Tools to Improve your Website's Sustainability & Speed
A selection of tools to help you to improve your website's sustainability
In order for the web to improve it's sustainability, it is vital to utilise tooling to reduce the sheer loading issues of a website, alongside other energy usage factors. Below is a helpful directory of tools to assist in this.
When taking into account tools, it is also incredibly important to consider that digital sustainability has a lot to do with how clean and simple user journeys are on a website. So better design, for instance, offers just as much of an opportunity as bolting on any of the below tools. The World Wide Web Consortium has put together further guidance on digital sustainability, here. We have also compiled further guidance on how to reduce server emissions.
1. Performance Analysis
GTMetrix
GTmetrix is a tool that allows users to analyse website performance issues. It offers a free analysis of the main site speed problems.
Pagespeed Insights
PageSpeed Insights is a tool for measuring the performance and Core Web Vitals of a page with lab and field data - allowing yiu to analyse the loading issues of a website.
Improving your website emissions is just as much about minimalising your website's overall layout and modules, than it is about toolsets.
2. Defer Loading
Web Dev
Adding lazy load declarations can prevent the browser from needing to load all the images in a page upon initial user loads. This allows the top, above-the-fold images to load, and nothing else until you scroll. This saves a lot of load time for files that you may never end up viewing should you abandon your session.
3. Image File Sizes
Cloudinary
Cloudinary is a tool that optimises images in order to significantly improve web page load time, resulting in improved user retention, dramatically lower digital emissions, and improved user satisfaction.
4. Font File Sizes
WOFF Fonts
Web Open Font Format 2.0 (WOFF2) is the smallest and most efficient file format for web fonts online.
5. Reducing Tracking File Sizes
Segment
Segment allows users to have one API to collect analytics data, across any platform. As a Tag Management Solution (TMS) platform, it allows organisations to collect data on customers from multiple touchpoints into one location through a single API. For added improvements, you can pair this with a data lakehouse like Databricks to reduce the amount of data movement through data pipelines and other into multiple systems.
6. Faster Content Management (CMS)
Duda
Duda's professional website builder platform allows businesses to build a website fast, without having to think about the underlying technology. Their platform leads the way for Core Web Vital scores and overall load time performance.
GeneratePress
A lightweight WordPress theme that allows for total focus on speed!
7. Improving Wordpress Speed
WP Rocket
WP Rocket is a much loved solution for boosting Wordpress website load times.
8. Opt for Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
Cloudflare
Cloudflare allows you to cache static content on it's network, as well as optimise image files, and compress dynamic content.
9. Compressing Codesets
Codekit
Bundling all your JavaScript via Codekit can reduce HTTP requests and make your site faster, and better at converting. This is because failed journey sessions reduce and as a consequence - more users are able to complete successful journeys. Tools like Codekit improve your site load time, which in turn helps the environment. Codekit allows you to minify JS and HTML. As well as to remove unused CSS from stylesheets.
10. Green Hosting
20i
20i offer high performance hosting, with global data centres - all run on 100% renewables.
11. Block Bots
Cloudflare
If you are able to do so, then stop bot traffic through bot management tools. This is a straighforward way to prevent traffic to your site that is a waste of energy, and can prevent a surprising volume of otherwise unimportant traffic.
12. Delete Unused Content
GA4
Get started on Google Analytics 4, and work out what pages and assets on your site amount to little or no use to anyone, internally or externally. Look at user counts for URLs, transactions, and engagements. Then delete pages and assets that have no use to your operations or users and their operations. This in turn reduces the amount of wasted server time e.g. bots crawling pages for no real effect.
13. Offer a Dark Mode
Work into your website design a dark mode. Dark modes for screens can saves around 39% of a typical users energy usage when viewing your website in dark modes versus a normal white light mode.
