Certified Green Business

It might seem that a website company is naturally green because there are no smoke stacks or toxic waste outputs, but that's not necessarily correct. Sometimes it is the little things that you overlook that can affect our environment.

Aside from the trendiness of 'going green', it simply makes sense for any company, period. By becoming a green company you can save money, help the environment, gain tax breaks, serve the community, and attract responsible customers and employees.

So how can one website be more green then another? Simply stated, “size matters.” The bigger the size of a web page the less green it is. The size of the page consists of many things and the glue that holds all of the graphics and content together is the programming. There are many ways to program a website, here are some fundamentals of green websites:

• CSS linking: There are three ways to include CSS into the HTML, only one of them is worth mentioning. If your website does not use CSS then get a new website. CSS is used to segment design aspects so that graphic changes can be made quickly throughout the entire website. Using a CSS file like this will consolidate the design and enable a browser to cache the file. Once file is cached then the browser no longer requests the file from the server, but pulls it from a local copy on the client computer.
• CSS compression and aggregation: When more then one CSS file is used the CSS should be aggregated to combine and compress the files.
• Image optimization: Use images that are sized and compressed correctly. Reducing the size and resolution of an image will reduce the file size. One image may not seem like a lot, but a website is often created with many images. Cumulatively, these images will add up to a significant reduction in page size.

Not only do green websites help the environment, but search engines are ranking green websites better. Google recently announced that websites that load faster will receive better ranking. So building a green website isn't just a responsible move, it has potential financial significances as well.