This article discusses 10 CDN SEO tips to boost your website rankings and includes a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) at the end.
CDN SEO Tips to Boost Your Rankings
If there’s one thing that a user expects from a website, it is a better experience. Many factors go into building a website. Right from designing to execution, there are plenty of steps that a brand oversees to ensure a seamless user experience for its visitors. But sometimes, they could be compromised for various reasons.
CDN or a Content Delivery Network can help build better websites. It is a group of networking systems spread geographically and host your websites to ensure faster load time. Imagine it to be more like a storage box that stores all the recent and the most-viewed information and shows it to others in a much lesser load time when they view it. Here are 10 CDN SEO tips to boost your rankings.
Tip #1: Maintain Consistency in Your File Name and Path
The most common internet error is 404, which is also the most dreaded. This is due to a variety of factors. One of these could be file naming inconsistency.
Sticking to file naming rules is usually preferable and appreciated. Whether your CDN is hosted on your domain or a subdomain of your CDN provider, make sure the naming path is consistent. It could cause issues on your page and hurt your SEO if it’s different.
Tip #2: Page Speed & CDN
The time your website’s pages load is critical, affecting everything from bounce rate to time spent on the site (dwell time), conversion rates, and the overall user experience. While a CDN can significantly improve your website’s speed, it’s vital to understand that it’s not a wand.
It sends your assets in the same order as they appear on your website. This means that there may be delays even if you have a lot of render-blocking resources.
Render-blocking resources are assets like JavaScript and CSS that block the DOM and prevent the webpage from rendering until the browser downloads and processes them.
This is something that a CDN will not help you with. This is something that needs to be resolved on your origin server.
See how we Yahoo has optimized its website to load in less than 2 seconds.
Tip #3: A Secure CDN Provider Is the Key
You don’t want to compromise your site’s security while optimizing its speed. Furthermore, Google gives preferences to secure websites. Many enterprises use antivirus and Firewall security standards to ensure visitors have a safe website experience.
And so, when it comes to CDN, it works as a plus point. Using a better CDN network helps improve your security one step higher.
Furthermore, they are masters in combating DDoS attacks caused by malicious software.
Your CDN diverts a considerable portion of your server traffic. This lowers the chances of a server failure during peak traffic periods.
Tip #4: Define the Pages You Want to Save on the CDN
Google bots do not wait for pages that are slow and nor do visitors. That’s why page speed must be given the utmost importance. You cannot expect a customer to wait until your page loads, which can result in an increased bounce rate.
Some think hosting the entire website on a secure CDN is the best practice. But in reality, it is always a better practice to cache the most visited pages on your site.
The response time of these pages is significantly reduced when hosted on a CDN. Instead of the main server, these pages are downloaded from the nearest CDN server. You can change the HTTP header to specify how long the CDN will keep these pages.
Tip #5: Make the Best Use of Image Optimization Capabilities
Images greatly impact what you are trying to convey to your website visitors. No one would prefer buying from a website with no product images.
A company uses images to show what they are as a team and a brand.
People often make decisions based on what they say, in this case, the images on a website. High-definition images are often heavy in size and take considerably longer to load.
This is where you can make the best use of CDN. The CDN offers a variety of picture formats and compression ratio options. As a result, pictures are already optimized whenever your page is delivered through a CDN server.
On the other hand, image optimization via CDN is limited to pages cached on the CDN. Additionally, the pages housed on the main server may still require optimization. And so, if you have images on other servers that are not hosted by a CDN, you should ensure that they are optimized.
We also recommend you use online image compression websites to reduce image file sizes.
Tip #6: Don’t Miss Out on the Search Console
Use Google Search Console to ensure your geographical location is picked right and fine-tuned. It doesn’t matter if your CDN provider’s IP address differs from your default location.
This step ensures the search engines target only those locations you intend to and do not pick anything randomly. Search engines prefer websites hosted locally, which is a known fact. It’s simple to set up and verify your CDN subdomain in GWT.
Depending on your needs, it lets you remove or block individual URLs (pre-CDN or post-CDN). Following the Google Webmaster guidelines for geo-targeting basics eliminates inconsistencies in SEO goals and adds value to your localized SEO efforts.
Tip #7: Add Rel=Canonical Tags Without Fail
Using the rel=canonical tag ensures there is no duplication of content pages. Usually, when you host a website page on a CDN, it stores the cache to ensure the page speed is on point for someone visiting the website.
However, if you host the entire site on a content delivery network, you can run into a duplicate content problem. Using rel=Canonical tags will help you save time and prevent any page from facing duplication.
Tip #8: Ensuring a Backup Through CDN
CDN has a caching mechanism that ensures that your website is always available so customers can review it anytime and from anywhere. Companies using multiple CDN networks to host their pages and websites are at a better edge in giving the best experience to their visitors.
This helps because when one CDN server goes down, the backend automatically redirects them to another CDN server on which the website is hosted. This ensures a seamless experience for the visitor.
Tip #9: Make All of Your Versions the Same
Use the best of CDN for your SEO gain by employing canonical headers and caching algorithms. It ensures that all versions of your websites are the same across all servers and locations. Effective configuring CDN provides consistency, which is critical for SEO.
Tip #10: Take Control of Your Locally Hosted Websites
Websites that are hosted locally are SEO’s closest friends. To modify your geographical target, use webmaster tools like Google or Bing.
If you don’t set up your subdomain, the search engines will automatically target and redirect to the CDN provider’s location rather than yours. Make the most of your CDN by properly configuring it to take advantage of the local market.
CDN SEO Frequently Asked Questions
Is CDN Good for SEO?
CDN helps enhance the user experience for any visitor that comes to your website. It helps you index your pages for a faster and better view, even if it is heavy in text. CDN is very cost-effective and boosts page loading speed when set upright.
I Already Have My Page Optimized. Do I Still Need a CDN for SEO?
Even if you have optimized your pages, a few things could still use the help of a CDN to ensure the best experience. For example, sites with high traffic, like an e-commerce site, work great when it’s on a CDN. Security is another reason you should have your website hosted on a CDN, even though you have them all optimized.
What Are Some of the Best CDN SEO Tips to Follow?
- Inquire with your CDN provider about installing the CDN on a subdomain of your website. This method ensures that the SEO value of your CDN-hosted pages is passed on to your domain.
- For your CDN subdomain, use the same file naming conventions. There will be no 404 errors or superfluous redirections due to this.
- Using Google and Bing webmaster tools, define your target location. It tells search engines where you want to rank, or it can use the location of your CDN as your target location.
How Does a CDN Optimize Images?
The best part about CDN is that it works as a cache enabling better loading speed for high-definition images. CDN compresses the image files on your website while ensuring no compromise on quality. These help load pages faster and hence provide a better user experience.
Final Thoughts: 10 Highly Effective CDN SEO Tips to Boost Your Rankings
For more SEO and marketing suggestions, take a look at the articles 10 Things to Include in Your Small Business Marketing Strategies, How to Take Advantage of Schema Markup for Improved SEO Strategies, and How to Fix a Broken SEO Campaign by Optimizing Content.