Unexpected business benefits of using a CDN are the indirect advantages one gains from the performance provided by a Content Delivery Network platform. Page load speeds, application performance, and a great user experience have always been vital components in any online strategy. However, as the world continues to embrace digital solutions, focusing on these requirements is now more critical than ever. As almost every aspect of our daily lives starts or ends with an online service, organizations that operate digital platforms must craft fast and user-friendly solutions.
Apps, websites, and online services are vital components in every industry. These digital assets form the foundation of most modern business processes. Everything we do touches an online service, from customer interactions and managing finances to supplier orders and general entertainment. As they are an integral part of any organization’s ecosystem, platform providers need to focus on their services’ speed, availability, and usability. Poor performance or a less than ideal user experience could detrimentally affect operations, customer satisfaction, and ultimately market share and profitability.
The Crucial Role of SEO
In today’s digitally-driven economy, almost every commercial transaction starts with an online search. Obtaining a place on the front page of a search result is a competitive advantage for any business. However, achieving a high search ranking is not the only ingredient needed for success. When potential customers visit your site, you also need to ensure their user experience is exceptional. Consumers demand websites and apps that are fast, responsive, and look good.
Global Competition
Competition is another factor that enterprises operating an online presence need to consider. In an online world, your potential market is global. As an online service reaches every corner of the globe, organizations can offer their products and services to potential customers across the world. However, the opposite is also true. The Internet’s reach means competitors in other regions can market their products and services to your customers and compete against you. This paradigm shift forces every organization to think and act globally, which means their online presence must meet or exceed a global audience’s expectations.
Advertising, social media, and general notifications are other indirect forces you need to compete against in an online marketplace. These services continuously engage users fighting for screen time and clicks. Your site or service needs to cut through this distraction to get the attention it needs from users and search engines. Ultimately, it would help if you had a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly website to attain a high page rank. However, once users find your site, it is equally vital to provide a superior user experience, ensuring users remain engaged with your online service.
The Need for Speed
Page load speeds are vital in attaining both a favorable SEO ranking and achieving a lasting user engagement. Search engines rank sites that load rapidly higher than those with lower performance. If we consider that Google will rank sites using their Core Web Vital measurements, page load speeds are critical in any SEO strategy.
However, attaining a high search engine page rank is only half of the winning formula. Once users find your site and click through to it, you need to ensure you deliver a fast, responsive, and aesthetically pleasing experience. As people have come to rely on online services to manage almost every aspect of their daily lives, they have become more tech-savvy and more demanding. 53% of mobile website visitors will leave if a webpage does not load within three seconds. Given that mobile devices (excluding tablets) generated 50.81 percent of global website traffic, the statistics indicate that website performance and page load speeds are vital.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a proven solution to enhance any website, web application, or API service’s speed and performance. Caching static content across a globally distributed network, a CDN improves page load times and other factors that influence site performance. As it delivers content to the end-user from the closest possible node, it reduces the load time while improving the overall performance and user experience.
Unexpected Business Benefits of Using a CDN
Since its commercial launch in the mid-nineties, the Internet has become a core component of the global economy. What started as a commodity has quickly become an essential utility for individuals, organizations, and even nation-states. The exponential increase in cloud service consumption and the rise of mobile devices have created a digital ecosystem that fuels the global economy. One only needs to look at the impact the NotPetya Ransomware incident had on international commerce to see how reliant we have become on online services. The side effect of this reliance on digital platforms is that we have come to demand specific performance benchmarks from the sites and services we use.
Enhance User Experience
One unexpected business benefit of using a CDN is that it improves the user experience of a particular site or service. As it decreases the page load speeds and enhances a site or service’s performance, it reduces the bounce rate and delivers the responsiveness users demand of modern apps. The speed of a website is also directly related to the confidence customers have in a particular brand. Users perceive a slow, bloated web application as inefficient and poorly maintained. As this impacts your brand’s credibility, visitors would be reluctant to share personal details or billing information. By subscribing to a CDN service, you can improve the user experience by enhancing your website’s speed and performance. Not only will this improve the responsiveness of your site, but it will also strengthen its credibility, a critical requirement for any enterprise selling products and services online.
Improve Conversion Rate
Another unexpected business benefit of using a CDN is that it can help you achieve your marketing goals. No matter your website’s purpose, whether it be creating awareness, selling a product or service, or driving a particular campaign, subscribing to a CDN can facilitate achieving your goals. A faster site increases the conversion rate, reduces the bounce rate, and enhances online e-commerce revenues. As rapid page load speeds decrease the negative factors affecting online credibility, they facilitate a platform where users are more willing to share personal data and billing information.
Enhance Search Engine Optimization
Enhancing Search Engine Optimization is another unexpected benefit of subscribing to a CDN service. As mentioned, search engines such as Google rank sites with faster load times higher than those that take longer to render their first page. Another indirect factor that drives a higher SEO ranking is a better user experience. If we consider Google’s Core Web Vitals, the metrics measured reward a fast loading site that rapidly and efficiently renders the relevant page elements. Subscribing to a CDN service offers this unexpected business benefit as it allows a website operator to prioritize and enhance the performance of their critical web assets.
Unexpected Business Benefits Drive Marketing, Sales, and Conversion
There are several advantages to using a CDN. Faster page load speeds improve the user experience and improve SEO ranking. However, these factors lead to unexpected business benefits as they reduce bounce rate, increase conversion, and enhance credibility.