Few industries have been as beset by tumultuous change as the marketing sector, and that’s not about to change anytime soon. Marketing companies are constantly pivoting to whichever innovation will give them a leg up over the competition, and a slew of recent developments indicates that most of these companies will be making another big change sooner rather than later. That’s because edge computing has gone from enjoying only fringe interest to becoming one of the most active parts of the modern tech marketplace.
Here’s how edge computing can transform your marketing, why digital marketing experts are embracing it so readily, and how it will fundamentally change the marketing industry as we know it.
How edge computing works
What is edge computing, anyway? Luckily, edge computing is simple enough for most people to understand it without needing a degree in computer science as a basic prerequisite. While traditional computation is slowed down by the distance between users and the various sources of information they’re trying to access, edge computing aims to speed up computation by bridging the gap between users and the data they need. One of the biggest problems facing SEO companies, like local search engine services, right now is an inability to modify their content or issue major code changes without having to spend huge sums of time, money, and effort doing so. Edge computing could change all of that for the better.
Edge computing works by harnessing the power of Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) which, as the name implies, makes it easier and quicker for users to gain access to the specific content they need by delivering information to users from the closets point to them in the network. By bridging the geographic distance between users and the content they’re trying to access, edge computing reduces latency (or lag) and thus expedites the entire user experience. Learning how to use CDNs to make edge SEO into a reality is going to be increasingly important for SEO operators who want to remain at the top of their market.
Experts from Google and other companies have already confirmed that CDNs don’t generate any penalties when it comes to SEO results, either, so rest easy if you’re concerned that edge computing could hasten the user experience at the expense of the SEO industry as a whole. As a matter of fact, edge computing is set to empower SEO companies to do more with less as time goes on.
Edge computing isn’t some fringe element of the market trusted by only a few, either; according to one analysis, the edge computing market will be worth an astonishing $6.27 billion by 2020, demonstrating that edge computing will became mainstream before we know it.
Making the most of your SEO
So, how can you go about actually making the most of your SEO with the help of edge computing? By and large, edge computing can be harnessed to make updates to your code easier to implement and less costly, too. Rather than implementing changes to your code in your main code database, edge computing will permit SEO companies to implement changes at the edge of their content delivery networks, putting the content you want to push out closer and closer to users before they even access it.
You won’t need edge computing to protect your computer or collect better data on customers; rather, you’ll need edge computing because it will enable you to implement sweeping changes to your entire network without having to start from ground zero at your main code database. Asking your development team to implement wide-ranging site changes is never easy, and it certainly isn’t cheap nor quick; in many cases, long development queues are actually one of the chief reasons that nascent SEO companies fail to gain marketplace traction and collapse in on themselves. With edge computing, you’ll simple use a CDN platform (like that provided by Cloudflare, one of the current market leaders) instead of having to rely on coders or server-side programming to implement your SEO code changes.
This won’t always be easy to adjust to; the speed of edge computing alone will baffle many SEO practitioners, who will have to come to appreciate their newfound haste if they’re to make full use of CDNs. Sooner than we may think, however, edge computing could be the new norm in the SEO industry and impossible to avoid if you want to compete at a professional level. In short, edge computing will make your developers less stress and overburdened than ever before, boosting the rate at which you can implement SEO changes all the while.
Will edge computing take off in the next few years? Almost certainly, given the prosperous growth that CDN platforms have been enjoying as of late. As more SEO companies wake up and realize that adopting edge computing is a necessary facet of remaining competitive in the modern age, we can expect to say goodbye to the lengthy development queues of old.
