Understanding the Importance of Site Speed in Ecommerce
Why should you care about how quickly your ecommerce site loads. Well, a big chunk of people shopping online will abandon a cart if it takes too long to load. If youâve ever waited for something to load and then just gave up and left, you probably understand the frustration. It seems thereâs no coming back from a slow site.
The longer it takes, the more likely they are to leave and not return. Itâs entirely possible that a sluggish website can ruin a businessâ reputation before itâs even started. An ecommerce platform has just one job - help customers find and buy what theyâre looking for.
If people are stuck waiting for the next page to load, thereâs no guarantee theyâll be patient enough to go through with their transaction. If it takes less than 2 seconds for an online store to load, it can make all the difference between converting a visitor into a customer and them exiting out because they simply canât be bothered to wait anymore. Sort of. Most people searching online donât have the time or patience for slow loading pages and really who can blame them.
Nobody wants to deal with frustratingly long wait times when there are other options with faster access. A lot of successful ecommerce platforms make sure this is never an issue by optimising their websites so customers stay happy at every step. Some do this by including content delivery networks (CDN) which could help your business thrive in more ways than one.
What is a CDN and How Does It Work?
Do you ever wonder how some online shops load lightning-fast even when they're not based in Australia. Enter the CDN â a behind-the-scenes hero for global ecommerce. If youâre not familiar, the term stands for Content Delivery Network.
Feels Like you could see it as a clever web of servers, quietly working around the globe to speed up page loads by delivering content from the nearest possible location. Instead of your websiteâs images or product pages making a massive trip from a single server (maybe one located overseas), the CDN essentially creates copies of this data and scatters them across different geographical locations. They call this process caching, which is somewhat sort of like having mini versions of your shop strategically placed in multiple cities. When someone tries to access your store, the CDN grabs what they need from the closest server.
The result. Faster load times and less frustrating waiting, no matter where your customers might be. Youâre probably wondering why all this matters so much. Well, speed can be the difference between a sale and an abandoned cart.
People are impatient online â they donât want to wait longer than a few seconds for images or product details to load. With a CDN in play, you remove most of those delays and that means better shopping experiences. Itâs hard to overstate the value this brings to ecommerce but it seems like some brands still arenât aware this tech exists â let alone how accessible it can be with platforms like Shopify or BigCommerce.
It doesnât usually take much to set up but Iâve heard stories of stores doubling their checkout rates after switching over. Maybe that was because they were really slow before but still - dramatic change either way. And while the actual technology isnât new anymore, itâs still evolving at a rapid pace thanks to more people moving online post-pandemic - so thereâs even more reason to jump on board now if you havenât already tried it out for yourself.
Choosing the Right CDN for Your Ecommerce Platform
How often do you browse online and realise that the page speed can be all over the place. Sometimes it feels like youâre stuck in the dial-up era, and sometimes itâs like youâve been shot out of a cannon (in a good way).
If youâre running an ecommerce platform, you know exactly what Iâm talking about. But why does that happen. Content delivery networks are all about smooth site performance.
They keep your ecommerce platformâs lights on, so people can shop at any time. Some CDN providers have big features, and others are a bit more conservative - it all comes down to how much traffic youâre expecting and what it is you need from a CDN. Some are better at providing security features or advanced cache control, while others are great for seamless integration with your existing tech stack.
To be honest, before picking a CDN provider for your online platform, you should probably define your budget. Sort of. You might not think thatâs really important but look - some services can reportedly be kind of expensive.
If you canât afford your CDN, then it doesnât matter if theyâre the fastest one out there because your site isnât up in the first place. It seems like the best way to figure this out is to get a feel for whoâs out there. Try each one out if they have free trial periods and see what works with your existing system, as well as how responsive they are.
CDNs are kind of like dating apps - thereâs going to be someone out there for you who might not work for everyone else.
Optimizing Images for Faster Load Times
Ever found yourself completely hooked on the product images on a site, only to be left hanging as they load at glacial pace. Annoying, isnât it. That dreaded waiting period that adds up and has customers bouncing before ever hitting âadd to cartâ.
Turns out, the quality of product images play a pivotal role in catching their attention, but if those images take too long to load, you might end up losing a sale. Product photos can either make or break your e-commerce storeâs conversion rate because while most people shopping online are a bit on the impatient side, you can guarantee that all of them are looking for clear and comprehensive detail in what theyâre about to buy. While it seems like larger sized image files would translate well into beautiful, high-quality visuals on your site, they just become a rather big ask when loading your site and prompt users to leave.
Having CDN servers optimised for your site ensures two things: crisp, clear imagery and faster loading times. Seems like a win-win situation. Having stellar images on your e-commerce site is great in all honesty, but if it is slowing down site performance - whatâs the point.
Itâs time to try something different by reducing the size of these images so they load faster. More or less. There is no right answer when it comes to what size images need to be resized too as this depends almost entirely on whatâs being sold but there are formats that do tend to work better online in order of popularity: JPEGs, PNGs and WebP.
These help you compress high-quality images without compromising quality and increasing site speed. The thing about scaling down image size is more or less that inevitably some quality will be sacrificed - there is no way around it. But working with an experienced content delivery network provider will allow you to have both smaller sized, higher quality imagery onsite.
Implementing Caching Strategies with Your CDN
Is the quest for speed never-ending or what. The fast-paced world of ecommerce leaves no room for tardy websites. A crucial aspect to keeping your siteâs performance up to par is hardly ever ensuring youâve implemented the right caching strategies. At its core, caching refers to the process of storing frequently requested data in a temporary storage space so it can be quickly retrieved when needed.
This cuts down on the time it takes for a website to load and the load on your web servers. Using a content delivery network (CDN) enhances this process by distributing the cached content across multiple locations worldwide, ensuring visitors from all corners of the globe enjoy lightning-fast loading speeds. Different CDN providers have their own methods of implementing caching, but they all share the same goal - deliver content with as little friction as possible.
It seems like cache control headers are used to specify how long content should be stored in the cache before it is considered stale and needs to be refreshed. These headers include directives such as "max-age", "s-maxage", "public", and "private". By specifying these directives, you can presumably instruct the CDN on how to handle your content, such as how long to cache it and who can access it.
Generally, static assets such as images, stylesheets, and JavaScript files can be cached for longer periods since they rarely change. On the other hand, dynamic content such as HTML pages and user-specific data should be cached for shorter durations or not at all. One important thing to keep in mind when implementing caching strategies with your CDN is cache purging or invalidation.
This refers to removing outdated or obsolete content from the cache so that users are always served fresh and relevant content. This can be done manually through your CDN provider's dashboard or automatically using purge requests triggered by specific events, such as content updates or new product launches. With a robust caching strategy in place, you can guarantee your ecommerce platform delivers swift site speed and a smooth user experience for all visitors.
Monitoring Performance and Making Adjustments
Ever wondered why some ecommerce sites load in the blink of an eye, while others keep you drumming your fingers on the table. For every smooth-as-butter experience, there's a committed team peeking under the hood and tweaking things to keep the speed up. Because monitoring your content delivery network isnât a one-and-done affair. Itâs fairly important to have a systematic approach.
I think there are two ways to go about it - quick surface checks and detailed deep dives. Quick checks can be very handy because youâre sort of keeping an eye on your customers' everyday experience on your website. You donât always need a ton of technical knowledge for this, though it helps.
More or less. Itâs mostly about checking if everything is fairly running as expected - how fast is the site loading. Are there any visual elements that are stalling.
Deep dives, in comparison, can be done through both internal and external testing tools. Most ecommerce platforms have easy-to-use performance reports that show you metrics like bounce rates, session times, traffic sources etc. These can be a great place to start if youâre trying to understand whatâs going wrong with your site performance. The way I see it, third-party platforms, often free ones, will give you a neat visual snapshot of your siteâs performance across devices and locations - which is sort of essential for ecommerce businesses today.
You want your site loading consistently well for everyone everywhere, donât you. More or less. Once you know what needs fixing and why, this is when you make those adjustments. But before you do - youâll want to set up reports for yourself to see whether these changes made any difference to your site speed and customer experience at all.
So it seems like fixing things is rarely mostly about monitoring things first.