Q&A with Kareem Ghanie of NetDNA, A Tier-1 Content Delivery Network (CDN) for Ecommerce Merchants
Increasing site speed is of major concern for retailers trying to decrease bounce rates and increase conversions on their site. We sat down with a company that does just that: NetDNA.
A CDN helps websites source their data in servers closer to the consumer’s computer to increase that user’s page load time. This also helps increase conversion rates [Why? Click here]. Below we asked Kareem Ghanie, Director of Demand Generation for NetDNA (right), a few questions to help retailers get familiar with CDNs and NetDNA’s solutions.
Describe the NetDNA Platform in 140 characters or less:
NetDNA uses cutting-edge technology to run a lean infrastructure while providing a robust network; we also offer innovative web services.
What exactly is a ‘Tier-1’ Content Delivery Network?
The term “Tier-1” is in reference to a vendor that has favorable presence both domestically and internationally and is widely used by many companies. Tier-1 vendors can be comprised of service providers and resellers. For example, there are a handful of Tier-1 CDN vendors like Akamai and Limelight, also NetDNA is regarded as one of the main players among Tier-1 vendors in content delivery. Tier-1 vendors may also be a vendor that supplies products and features to clients at competitive prices or other reasonable terms.
Tier-1 Content Delivery Network means that a network has points of presence (PoP’s) located world-wide and has a refined routing methodology. Having PoP’s located world-wide will allow users to serve the content on their website faster, from anywhere in the world. Having a sophisticated global network architecture allows the transfer of information to happen in an intelligent way by using the BGP based AnyCast DNS routing system. The way that AnyCast DNS routing works is that it transfers your information globally by assessing which PoP location is closest to the end user while calculating which location is serving content the fastest. This technology assures that the websites content is being served from a close location and in a quick manner.
A Tier-1 Content Delivery Network has complete ownership of the racks that store the hardware at the points of presence world-wide. All of NetDNA’s edge locations that are globally located are owned by NetDNA and have complete control over the hardware and its uses. This allows us to implement new features quickly while maintaining a lean infrastructure.
Tier-1 Content Delivery Networks like NetDNA do not allow for a Pay-As-You Go payment model because NetDNA allows the development of custom integrations and solutions for their clients.
How Does NetDNA help ecommerce retailers?
NetDNA helps ecommerce retailers by providing reliable up time on their sites and ensures that their website content is being delivered to the end user as fast as possible. Other ways that we help ecommerce retailers is by providing fast loading websites which results in higher placement on Google’s ranking and results, this will help increase the conversions and visibility of the retailers website.
At what size does it make sense for an ecommerce merchant to start looking at solutions like NetDNA?
NetDNA makes the most sense for any company that uses above five terabytes of monthly bandwidth usage on their current web infrastructure. NetDNA supports any size client that meets that criteria, whether its a big, medium or small ecommerce retailer. We have seen the most success in web performance with clients that use above five terabytes. NetDNA offers many innovative features like EdgeSSL which is an intelligent, easy and fast way to deliver secure web assets to end users. NetDNA makes sense for any ecommerce merchant that wants to scale their website at a reasonable cost and have access to enterprise level features.
Why does site speed matter for eCommerce Merchants?
eCommerce Merchants rely on the delivery speed of their website contents to reach their audiences quickly. A study conducted by Amazon has shown that for every 100MS of improvement in webpage load time, there was a 1% increase in revenue. Some added benefits to having a fast loading site for eCommerce Merchants are the high Google rankings you can achieve. Google ranks websites higher when they load faster, so if your site loads faster than your competitors your site will be shown at a higher slot on Google’s search results, which means better click-through rates. It is crucial to save milliseconds on web page load time in order to have an advantage. Here are some additional benefits to having a faster loading website; Lower Adwords/PPC costs, Higher conversions and Increased revenues.
What kind of improvements in conversion rate have you seen from decreasing load times on an eCommerce website?
Out of the many ecommerce customers that NetDNA services, we have seen some dramatic results in performance and conversion rates with our clients. TemplateMonster.com, one of our many ecommerce clients, have allowed us to review their website before they were considering a CDN. We have found that there was much room for improvement if they implemented a CDN to their site.
After TemplateMonster.com implemented NetDNA’s content delivery network they have seen results of a 200% boost in their webpage performance which reduced their load time significantly. According to a study that Shopzilla conducted on page load times, it’s been proven that after reducing page load time by 5 seconds they have increased their revenue by 7 – 12%. These are a few of many examples I have seen revolving around improvements on conversion rates.
Do you guys have any typical site speed increases you could throw out there for retailers that use your service?
Thanks for the quick response, To be honest there are too many variables to consider, but compared to other Tier-1 networks you can typically see a plus or minus 5% difference in performance based on location. Some Tier-1 CDN’s may be faster in some locations and NetDNA is faster in others. The difference from a client that pushes their content from their origin server to the end user versus using a CDN can typically see a 3x – 10x increase in performance.
How easy is it for a merchant implement a content delivery network for their eCommerce website?
Integrating NetDNA to your eCommerce site is not hard at all. NetDNA already has many plug-ins that integrate with many CMS systems like PrestaShop, Joomla, Magento and many more. This ensures that your integration will be a breeze and this process literally takes less than 5 minutes. We support all kinds of CMS systems like WordPress. We also support many large eCommerce systems like PrestaShop and Drupal, but not only do we support the major systems, we also support many other CMS systems so implementation is still not a problem. We pride ourselves in making CDN integrations easy for everyone; implementation should never be difficult to do and should not give anyone a headache.
How can a merchant get started with working with NetDNA to get a content network deployed for their website?
We here at NetDNA understand that every ecommerce site has different needs or specific custom solutions that are needed. The first step I would recommend is to talk to one of our Content Delivery Experts and see how we can customize a solution to fit your business by emailing [email protected]. Individuals can also see step-by-step instructions on the implementation of a CDN by visiting here: http://support.netdna.com/knowledgebase/custom/
Another way that businesses can get started on deploying a CDN to their site is that they can visit NetDNA’s site to gather more information and get started on implementing a CDN within a few minutes. We have many different ways that businesses can deploy a CDN and make it very simple to get started.
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