Ten Reasons a Website Needs a CDN

Today’s website visitors expect a fast and efficient user experience with no delays or site performance issues. However, high traffic volumes and global reaching websites mean website managers are faced with the challenge of added latency and slow page load times, which can result in lost business. According to WebSiteBuilderExpert.com, 1 in 4 site visitors would abandon a website that takes more than 4 seconds to load. And 46% of site visitors do not revisit poorly performing websites, according to Unbounce.com. A strong Content Delivery Network (CDN) is critical for website managers and businesses that rely on their websites for success, and here are ten reasons why.

• Improve your engagement

Faster site speed times and more responsive websites bring results in more conversions. As little as a one-second delay in page load time can reduce customer satisfaction by 16%.

• Slow page load times

According to Unbounce, ‘Nearly 70% of consumers admit that page speed influences their likelihood to buy. Not only have slow page load times become unacceptable to website visitors, but it is also one of the most high-ranking factors in search engine optimization. 

• Large files and content slowing your site down

Large files and content will inevitably slow down your site and impact performance. A CDN will use caching, compression, and content optimization to reduce the file size and bandwidth usage to reverse the negative impact on your site’s speed. 

• Out-of-date content

Out-of-date content can be misleading as well as off-putting for potential customers. CDN advanced caching policies and techniques, such as Cache Purge, will ensure that dynamic content is kept fresh and up to date. 

• Prevent downtime

Website downtime, whether due to a cyber attack or a spike in traffic to your site, is hugely frustrating for customers, not to mention the hundreds of millions of dollars in recovery time and lost business it costs organizations every year. Website downtime can be prevented with the right security and application performance measures.

• Inadequate geographical reach

While international site visitors may have no problems bringing up your website, they may have performance issues caused by the location of your server. Implementing a CDN bypasses this problem by locating the content closer to the website user. 

• Improve Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Regarding SEO, page load time is a very important factor. Google is said to prioritize speed when ranking search results [Search Engine Journal], giving fast sites an advantage over sites that take longer to load. By optimizing your website with a CDN, you are optimizing your online search ranking. 

• Manage peaks in traffic volumes

With the internet, you never know when you will experience a spike in traffic to your website. When this happens, your website needs to be ready to manage the peak without disrupting the normal performance. Using Imperva CDN helps you avoid this issue by ensuring business continuity with load-balancing techniques and its virtual Waiting Room functionality. 

• Scalability and lower costs

With Imperva, much of your content is cached on edge servers, taking the load off the origin server and lowering overall bandwidth usage to reduce costs. Since a large portion of traffic is routed through the CDN, your website can manage and scale much more easily. 

• Security

No amount of content optimization, low latency, or high performance will protect your website against the latest security threats. Using a CDN that combines security and performance is the best option to increase the resilience of your website and ensure a fast and secure experience for your customers. 

Imperva CDN comes built into a single-stack security platform combining WAF & API (WAAP) Security, DDoS Mitigation, and Advanced Bot protection to offer the best in speed, performance, and resilience when delivering your applications across the globe. Discover more about the advantages of Imperva CDN, here.