As you build your online presence, the last thing that is probably on your mind is how to build a faster website. The truth is that where your site ranks in Google has a lot to do with the speed of your site. SEO companies have recently began to look into a variety of different ways to build a faster website to improve search rankings for their clients. One such way is through the use of a CDN or Content Delivery Network. In this post we will discuss what a CDN actually is and how to go about using one for your web site.
What Is A CDN?
Most web design companies have heard of CDN’s, but few consumers understand exactly what they are. A CDN enables you to build a faster website through using a server setup that allows for the efficient delivery of your media content. CDN’s typically have a wide network of servers distributed throughout the world that allows your content to be served to your users based on their physical location. This can significantly reduce the overall speed of your website. A CDN simply takes your most resource intensive files (typically videos and images) and moves them to an ultrafast server network to be served to your user. MaxCDN is one of the more popular CDN’s on the market due to their low price and easy setup.
How To Use MaxCDN to Build a Faster Website
MaxCDN is one of the largest CDN’s on the market today and is used by countless website and graphic design firms to build quicker, more responsive websites. The process to signup with MaxCDN is surprisingly easy. Once you decide which plan you would like, you simply signup for an account and then begin setup. MaxCDN offers 4 main monthly plans which are outlined below:
- 100 GB Monthly Plan – This plan costs only $9 per month and is MaxCDN’s cheapest plan. It gives you 100GB worth of data transfer and allows you to connect 2 websites to your account.
- 500 GB Monthly Plan – This plan costs $39 per month. It provides 500GB worth of monthly data transfer and allows you to connect 3 websites per account.
- 1TB Monthly Plan – This plan costs $79 per month and along with 1TB of data transfer, you can connect up to 5 websites to your account.
- 5TB Monthly Plan – This plan costs $299 per month and provides 5TB of data transfer to be used with 7 websites.
Once your account is setup, MaxCDN has very robust support resources that can walk you through connecting your MaxCDN account to your web site. Since most web sites are powered by a CMS such as WordPress, Drupal, or Joomla, MaxCDN offers easy to understand directions to enable your MaxCDN account with these CMS platforms. MaxCDN offers a plugins page which allows you to see how to install plugins for the major CMS providers.
The top WordPress plugins to be used with MaxCDN are W3 Total Cache and WP Super Cache. Links to the step by step directions to connect your MaxCDN account to your WordPress web site are below:
Should you still have questions, you can contact MaxCDN support at 877-629-2361 to learn how to build a faster website.
How to Test The Speed of Your Website Before and After MaxCDN
Before utilizing MaxCDN, it is a good idea to get a baseline reading of the speed of your site. There is a tool called Pingdom which allows you to analyze the speed of your website for FREE! Simply enter your website address and see how fast your site loads prior to using MaxCDN. After signing up and connecting MaxCDN to your website, you should run another speed test and see a huge difference.
Ready to Build a Faster Website? Contact Savior Image Web Design
Savior Image Web Design is a leading design firm focused on building responsive web sites that are both incredibly fast as well as pleasing to the eye. Contact our team today at 586-524-8255 to setup a free no obligation consultation with one of our website design consultants.
