One way of speeding up response time of your blog is by putting your static content (e.g. CSS, Javascript, images) on a content delivery network or CDN such as Akamai, Amazon’s CloudFront, and SimpleCDN.
What is a CDN?
A CDN usually consists of servers in data centers, scattered all around the globe, that serve or provide the static content from your website or blog. They use various kinds of technologies to determine the closest server that can provide the static content. It revolves around the idea–the “closer” you are to the source, the faster the download will be.
How does your static content end up in their servers?
So, how does your static content end up in their servers? They do this by a process called “cacheing” (pronounced as ca-shing). When you request a static object from your site, it copies the file and stores it on their server. The next time you or someone else requests for the same file, it will served from their servers and not from your website.
What are the benefits of using a CDN?
There are plenty of benefits for using a CDN but the major benefit is speed. Since your readers are fetching content from a server closest to them, the result is a perceived speed increase. Yahoo! reports that they were able to achieve 20% end-user response time as a result of deploying their static content on a CDN.
SimpleCDN is giving away $15 FREE to get you started
I was able to get a free $15 service from SimpleCDN just by signing up. After signing up, all you have to do is to create a Lightning bucket, enter the URL of your WordPress blog, download the plugin MyCDN from Yejun Yang, fill in the information, and voila! You’re static files are now served from SimpleCDN.
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