16 Oct Things That Can Destroy a Perfectly Good Website
Even though there are many available tips for creating a website that both satisfies the needs of the users and makes money for the owner, it is still very hard to succeed in this line of business. It is a continuous process of honing each individual element to the point of perfection and it is quite amazing how many things can destroy your hard work in a very short amount of time if you are not careful. Both inexperienced site owners and professionals who have long, practical experience in running a website have been known to make the mistake of disregarding some of the following issues.
Here are some of the things that can harm the exponential growth of your website:
Trolls
With the success of a website comes more traffic, and with more traffic – here come the Trolls. This particular breed of internet inhabitants is quite annoying, but is also relatively easy to deal with. First of all, don’t let them get under your skin and avoid adding fuel to the fire. When trolls attack, it is best to ignore them because this leaves them without the satisfaction of your response on which they feed. After a while, they usually go away in order to bore somebody else. If they persist, you can choose to deny them access by banning them from your website. Never get into comment shouting matches with trolls! They have nothing to lose and they are here to entertain themselves by causing you trouble, therefore, they have you at a disadvantage.
Malware & Malvertising
If any of these things inhabit your website, it can actually get blacklisted by all the major search engines, which is obviously a big issue. In some cases, you will get notified that you have malicious software infecting your website and that you should take care of that in order to get your old ranking back. These security issues can harm you in more ways than one, especially if there are money transactions involved. Data theft is a very serious issue. Also, malicious advertising and spam attempts to promote their clients, fake or real, without paying a dime to the site owner… It also annoys your users and can cause a serious decrease of traffic. To make sure that this does not happen you should rely on the right web hosting provider which offers SSL protections
A slow website
Sudden bursts of traffic have been known to cause a lot of problems for websites that didn’t expect it. Basically going big makes your website go down and become unresponsive. If you are experiencing a steady rise of traffic, you need to gradually expand your site’s resources so as to avoid any sluggishness and website timeouts. If you fail to anticipate the need for more resources, you might lose a large bulk of new traffic and therefore lose money. It is also bad for your SERP amongst other technical issues. An appropriate web hosting provider will ensure that the speed of your website is at the top level no matter the amount of traffic on your website.
Aggressive advertising
Pop-ups, pages overcrowded with ads (especially ads that have nothing to do with the subject matter of your website) can cause loss of traffic. If you want to earn money by placing ads on your website, make sure that you notify your visitors about this change. A lot of people sold out their chance for a steady income by becoming too greedy and literally putting ads everywhere they can, as soon as they get the first advertising offer. Earning money from ads is something you need to be careful with. People don’t like being harassed by ads, but if you do it tastefully and explain that you need the income in order to keep the website going, they will usually understand and won’t hold it against you.
Being close minded with marketing
There is this ongoing debate on how you should advertise in the online environment. SEO, PPC, Social networks, YouTube, these are just some of the options you have. In all honesty, you can’t always rely on just one. You need to have your fingers in a lot of jars in order to test out what is the most suitable marketing option for your website. Keep in mind that these things change and trends can go in a lot of directions. One month you will need to buy some YouTube views to boost your video content and get it out there, the next you will be working on your SERP ranking. Combining efforts works best and you are slowly building up your overall presence. It costs far less to get trickle of traffic from many places than to draw in big traffic from one, right?
I hope I managed to point out a few important issues that you are going to encounter as your website gets more successful. It is important to be creative and also follow tips from other people who are more experienced in the startup business. Diligence is the key and always keep an eye out for any potential issues that may come up. Good luck.
