The rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the lives of countless people across the world in only a short amount of time. Many places limit restrictions on going out while also encouraging businesses to allow employees to work from home. Stay-at-home orders also drive many to do their shopping online. All of these dramatic changes have greatly increased the number of people using the internet each day.
To be clear, the surge of users is unlikely to break the Internet. It can, however, cause websites that are ill-equipped to accommodate high volumes of traffic to lag, slow down, and eventually crash.
A Content Delivery Network or CDN can prevent these problems because it expands a website’s server capacity. If you anticipate a surge in your traffic, even if it’s seasonal, using a CDN would be the smart thing to do.
High Website Traffic: It’s Bad When Your Site Can’t Cope
Under normal circumstances, an increase in unique visits is good news for any website. It helps with brand building, increasing your Google search rank, and generating and converting leads. It only becomes a problem when servers are unable to keep up with the surge in visitors. It creates a scenario similar to an Apple flagship store every time a new iPhone comes out: many have to wait to enter while others don’t get to enter at all. Those who do make it through the doors often have to wait even longer before they can buy a phone.
Now imagine this happening on your e-commerce site. You’re getting so much traffic, but soon your domain’s server starts to struggle. You notice this because your site starts to feel sluggish: the pages load slowly, the apps you installed don’t load fully at all until finally, the page says “Oh, snap!” and renders the site inaccessible.
Apple has it easy: fans are willing to go through so much hassle (and pay hundreds of dollars to boot) to get an iPhone. Unless you enjoy the same level of devotion from your customers, there’s a good chance they’ll grow impatient very quickly and leave the moment your website starts to slow down.
There are other solutions to this problem, but for small businesses and e-commerce websites, the best one would be to use a CDN.
How Do CDNs Work?
For those unfamiliar with CDNs, here’s a brief explanation. A CDN is a network of servers scattered in different countries around the world. Each server contains a cached copy of your website’s media content and other files. Whenever someone visits your site, the server that’s nearest geographically will supply the cached content. This set-up reduces the load on your main server. It ensures that your website loads fast even if your main server is located in, say, Canada and you get a surge of visitors from India.
If you’re expecting a surge in your website’s traffic, even if it only happens seasonally, consider investing in a CDN. It will be essential in delivering great user experience and optimizing website performance for each visitor to your site.
The Benefits of CDNs
As an investment, CDNs can offer so much value for your money.
Improve Response Times
One of the top advantages of a CDN is that it significantly boosts the response time of your website. A high performing website is a great way to increase sales and help you reach a wide range of customers. On the other hand, a slow website can cripple your web business and make it much more challenging to grow. Nearly 70% of users will leave a website before it finishes loading if it takes five seconds or longer to open, as improving response times is essential to the long-term success of your business.
Saves Your Business Money
An effective way for your business to save money is to invest in a CDN. Instead of using separate service providers across the world, a CDN gives your business a single platform to use, which makes it much easier to manage multiple regions around the globe. CDNs are also a cost-effective investment that are especially helpful for businesses on a tight budget.
Reach a Global Audience
The internet makes it possible for your e-commerce site to expand and reach a global audience. A CDN is essential in helping you eliminate latency issues to ensure a smooth experience for anyone that visits your site. Gaining a global outreach provides countless opportunities for your business to grow and best meet the needs of clients across the world. These unlimited growth opportunities make an e-commerce website an attractive option during these uncertain times.
Maximize Uptime
Keeping downtime to a minimum for your business website is essential in reaching as many customers as possible. One of the main benefits of using multiple CDNs is automatic server availability. Your website will always be available even if one of your CDNs experiences network problems or if you are dealing with a massive power outage in a certain area. You will have the peace of mind to know that your website is always available during any situation.
Enhance Cybersecurity Protection
Many cybercriminals target e-commerce websites to create havoc and cause significant downtime, such as using DDoS attacks to overload a server. However, you can significantly reduce the chance of a successful DDoS attack by investing in CDNs for your business. Cloud technology is uniquely designed to prevent a DDoS attack before it reaches your data center. Your website will always be available, and you will never have to worry about the devastating impact of a DDoS attack against your website.
Access to Analytic Data
CDNs aren’t only limited to providing an optimal website experience but also offers access to analytic data for your business. The use of analytics is a great way to discover various trends to help you better meet the needs of your consumer base. For example, real-time load statistics allow you to further optimize your website for maximum performance. Ultimately, this creates a much better user experience, which impacts sales and conversion rates.
A Timely and Relevant Service
Considering the benefits it offers, a CDN can play a key role in improving your website and creating great user experience. The server support is also valuable in light of the ever-increasing number of people accessing the web while they stay at home due to the COVID-19 virus.
Improving the speed of static web content, delivering live-streaming or on-demand video, and providing countless customization options are a few of the many benefits of using a CDN for your online business. Optimizing your website is well worth the initial investment and can help your business grow and reach a wide range of new customers.
An Offer for You
Experience all the benefits we’ve listed down by subscribing to our CDN services. We at Business Cloud Deals offer it through the Amazon Web Services (AWS).
What makes our service different? We offer you reseller prices. By choosing us as your partner, you can reach your target audience without having to shell out enormous amounts of money for advertising and marketing. Furthermore, we provide 24/7 in-house consultation, help you with implementation, and reply to any inquiries related with AWS. Give us a call to learn more about the benefits of a CDN. We can offer you up to 50% off from AWS CloudFront list price. Contact Business Cloud Deals today!
Wow, so many great tips in one place. Thanks so much for writing this! Truly inspiring article!