Website Security
4. Enhancing SEO
When your WP website uses а CDN, the visitor that requests to visit your page will only get the HTML code from your origin server. The rest of the content will be loaded from a separate server of the CDN, which is created and optimized for the purpose. Let’s see how that’s beneficial for your WP website.
1. Speeding up Your Website
Increasing your website speed is the most considerable reason why you’d opt for Content Delivery Network. It’s already a no-brainer that a fast website directly results in better conversion rates, better UX, low bounce rates, and prolonged web visits.
Because most of your website loading time depends on downloading static files like images and CSS stylesheets, it’s not hard to conclude that using CDN will result in a bigger website speed. This is done mainly with the principles of file caching.
Just like you would use caching plugins for your WP website, Content Delivery Networks features also include caching to deliver your files faster to the users’ browsers.
Caching is the heart and mind of CDN. This is done by moving your static content files to much more powerful proxy servers that are specifically optimized for faster content distribution.
Related: The Complete Action Plan for Building and Growing a Professional WordPress Website
The closer the caching server is to the user, the shorter the timeframe needed for the entire data of your page to be opened in the browser. These servers use boosted RAM and SSD storages. The RAM is used for the content that has the biggest priority and the SSD is used for content that has lower priority, but it is still cacheable and can be requested by users.
2. Reducing Bandwidth Costs
One of the best Content Delivery features that offers substantial benefits for your WordPress website is the release of files from your original web server. This is extremely useful if you want to stop overloading your host. It can also reduce your bandwidth costs. A global CDN will lower your costs by removing the need to pay for high-priced web hosting services.
An international Content Delivery Network (CDN) means that you’ll use a single platform that will work across different continents and regions for a fair price, which is excellent if you have a tight budget. This is a good and inexpensive way to improve website performance in WordPress across the world with one major hosting platform.
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3. Improving Website Security
A lot of CDNs offer an extra layer of security by providing protection against DDoS (Denial-of-service attack). This is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to the Internet.
The effects of this can be devastating for your WP website. These attacks can cost you a fortune and can have a serious impact on your company brand and online reputation.
What CDN does in these cases is take on the traffic and keep your website online and running. It is designed to prevent these attacks before they get to your database.
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4. Improving Availability and Uptime
With the hosting of a significant part of your web content, CDNs can do you a big favor by improving your website availability and uptime. Because your content is duplicated and available in different geographic areas, if one server goes down because of an overload, the web traffic will be automatically redirected to another available server.
However, keep in mind that a CDN may not solve all your problems. For example, if your server has low resources and starts getting a spike in traffic even the most decent CDN will not be able to do enough to improve your performance. You will need a faster server with adequate resources to handle increased traffic.
5. Enhancing SEO
More website speed and better WordPress performance mean a better SEO ranking as a result. By implementing a Content Delivery Network (CND) you can also use the latest technology like enabling a secure HTTPS connection and using the new HTTP/2 protocol to enhance your WP site speed and its uptime.
Speed is a very important ranking factor and it’s not a secret that Google cares about it quite a bit. What this means for organizations is that they need to put great effort into ensuring efficient web rendering and manila user disruptions. After all, the longer it takes for content to render and server, the more likely it is for a user to leave the page.
Additionally, website speed is not only a UX function that is part of Google’s Core Web Vitals, but it also adds a layer of security to your site. As a result it helps improve your technical SEO as well, the outcome of which is in the form of satisfied users that landed on a fast and secure webpage.
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How to Choose the Right CDN Provider
The market grows and today you have more CDN providers than ever. There are 2 major factors to look for when it comes to choosing a Content Delivery Network Provider:
1. Functionality
You need to know exactly what the specific Content Delivery Network features are. For example, the basics are Origin-pull and Gzip compression. There are other things involved too, like custom CNAME for more secure websites.
As a user of CDN, you should be able to view every statistic and data of your usage process, upload your files, do a Purge-All via API and override the browser caching headers that your original web server sends.
The speed obviously is pivotal. You need to know exactly how fast the Content Delivery Network Servers can deliver your files to your target users. The main KPIs that you need to consider for speed are latency (ms) and throughput (kbit/s). For the latency and the throughput, you should know upfront the minimum, maximum, medium and the average for long periods of time and during peak web traffic hours.
The server power is also one of the key factors for choosing a CDN. Yes, the servers can be close to your end user but, they can still get slow, due to the following reasons:
- The servers can’t handle the number of simultaneous connections from the visitors’ browsers which results in a queue.
- Hard drives are outdated and slow.
- Servers without enough capacity.
Before you decide, see if you can have a trial period with one or more of the CDNs that you can consider to speed up wordpress website performance. During this test phase, you’ll want to monitor and get exact data about the CDN performance. Understand the data and compare it with the other Content Delivery Networks of your shortlist.
2. Expenses
Budgeting and money are always important when it comes to online success and business in general. Custom pricing packages are no surprise in the CDN marketplace so asking if you can get that kind of package for your WordPress website is a definite recommendation. CDN vendors should know exactly how to tailor their solution for your goals and needs as a business.
When it comes to choosing a CDN provider, customer service and ongoing support also matter as much as any other factor. Besides 24/7 availability, people that work in these providers need to be extremely knowledgeable about their products and what they can do. They need to know how to solve a problem fast and give you full attention immediately, instead of making you “wait in line” like in a grocery shop.
Approaching a CDN provider means giving them as many details as possible about your WP website and business to see how they’d respond and if they’re the right fit.
There are many CDN service providers that you can choose from. Some of the most renowned are:
When you choose a CDN provider and register, the next step is to implement the network on your site to improve WordPress performance. First and foremost, your website needs to be prepared. For this purpose, you can use a caching plugin, like W3 Total Cache.
This plugin provides you with a total overview of your caching and CDN files and offers lots of options to set up the plugin to your own exact needs. Follow the activation steps provided by your CDN service provider. When your files are synchronized by your CDN provider, you need to adjust your WP website to call for the CDN itself.
In W3 Total Cache, find the ‘Performance’ tab. Then, click on ‘General Settings’. After that, scroll down and find the CDN section. There, click ‘Enable’ and choose ‘Generic Mirror’ from the “CDN Type” drop-down menu. After that, click on “Save Settings”.
Go back to the side menu under ‘Performance’ and click on CDN again. When you scroll down to the Configuration section, there, you can enter your Zone URL or CNAME. Enter it, and again, click on “Save Settings”.
Wrapping up
As a WordPress website owner, you already know how important your website performance is for the user experience and your conversion rates. The user experience and satisfaction are the biggest assets that you can have as a brand online.
CDNs are created to help you improve your online presence. In short, a fast website means more readers, interest, and eventually, more sales as a result. It’s your choice whether you’ll speed up WordPress website performance or get left behind.
Team DevriX
This article is crafted by DevriX's seasoned marketing team, boasting over four decades of collective expertise in crafting sophisticated marketing funnels, devising comprehensive content frameworks and pillars, implementing engaging email campaigns, and creating impactful social media content designed for scalability.
Our marketing experts specialize in the complete spectrum of inbound marketing strategies. As an accredited HubSpot Agency Partner and a Semrush Partner, we engage in meticulous research, blending our extensive experience with the unique insights of our highly skilled team.
We set benchmarks in content creation by incorporating cutting-edge marketing trends, leveraging in-depth industry research, and utilizing state-of-the-art AI tools for data segmentation and captivating content hooks. Our proficiency extends across a diverse range of sectors, including working with SMEs, Fortune 1000 companies, global B2B brands, major publishing entities, WooCommerce platforms, business directories, and affiliate networks.
