How to Measure SEO Sustainability

My talk for Brighton SEO 2023 - with link to tool

For more information contact results@icrossing.co.uk

Transcript

1. How to Measure SEO Sustainability Ellie Connor iCrossing speakerdeck.com/econn1 linkedin.com/in/ellie-connor/
2. We don't need to recap why we need sustainability
3. Climate change is overwhelming, and it’s easy to feel we can’t do anything
4. SEO plays a role in the fight against climate change 3.5% AVIATION INDUSTRY
5. SEO plays a role in the fight against climate change 3.7% INTERNET & COMMUNICATIONS
6. iCrossing UK How Many of You Have Considered Sustainability in Your SEO Strategy? Poll Time • Client Name • 10.03.2022 • Project Name
7. The global carbon footprint of Google search is the equivalent of 7 return trips to the moon per day
8. It is our duty to take action now With the rise of AI, internet carbon emissions will double by 2030
9. We can’t stop our reliance on the internet , but we can reduce how much energy is spent on search Reducing energy needed to load a page Reducing users’ number of page loads Making bot crawls easier
10. How to Measure SEO Sustainability
11. Spoiler: We’re SEO Specialists, Not Environmental Experts
12. We know that reducing energy usage reduces water waste and carbon emissions Energy usage Water Waste Carbon Emissions
13. Metrics That Reflect Lower Energy Consumption • Page Speed • CWV • Server Load Time • CDN Time • SSR Presence • Text to Code Ratio • Page Size
14. Metrics That Reflect Lower Energy Consumption • Low time spent on page + high conversion for PLPs • Low Bounce Rate • Crawl Depth < 3 Less Page Loads
15. Metrics That Reflect Lower Energy Consumption • Optimised IA • All 200 indexable URLs in sitemap • No 4xx/5xx errors • No 3xx redirect chains
16. Look Familiar?
17. A Good SEO Strategy is a Sustainable Strategy A good user journey is naturally a more sustainable one, which is SEO’s bread and butter
18. However, metrics around CO2 Emissions and Water Wastage Speak More to Us
19. If we calculate energy usage per web page load, we can (roughly) calculate CO2 and water usage CO2
20. To calculate energy, we need to look at the journey of a web page load Total energy = server energy + data centre energy
21. A server request uses roughly 0.00015 kWh for a 1 second page load
22. A Data Centre requires 1.8 x more energy than the servers it houses
23. Total energy = 0.0004 kWh for 1 second page load
24. CO2 For every 1 second of page load 0.0004kWh 0.5kg/kWh 0.2g CO2 Measuring carbon footprint =
25. If your homepage has a 2.5s page load speed and 10,000 visits a month…
26. For every 1 second of page load 0.0004 kWh 3L/kWH 1.2 ML Measuring water footprint =
27. If your homepage has a 2.5s page load speed and 10,000 visits a month…
28. Combining the Metrics
29. We’ve created an SEO Sustainability Calculator to make audits easier
30. How It Works:
31. How It Works:
32. How It Works:
33. Next Steps Identify key sustainability gains Calculate website sustainability Fix energy inefficiencies Repeat!
34. Good News It’s not too late for us to combat climate change together
35. Got Questions? Email us at results@icrossing.co.uk
36. iCrossing UK 30 Panton St, London SW1Y 4AJ Thank you