Top 5 Little Known Facts That Could Affect Your Website

Many factors combine to make a website great or not so great.  If you are experienced when it comes to website maintenance then it is likely you will know and understand most of them.  However, if you are planning to launch your website in the coming months, or have been managing a website for a while but are still relatively ‘green’ in terms of knowledge and experience, then there are likely a number of things you aren’t aware of that could be affecting your website.
We have looked at the five biggest factors you need to keep in mind that could be causing substantial damage to your website in a variety of ways.

Malware
Malware on your site will often redirect customers elsewhere, which will make your site look like you have high traffic but no sale. Malware can land on your your site through any apps or plug-ins you might use, particularly open source ones, so be sure to be careful about how you use these.

Viruses
Whereas malware typically affects where your customers go, viruses on your website can infect the system of anyone who visits your site, usually without them realizing what has happened.  Your hosting company might also pick up on the fact that your site is infected and decide to close it down, especially if there is the possibility of infecting sites on the same shared server space.

Bad Neighborhoods
You have probably heard the term bad neighborhoods in terms of SEO and where you should and should not build links.  However, you could also fall victim to a bad neighborhood if there is a problem with a shared server.  For example, if one website on a shared server is flagged for spam, search engines will block the IP address rather than the individual site, meaning you could see massive problems without knowing what is actually going wrong.

Loading Times
Novice webmasters often dismiss loading times as unimportant because it depends on how fast an internet or data connection is.  While this is true to some extent, you also have to consider the way Google and other search engines look at loading times.  SEO is about user experience more than ever before, so if your pages take an age to load, you cannot expect to see yourself featured highly in the search rankings.

Bad Coding
The final thing many people new or inexperienced don’t realize is how much of a difference the quality of coding can make.  Having JavaScript featured needlessly on all of your pages, for example, might not seem much more than a few lines of code, but the affect it can have on your website if done badly can be profound.
Ensure these five little known or considered factors are not undermining your website, and be sure to take decisive action if they are.