How to make a website sustainable
Did you know that if the internet were a country it would be the 7th largest energy producer in the world?
The internet produces 1.6 billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year. That’s one hefty carbon footprint!
But even with these statistics, it’s hard to fully appreciate why you should make a website sustainable when the internet isn’t tangible.
Perhaps we would be more inclined to make a website sustainable if we could understand how it all works. So here goes…
Every website on the internet is hosted by a server. Search engines included. These servers are powered by electricity and store data that make up your website.
Now multiply your website with every other website you find on Google and there is our problem. It’s a lot of data, which means a lot of servers and a big carbon output that’s hurting our environment.
Perhaps if this was something we could see every day, we would want to change it but because we don’t see it, it’s something that we need to be reminded of.
So if you have your own website, here are some ways to make a sustainable website and minimise your digital carbon footprint:
Get rid of your videos!
Leave the videos for your socials and take them off your website. They are usually big files that use lots of data so instead, replace them with good quality but small file pictures instead. If you really want your audience to see your videos, include a link to somewhere else where they can view it instead such as Instagram.
Sign the Sustainability Web Manifesto
Tell your customers how you’re dedicated to creating a sustainable website by signing the Sustainability Web Manifesto.
Update your SEO
Did you know that if you have an accurate SEO strategy, it is more sustainable? By optimising your website to come up at the top of a search engine, users will spend less time ‘surfing’ the internet loading lots of other websites and data and instead find exactly what they need in a quicker amount of time.
Use simple fonts for your text
This blog has been written in the basic default text which is a simple font that didn’t need to be downloaded in a big file in order to be displayed. It’s also best to keep fonts simple anyway to keep your text clear for your readers.
AMP
This stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages and it means that your website is designed to adapt for mobiles. It condenses your website down so that when someone views your website on their mobile, they will see a more simplified version that doesn’t use as much as data. Also, mobile optimised websites are more likely to help you rank on Google too.
Create a smooth customer journey
Where do you want users to go once they land on your website? If you want someone to buy a product, click on your contact page or sign up to your newsletter, make sure the journey to get there is nice and straightforward with no broken links, otherwise your user is likely to give up which is not only bad for business but bad for energy usage too. Check Google Analytics to optimise this as well.
And if you need some help with your website design, feel free to contact me to see if I can help. You can also get your own website audit to see how you may need to make improvements.
Finally, why not sign up to the newsletter for lots more digital tips and tricks to grow your business!
Charlotte x