Fair warning: content delivery networks are a little on the technical, obscure side. Unless you’re a SEO pro, you probably aren’t even familiar with them. Their primary benefit is that they speed up the browsing experience for users: which is good for you because the faster your website loads, the more sales you’ll make.

Since Google factors page speed into your rankings, CDNs make good sense. Let’s explore this opportunity further.

How Do Content Delivery Networks Work?

CDNs deliver web pages and other content to your users based on their geographic location, the origin of the web page, and the content delivery server. The closer the CDN server is to the user, the faster the delivery, the better their experience, and the more likely you are to make a sale.

Let’s say you host your website in New York. If a user visits your site from Los Angeles or Sydney, Australia, a CDN located geographically closer to his or her location would speed up how quickly your web pages load for them.

When Should You Use a CDN?

Honestly, CDNs are in fact not the primary speed improvement you should make for your website as they are sometimes costly and relatively difficult to implement. With this in mind, you should first:

1. Optimize the overall user experience (ease of navigation, design, useful content)
2. Improve page speeds via coding and appropriate WordPress plugins
3. Design your website using mobile-friendly strategies

Who Should Use a CDN?

Technically, every website with more than one user at a time can benefit from a CDN. However, these are especially useful for the following situations:

1. E-commerce websites with lots of traffic (such as on Black Friday and Cyber Monday)
2. Government websites
3. Websites heavy with rich media like video and images
4. Websites that serve customers at a national or global level
5. Any site that requires users to log in to use a service

Some Helpful Information to Know about CDNs

1. CDN providers—good ones anyway—guarantee nearly 100% availability, even during catastrophic events such as massive power outages (meaning you won’t need to worry about visitors not gaining access to portions of your site).
2. If you have mostly mobile users, your returns are generally marginal in relation to cost (as desktop users tend to enjoy more speed than mobile users).
3. CDNs have become more affordable in recent years due to increased competition. Years ago, you could expect to pay thousands of dollars per month at a minimum. Now, the market’s tighter and CDNs cooperate well with newer technologies.
4. Different CDNs work better for various business types, and an experienced internet marketing professional can help you make the best choice for you.

Wrapping Up

If you want to maximize your user experience to the greatest degree possible, a CDN is truly a website must-have. It might just give you the edge you need to beat out your competition.