Four super simple ways to lighten the carbon footprint of your website
It's pretty common, these days to prioritise greener choices in our daily lives, and yet our businesses' digital footprints can tend to slip under the radar.
Every website click, image, page (and glitch for that matter!) impacts the amount of energy your website uses and therefore its carbon footprint.
Being conscious of this as you are building and updating your website can help you to create a kinder online presence.
But here's the part that I love the most: a website that's energy efficient isn't just good for the Earth; it's great for your clients too.
A site that runs efficiently isn't just about being green; it's about providing your visitors with a calmer, kinder and more enjoyable experience as they interact with your business online.
Ultimately, a website that is good for the planet is also good for people (and the bottom line of your business, too). It's actually a win for everyone involved.
How cool is that?
Have you checked these four things on your website recently?
01.
Check your links
And your buttons and forms. Make sure they're all working and linking to the right places.
Whenever your website visitors run into a technical roadblock or broken / incorrect link, not only is this super frustrating (and impacts the bottom line of your business), it uses up unnecessary energy resources.
02.
Make the important stuff easy to find
Information like your contact details, your location (if you're a location-based business) and your pricing should be easily available. This way your site visitors don’t have to click through multiple pages or go hunting to find what they’re looking for.
The more pages opened = more energy expended and therefore a higher carbon footprint.
03.
Clean up old pages
Each page on your site uses data and storage. Old pages are therefore chewing up energy resources while not adding any value. Outdated content might be impacting your search engine rankings, too.
04.
Optimise your images
One of the biggest contributors to website carbon emissions are energy hungry images. Optimise your images before uploading them to your site (aim for less than 300kb).
This will lower the amount of energy used to load your pages and help your pages to load faster – which is better for people, the planet, SEO and your business overall.
Want to learn more about creating a kind and ethical website?
Grab a copy of our website creation companion – a step-by-step guide to a successful (and ethical) website build.