March 28, 2013 by akhilendra
What is CDN and Why To Use it with WordPress
wordpress CDN
Before we get into CDN and all of that stuff, let me ask you;
What is your tolerance level for a slow loading site? For how long you can wait before it completely loads?
Do you like slow sites?
I am sure you don’t prefer to wait for longer for anything and a website would be the last thing you will prefer to wait. Similarly others too hate to wait for your slow site.
Problem is quite simple and so as the solution, CDN is the perfect answer for a slow loading blog.
So, let’s see what the heck this CDN mean?
What is CDN?
CDN stands for content delivery network or content distribution networks. CDN mean a network of servers located across globe which delivers content to your blog or site visitors through their network of server which is closest to their location.
Distance matter in the content delivery of a website. So if your visitors are sitting in India and your servers are located in USA, then it will take longer for your web host servers to deliver content. The period is directly proportional to the amount of content present on your site.
So if you are using lots of images or scripts/plugins to enhance your blog (which you must be), then it will have an adverse impact on your site’s loading speed and site will take even longer to load.
Blogs or sites without images or any special effects are worthless in current world, nobody like to spend time on a dull site. And if you add them to your blog and use an attractive design, then chances are, it is killing your page speed.
I have talked about using premium themes and templates for wordpress so that they are well coded and doesn’t impact your resource utilization. This is the first and most important step in setting up a wordpress blog which matters for your visitors but in today’s highly competitive world, it is imperative for you to go beyond conventional stuff of serving good content with good design.
Now you need to serve good content and serve it real fast.
CDN or content delivery networks are used to deliver all kind of content in today’s online world. They are used to server text, graphics, video, audio and much other kind of files.
CDN or content delivery network does so well in delivering content because they host your static files like CSS, images, javascript, mp3 and other static files. Dynamic content is still hosted with your site. But static files like CSS, images, javascript and mp3 do take time in loading and when they are hosted by CDN, they are delivered by them, thus reducing the overall loading time of your site.
content delivery network
OK So Now you got “what is CDN” but why page speed or load time is so important?
As explained earlier, user experience is key. If you are not going to wait for some other site to load then it is not fair to expect others to wait for your site to load.
Page speed plays a crucial role in user experience.
Google and other search engines have sensed it and now it is a major factor in search engine rankings. Google or any other search engine works to provide a better user experience to their users and they don’t prefer to redirect their users to a site which takes ages to load. Therefore, they drop the ranking of sites with higher page load time.
You can measure your wordpress blog by using;
Why you Should Use a CDN with WordPress?
Using CDN with wordpress is a necessity. WordPress is a huge content management system and the system itself requires certain amount of resources. On the top of that, you add bunch of plugins to add certain functionality or for SEO. As a result of that, resource requirement for wordpress goes up significantly. All of it takes a toll on your page load speed.
CDN helps you in;
- Delivery content fast to your visitors.
- CDN reduces the load on your server so if there is a sudden increase in your traffic, your site is not crashed.
- By improving your page speed, it adds to your SEO.
- With better user experience, lower bounce rates and better conversion through affiliate or direct sales.
- You get higher number of returning visitors to your blog which is essential for long term success.
WordPress CDN- Should you go for it?
WordPress offer easier integration of CDN through WordPress CDN Plugin like W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache. There are affordable cdn options available for bloggers and small businesses.
I have been using MaxCDN for my wordpress blog and I am extremely satisfied with them. Max CDN is the Best CDN for wordpress.
Their support is simply awesome and they charge only $39 for 1 tb of content which is more than enough for many bloggers and small businesses.
You can avail 25% discount on Maxcdn by using maxcdn discount coupon “akhilendramaxcdn”.
Please leave your comment and responses to share your feedback about CDN, CDN in WordPress and page speed to help those who are still new to it.
ieattraffic.com">prabhat - April 16, 2013 @ 8:50 am
great info about CDN..i have used Cloudflare and its awesome..why did not you put it in the list?
https://akhilendra.com">akhilendra - April 16, 2013 @ 9:27 am
cloudflare act like CDN but technically it’s not. It is caching reverse proxy but you don’t have to bother about the technical aspect if it is working for you. I use Cloudflare with maxcdn for saving bandwidth, security and even better speed.