It's no secret that content is one of the most important aspects of a company website. The topic of the content is important, but you also have to worry about the tone and the way the content is written, the format of the content, the look of the content in relation to the page, how you're going to market that content, if the content is SEO optimized, and how you're going to analyze that content once it's live. This is where a content delivery network, or CDN, comes into play.
How CDN and SEO Work Together
For those who are unfamiliar, a CDN is a network that works to get content to the end-user faster and more efficiently. Below lists a few ways a CDN can help give your SEO campaign the boost that it needs:
- Hosting Benefits. This might very well be the biggest benefit in terms of SEO. When using a CDN, your website will actually be copied to different servers all across the world. Most websites are hosted on one web server in one specific location (potentially across the world), but with a CDN your information can be served from something closer, which can help improve your global reach.
- Response Times Improved. Google loves to see sites with a good load time, and a CDN will help make this happen. Because a CDN is hosted closer to you and your readers, download times are improved and you can be sure that any transaction that is made is made quickly and correctly (no time-outs).
- Walks You Through SEO Tips. Many CDNs will walk you through some of the SEO steps you should take when trying to optimize content and images. This makes it easier to create content ready for search engine bots because you don't have to remember everything on your own or analyze anything on your own. The CDN will optimize style sheets, files, and help you make SEO decisions.
Aside from just SEO benefits, there are other benefits that come with using a CDN such as cost. Without a CDN you may need to pay a good deal of money for foreign hosting so that your readers will have a good experience, but a CDN will help keep your content hosted around the world. CDNs can also offer analytic information to help you find trends amongst the readers of your content.
Popular CDN Choices for Small Businesses
Below are some of the most popular CDN networks today; however it's important that you always do your research when it comes to a CDN. Not all are created equal, and many have different features, so decide what is most important to your company first. A few choices include:
- MaxCDN. This has been one of the most popular networks for many years, and you'll find that when you visit the website this network is full of information. Any questions you have about their services and about CDNs in general are all answered right on the homepage. They know what they're doing, and they advertise that their users get access to over 90 countries through their global network.
- CacheFly. Top Ten Reviews rated this the number 1 best CDN in 2013. Some of the features include up to 10x performance increase, lower bandwidth costs, and real-time detailed reported just to name a few.
- Bitgravity. This CDN focuses on video and live streaming to users. If your company is very involved in video, this might be the CDN for you.
In the end, CDNs are all about load time and reaching a larger audience. It's less expensive than any other option if you're hoping to become a company with a global audience, and getting started will only take you about ten minutes.