Why Developers May Want to Start Using Image CDNs
As an experienced developer team at HireIndianProgrammers, we have been taking up diverse web development assignments from clients for over a decade. Some of these clients even come back with more projects, a testimony to our service delivery and quality. For any website with the mandate of improving customer engagement and footfalls and thereby sales, performance and speed of the website are important driving forces. There are components of the website that affects performance like JavaScript and media – images, audio, video etc. Images, by far, are the critical affecting component of page load times. Of late, we have been receiving projects from niche start-ups particularly in the e-commerce sector and small business segment. This only furthers the cause for uploading more high quality images on the website.
Therefore, there arises a need to balance performance with content accessibility/quality.With the emergence of smartphones of varying sizes, there is also the need for content optimisation. Any website taking more than 3 seconds to load can frustrate users. So how can images be optimised? Well, there is the manual way – resizing all the images of the website. But more often than not, it is impractical to adopt such a mechanism, given the huge volume of images at the client’s disposal. They surely cannot compromise on the number or quality of images, given their business depends on it. This is the basis for Image CDNs (Content Delivery Networks). In this blogpost, we make a case for Image CDN – the what and when and how to use it.
So when can a developer use Image CDN?
- Client’s website suffers from sluggish performance (high load times)
- Client’s website is largely composed of images
- There is a need to regularly add images
- Client caters to multiple geographical markets
- Customers using low grade mobile networks
What is behind the working of Image CDN? Image CDNs contribute to website performance by working on the following – a) Detecting the customer device, b) automated image compression/ optimisation based on the device configuration, c) global integrated delivery network. When a user visits the client’s website, a request is sent to the nearby server where the device’s configuration and capabilities – OS version (Android or iOS), Pixel resolution, image format support – is assessed after which the requested image is searched from the server’s cache. Either the image is readily delivered or optimised for the device, based on availability.
Image Compression and optimisation are done using a specialised algorithm. However, clients may fret over loss of image quality. Fortunately, with Image CDN, only extraneous details are removed and the image qualifies well enough for the naked eye. Based on the software present on the device and browser used by the user, the Image CDN will select the most efficient image file format – jpeg, WebP, PNG and so on. If the customer is from another country, then Image CDNs get the cached image from the nearest server to the user and deliver the same, thereby ensuring speed at any place.
Clients catering to diverse customers in different locations may want to hire a PHP developer who understands the power of Image CDNs. For further queries with regard to hiring our developers, get in touch by writing to us. We will get back to you as soon as possible.
Enhancing UX with Weatherstacks API
Weatherstacks is a popular Application Program Interface that is used by many clients and businesses, especially those selling weather relevant products or hosting weather oriented events like marathons, bicycle riding events. In recent times, the market is flooded with events and experiences and people have very much taken to the idea of hosting or accessing such events online. This includes but is not limited to booking tickets and making reservations. In such business cases, weather plays an important role and it makes absolute sense to inform the customers of the current weather conditions wherever such events are happening. Not only events, even weather related products like smart bands and sunscreens can make use of Weatherstacks. As proclaimed by the software itself, Weatherstacks is a real-time and historical world weather data API that is endorsed by more than 75000 companies including the likes of Microsoft, Deloitte etc.
Elevated UX
Clients in the event management business looking to hire a dedicated php developer can deliberate on deploying Weatherstacks API on their websites. The basic idea is that clients tailor their offerings based on the seasons. In fact, that makes for a subtle and smart user experience – knowing the customer needs as per the current season – thereby increasing the end sales indirectly. In this respect, automation is the way to go as envisioned by Weatherstacks, especially if the client is catering to multiple geographies. With the API providing forecast data up to 14 days, clients can confidently and smartly do business under any weather.
Here’s a scenario to better understand about the usefulness of tweaking products according to season. Imagine a client handling a food delivery app with operations in multiple cities. Many cities mean different weather conditions – temperature, humidity and precipitation. With the help of Weatherstacks API forecast data, clients can display different food cravings as per the weather in that particular city. Even within a city, where weather conditions are likely to change in short intervals, businesses can display either ice-creams or hot spicy noodles or pastries. In the process, the client is successfully pulling in more customers for the long term.
Why Weatherstack?
The API sources data from some of the world’s largest weather stations which shows that its credibility is unquestionable. In addition to that, having access up to 14 days of weather data is a boon for companies looking to hire a php developer to build upon it subsequently, in their efforts to attract more customers, retain existing ones and expand the scope of the business. In fact, we are confident that clients can get more ideas as soon as they start noticing the changes in customer buying patterns and trends. What’s more? Weatherstacks also gives clients the option to start free and later on upgrade, no questions asked. Having weather data of thousands of locations with the capability of providing real time feed round the clock, powered by state of the art cloud infrastructure, Weatherstacks is an easy recommend for those clients looking to monetise their business innovatively.
Having gone through this blogpost, what do you think about Weatherstacks? Impressed? Not impressed? Leave us your thoughts in the comments section.
For further queries in hiring our developers, you can contact our developer team here.