Nine Ways Cloud Computing Benefits Web Designers

Cloud computing today is more affordable and accessible than ever before. While getting on the cloud still costs a bit more than a typical shared hosting platform, there are many benefits to converting your site to this type of hosting platform.

Cloud computing grows from year to year, with an expected growth rate of six times through 2020, when it will hit 67 percent of enterprise infrastructure. For web designers and other cloud computing enthusiasts, there are many clear advantages to the cloud — here are nine of them.

1. Scale Geographically

Rather than having some limitations on speed and delivery as with a traditional server at a set location, cloud hosting allows you to reach a wide variety of geographic locations without impacting the user experience. Cloud hosting offers features such as traffic management. Use a content delivery network (CDN) to increase your reach even more. CDN allows users to quickly access images, applications and videos at lightning speed no matter where they physically are in the world.

2. Save Money

Cloud computing is a bit more cost-effective than traditional solutions. You can quickly scale your operation up or down, saving money as you pay only for the resources used at any given times. Such scalability also prevents site crashes if peak traffic hits your site unexpectedly. Most cloud computing offers the ability to control bandwidth, which allows you to upscale only when needed.

3. Keep Data More Secure

Security in this digital age is more important than ever. If you collect any type of personal information from your site visitors, you want to protect that data. It’s also essential to protect the hard work of your design and content from hackers.

Looking at the most popular cloud hosting providers, one analyst found that some key features made them safe. The providers stored three copies of each type of data in different locations (redundancy), secure data centers and reliable file sharing.

4. Make Collaboration Easier

Cloud-based systems make collaboration easier. One of the most valuable parts of cloud computing for working with a team is that changes are made in real-time, so updates are instantaneous.

One powerful feature of cloud computing is selective access. Grant access only to the teams and people you want and limit where they can go within your data structure. So, if you’re working on a project with another company, you can give their players access to files related to that project while still protecting other valuable information stored on the cloud.

5. Improve Time to Market

Help your business clients improve time to market with cloud-based computing. Studies show cloud-based data management improves time to market as much as 20.66 percent and increases company growth by 19.63 percent.

Because cloud services are so streamlined and you have an increased ability to pull in expert advice when needed or get immediate feedback from clients, you can drastically reduce time to market. Speed of service is just one factor in a positive customer experience, and cloud computing gives you control over at least that aspect of your work.

6. Go Mobile

If you’re like most web designers, there are times you wish you could design on the fly and use up some of that wasted time on the train, in waiting rooms or while away from your computer. Cloud computing offers the ability for you to access any of the tools you need at any time.

Think about solutions such as Adobe’s cloud services. Now, you can access different software via many devices rather than only your personal computer. Also, anyone on your team can use the same advantage to work remotely.

7. Retain Top Talent

You’ll also save time and effort training people. About 90 percent of remote workers are so happy with the setup that they plan to stay remote the rest of their careers. A happy worker is more likely to stick with your company, saving you time and effort training someone new.

Those who are the best in the industry have typically put many years in developing skills. They don’t like anyone sitting on their shoulder or systems that bog them down and slow their work.

With cloud hosting, you can streamline processes and let top talent work from anywhere in the world. This perk alone may be enough to attract and keep the best of the best.

8. Become Environmentally Friendly

If your company has a passion for running a greener operation, then cloud computing is a must. Fewer data centers can also operate thanks to cloud computing, which leads to less energy usage and pollution.

You can take this a step further by seeking out cloud hosting providers that take additional environmental protection measures. A bonus here is that those who care about reducing their carbon footprint are more likely to choose your company if you embrace the green lifestyle, as well. Cloud computing is just one step toward a greener company, but it is a tremendous first step.

9. Get IoT Ready

The Internet of Things is here. We use our smartphones to answer our front door via a camera-based doorbell. We can check from work to make sure we put the garage door down at home. Every year, it seems that more and more things are connected, making our lives more comfortable and more complicated at the same time.

The trend toward IoT has been growing for a while now. The spending on IoT technology hit about $273 billion in 2017 and is expected to grow to a massive $1494 billion by 2020. The cloud allows you to move toward being more IoT ready. Even if your industry doesn’t seem as though IoT will impact it, you never know what new inventions and features might come to light in the future.

Is Cloud Computing for You?

Cloud computing allows you and your team to create a virtual office you can access from anywhere on any device, along with several other advantages. If you aren’t already using cloud-based systems for your design work, now is the time to look into it and prepare for the upcoming growth in demand for connectivity.