Introduction

When we think of greenhouse emissions, we normally instantly think of cars, trains, and planes contributing to our warming planet.

Yet, fewer people know that websites, or more specifically, data centres, also consume a huge amount of electricity. The heat generated from these servers is considerable, and therefore, because all of this heat and electricity is being used, it can cause a lot of environmental damage.
So, we think that in the near future, you will see more and more web design companies pop up that specialise in building environmentally friendly websites.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to build a more environmentally friendly website for your business.

Quick introduction on us…

So, W&P is a highly experienced web design company based in the beating heart of Cardiff’s busy city centre. We offer the full spectrum of digital marketing services, ranging from improving your business’s SEO to graphic design. We have some of the very best SEO consultants in the whole of Wales working for us.

So we are, therefore, well placed to advise you on how to design and build a more environmentally friendly website for your business.

What is a sustainable website?

So, a sustainable website is simply a website where the website designers have carefully considered its impact on the environment. For example, they might have used lazy loading techniques, made the pictures small so that, let’s say, the product pictures load faster, or purchased website hosting that is mostly or completely powered by green electricity.

Data centres

We are all used to buying items from our phones, tablets, or desktops with just a few clicks. It’s simple, straightforward, and a piece of cake to buy anything we need.

Now, we all carefully consider what mobile phone, laptop, or tablet we want to buy. Yet often, we don’t consider whether the websites we are buying items from have a green policy to minimise the impact on the environment.

So, we think that more and more companies will promote their green websites at this web design company. Often, this means using hosting companies that use renewable energy.

Data centres are simply what are used to host a website. So, for example, it doesn’t matter if you run a solicitors website or, let’s say, you run a demolition company; you’ll need website hosting.

Now, a good web designer will tell you that website hosting quality varies massively. Companies offer super cheap prices, yet the hosting might be super slow.

Then there’s fast hosting, which is commonly more expensive. However, many hosting companies are setting up to offer “green website hosting.” This typically means that part of the energy or all the electricity consumed is from renewable sources.

Offsetting

So, we think that at this Cardiff web design agency, we will hear the term “offsetting” much more soon. When we say this, it’s not just something to do with web design or hosting; we think we will hear this term being used by many more companies.

So, off-setting means, perhaps planting trees, to off-set the company’s emissions through website hosting.

Why not ask your website designers to implement lazy loading?

What’s lazy loading? We hear you cry!

Well, it’s a method of designing a website which reduces the amount of content requested by the shopper at any given moment.

The whole page doesn’t load straight away; it only loads parts of the page as the shoppers scroll down the page.
So, this has a twofold benefit: it can substantially reduce the load time, which means there are some SEO that organic search engine optimisation benefits.

Yet, there are also benefits from an energy consumption point of view; it’s a bit like someone only placing what they know they will eat on their plate rather than wasting food. This is the same concept with lazy loading; basically, only part of the page will load, such as a row of products will load. Then, as the customer scrolls down the page, more of the page will load.

Font, colour schemes and web design

So, believe it or not, which fonts you use and the colour scheme you have chosen for your company website can directly affect how much energy is consumed when loading the page.

So, talk to your website designers today about how they can design an eco-friendly website for your business.

Web designers

We have highly experienced web designers working for us at W&P.

We can offer your business the following services:

• Eco-friendly web design
• WordPress websites
• Organic SEO
• Local SEO
• We are a Welsh web design agency
• Mobile website design

Why not call one of our team for a quote today?