We are all about trying to create more sustainable websites. One great tool you can use to improve the speed of your website for an international audience is by using a CDN.
What is a CDN?
For those that don’t know what we’re on about, CDN stands for Content Delivery Network. They are designed to deliver content to users via their own network of servers all around the globe. This improves the performance of your website for a global audience. Improving performance has a positive impact on both user experience and the planet. So it’s a win win!
How it affects users
From a user’s perspective, your website loads quicker, which is a highly regarded metric for making a better browsing experience. In this modern age, time is money. So speeding up your website, especially as more users shop online, can potentially increase conversion rates too.
How it affects the planet
CDN’s work by storing and serving a set of static versions of your website’s pages. So, when a user accesses your website, the files are served from the closest CDN server. This can improve site speed due to the reduction in server latency, as the data doesn’t need to travel as far. If your data needs to be bounced around in order to reach the required destination then that requires more power, and more time. So, having a shorter distance between your site files and the end user means less power needed – ergo, better for the planet!
Setting up a CDN
This is rather dependant on how your website is setup on the server, and the hosting environment in general too. Focussing on the world’s most popular CMS platform, WordPress, you can set up a number of different CDN services. CDN providers such as Cloudflare, Stackpath, KeyCDN, MaxCDN or services from both Amazon and Google can be implemented alongside WordPress. If you’re not sure which service might be best, perhaps chat to your hosting provider and ask which they might recommend. Be wary of adding your own without first chatting to your hosting provider, as some WordPress hosting companies, like Kinsta, have their own system directly integrated into the hosting platform.