The Need for Speed: Using a Trusted Private Cloud Server for Your Site
In a world where fast service and technology are not only desired but expected, studies show that businesses who cannot accommodate this for their customers will continue to lose them. This is why faces scrunch up when someone takes too long to serve up an order a fast food restaurant, and it’s probably also the reason why a slow website loses out to the competition. A February 29, 2012 article from The New York Times provides more information:
Remember when you were willing to wait a few seconds for a computer to respond to a click on a Web site or a tap on a keyboard? These days, even 400 milliseconds — literally the blink of an eye — is too long, as Google engineers have discovered. That barely perceptible delay causes people to search less.
People will visit a Web site less often if it is slower than a close competitor by more than 250 milliseconds (a millisecond is a thousandth of a second).
… speed matters in every context, research shows. Four out of five online users will click away if a video stalls while loading.
Allowing a literal fraction of a second to dictate the success of your website may sound harsh, but the customer is always right. If it’s speed they want, then it’s speed they should get. Fortunately, flooring your website’s accelerator is fairly simple. Some of the ways you can try include:
The Power of Caching
Create cached versions of your website whenever possible. When cached versions of a site are present, most search engines will serve the cached pages to site visitors, substantially decreasing loading time.
No Expiration Date
Most websites store files in a person’s computer to help the site load faster the next time he or she visits the site. However, these files are automatically set to expire after 24 hours. Of course, you can change the expiration date in the file header to make it last longer. You can even opt to remove the expiration date altogether.
Private Server
If you’re using a shared server, know that the server hosting your site is hosting thousands upon thousands of other sites. When all these sites are accessed by thousands of people at the same time, web traffic jams occur and the loading time ramps up. To avoid that, you can have a trusted private cloud server host your site.
With a private server, an entire server is dedicated to your site. This significantly decreases wait times of any kind for your visitors. If you decide to go with a private server, be sure to work only with reputable cloud service providers like Ripple Web.
(Source: For Impatient Web Users, an Eye Blink Is Just Too Long to Wait; The New York Times; February 29, 2012)
