Make Your Website More Eco Friendly: 5 Easy Fixes

Here at Singing SEO, we’re all about reducing our environmental impact and we want to help other businesses do the same. And, now that the carbon footprint of the internet is greater than the world’s aviation industry, it’s more important than ever that we become more considerate of our impact.

 

Even if you’re not overly concerned about the environment, making your website eco-friendly just happens to coincide with good SEO practices. And good SEO practices mean more visibility on search engines, a better user experience, and more sales as a result. So these tips also make good business sense.

 

Before you start thinking that reducing your website’s energy use is a complicated and difficult thing, I’m here to show you otherwise. Here are 5 things that you can do now, with just a basic technical understanding. And, of course, Singing SEO is always here to help if you want to reduce your impact further. Just get in touch.

1. Reduce Image Size

Every time a new person visits your site, their computer, phone or tablet has to load every element of your page. If you’ve got lots of large images, that’s a lot of energy they have to use up just to browse your site. Large images not only cause a bigger environmental impact, they slow things down, create a poor user experience, and could send potential customers away to another site that works better.

 

To avoid this, you should reduce all images before uploading to your website. Here’s how:

Reduce Dimensions

Websites don’t need images that are 4,000 pixels wide so reducing dimensions is a good way of reducing overall file size. Free online tools like Image Resizer or Adobe Image Resizer have easy drag-and-drop features that allow you to resize pictures and graphics.

 

The size of the final image will vary depending on its use. For example, a banner image at the top of the site may need to be 1,500 pixels wide, while images in the body of your site can be significantly lower.

Reduce File Size

In most cases, it’s good to get the size (i.e. the weight) of your image below 100MB – or as close as possible. This may be slightly higher for larger images (such as website headers), but 100MB is a good rule of thumb.

Adobe Image Resizer, which I mention above, also gives you the option to reduce the quality of an image at the same time as you’re resizing it. Reducing quality isn’t necessarily a bad thing – you can bring this down quite significantly without being able to see a discernible difference online. Play around a bit and check out your before and after images. How small can you get the file size before you really notice any pixelation or blurriness?

 

Another freely available tool that’s popular for reducing file size is TinyJpg.

Use the Right File Format

Images come in all sorts of file formats, some of the most common being JPG and PNG. There’s also a more modern one called webP, which you may or may not have heard of.

 

If you can, you should convert you images to a webP format for the smallest possible file size and the best possible quality. However, not all website builders allow these kinds of images to be uploaded. If that’s the case for you, the next best option is usually JPG because it’s generally a smaller file size than PNG. You should only revert to PNG if you need a transparent background.

2. Audit Plugins

Plugins are add-ons that provide additional functionality to your website. They’re best known on WordPress sites but are also used on other site builders such as Weebly, Squarespace and Wix (though they’ll often come under a different name).

 

Plugins are great – they help you really personalise your website, add useful features, and create a unique site that suits your business. However, they can also be heavily energy intensive and, if you don’t use them, or don’t really need them, then you could be inadvertently increasing your website’s carbon footprint.

 

Beyond their excess energy use, poorly planned plugins can lead to security issues, a slow loading website, and a poor user experience. So there are plenty of reasons for an audit!

 

A plugin audit involves assessing what you have installed, how up-to-date they are, and whether you really need them. What functionality does a particular plugin bring to the site? If you don’t use it, or don’t really need it, consider getting rid of it. If you have outdated plugins, update them. If you do need to keep them, consider whether there are less energy-intensive alternatives available.

3. Transfer to Green Web Hosting

Your host is where your website “lives” so that it can be seen by anyone with an internet connection. But did you know that the hosting service you use can affect your website’s sustainability? Consider transferring your to a greener provider that uses renewable energy and has other green credentials. Green web hosts are often more ethical in other areas too, such as by supporting charities, paying fairer wages, and following responsible business practices.

 

The Singing SEO website is hosted by Krystal Hosting, but you can find a list of other green hosts via the Greenweb Directory.

4. Reduce Heavy Animations and Videos

Animations and video (as well as other visual elements) are a good way to make your website more engaging. But there’s a balance to be struck between visual appeal and environmental impact (as well as user friendliness and Search Engine Optimisation). Heavy or excessive animations and video can have a detrimental impact on your website, so consider how much of them you use, and optimise those that you keep.

For example, instead of hosting a video directly on your site, host it on a dedicated platform such as YouTube or Vimeo, then embed it into your site. Turn off autoplay, too, while you’re at it! For animations, use an SVG format instead of GIF and compress files with a tool like Compress or Die.

5. Remove Redundant Content

Reducing the number of pages on your site can be a great way of decreasing your website’s environmental impact. More pages means more content to load, more information for search engines to crawl, and more for users to navigate. Reducing the content can make your website more compact, more eco-friendly, and easier to navigate.

 

That’s not to say that you should get rid of pages and content just for the sake of reducing website size. As with all things, there’s a balance to be had and of pages are useful, then they should be kept. But if content isn’t doing anything for your business…cut it!

Start by running an audit to find out what’s unnecessary. If you have an e-commerce site, are there lots of permanently out-of-stock products you could delete? Do you have several “location” pages that say the same thing with just the place name changed? Do you have a tonne of half-started draft pages dating from years ago? Get rid of them all!

 

If you still have lots of pages, consider whether any of them can be combined. In particular, look for pages without much content that would work well with other pages on a similar topic.

 

Then, look at what you have left. Do you have pages where the content rambles on without saying anything new, useful or interesting? If so, your site could be using up more energy than necessary while also turning away potential clients. Review your text and see if you can make it more concise and engaging.

Final Words

Reducing the carbon footprint of your website is better for the environment and usually helps your website perform better too, improving user experience and SEO. There are lots of things you can do, but start with the easy wins like reducing file sizes, removing redundant content, and moving over to green hosting.

 

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