Starting the year off with three days of headaches, that’s enough, right?
To make sure your next headaches aren’t caused by your website, here are 3 concrete and easy resolutions to make your website more accessible, greener and more relevant in 2023.
Let’s get started in 3,2,1!
GREENER
Did you know that even when you’re comfortably sitting in your living room with a soy latte in hand, you’re emitting greenhouse gases when you’re browsing the web? The more complex and media-heavy a website is, the more energy it takes to navigate it.*
Without having to turn your website upside down to make it greener and more responsible, here’s a small resolution to improve your website’s performance and therefore start reducing the energy it takes to navigate your website and content management system (CMS).
RESOLUTION #01 CLEAN UP YOUR WEBSITE’S MEDIA
Do a big spring cleaning of the 2008 photos that are still in your media library.
We regularly clean up our bad selfies on our cell phones and we should develop the same reflex for our website’s media library.
Our advice: do a big spring cleaning of your media library (no need to wait for spring). We admit it’s not the most exciting task, but it will be oh so beneficial for your website’s performance and therefore the energy required to navigate your website and content management system (CMS).
HOW TO DO IT:
- Delete duplicates
- Delete unused outdated media
- Convert your PNG images to JPEG (when no transparent background is required)
- Compress your too heavy media
*You can test your website with this tool: https://www.websitecarbon.com/ to find out how many kilograms of CO2 are produced with each visit to your website.
MORE ACCESSIBLE
The concept of web accessibility is not new. All the tools are at our fingertips to make our websites accessible. An accessible website is one that does not exclude anyone regardless of their device, software, internet connection quality or cognitive, motor or visual abilities.
If it may be more difficult and costly to make our physical workplaces accessible, our digital environments can easily be improved.
Does this sound familiar? Here’s an easy first step to take to ensure a first step towards a more accessible website.
RESOLUTION #02 WRITE ALTERNATIVE TEXTS
An alternative text is the textual description of a visual element: an image, a video, a GIF, an icon, etc. Screen readers are able to read alternative texts, which allows, for example, users with low vision to get more context on the content they are viewing. When the internet connection is too poor and a media cannot be loaded, it is also the alternative text that will be displayed instead.
WordPress allows you to write your alternative texts directly in your media library. It’s as easy as pie:
- You select an image in your media library;
- You write a short description of what you see on the image in the space provided for this purpose (Alternative Text field).
- For example, an alternative text for a green tuque that you sell on your online store could look like this: “”Green forest tuque in lamb’s wool with a textured finish and enveloping shape.”” If you don’t know what to write, here’s a decision tree that could be useful.
ACCESSIBILITY, BENEFICIAL FOR THE BUSINESS
If you’re still not convinced, know that alternative tags are also read by search engines and good alternative texts could be very profitable for your organic search. A win-win!
MORE RELEVANT
To start 2023 off right, why not challenge yourself to write 3 new blog posts? However, beware! It’s nice to write new articles, but they must be relevant. No, this is not the year when ChatGPT will be able to write appropriate and personalized articles for your audience.
With a little creativity and rigor, it is still possible to be relevant in 2023 and here are some ideas for planning your new articles:
RESOLUTION #03 WRITE NEW BLOG POSTS
With your blog, you have the opportunity to offer content that stands out and is truly useful and relevant to your users.
To define a relevant topic and format for your new publications, ask yourself the following questions:
- What problems are my users trying to solve? How can I help them?
- What are their interests and motivations?
- What are they truly interested in?
- How could we approach this topic from a different angle?
- What format are they inclined to appreciate? An interview? A FAQ?
- What holds them back from consuming content?
- Too long?
- No images?
- Lack of time?
In addition to positioning yourself as a relevant resource for your users, writing new articles will allow you to:
- Become an expert on a subject that interests us
- Improve your SEO
- Establish yourself as an expert and leader in your industry
- Engage in discussions with your audience
We can’t wait to read what you have to say!
Cheers and a happy start to the year for everyone!
PS: If you’d like to continue the discussion on best web practices to adopt for the coming year, feel free to contact us at info@treize.pro.
