Why Flash Can Ruin Your Website
When Macromedia Flash was first introduced into website design, it was a cutting edge technology that made a business stand out amongst competitors. It can still make for an exciting presence online, but there are actually many reasons to avoid it now. If you continue to use technology that has obvious drawbacks, it could jeopardize your business goals. Read on for some reasons to avoid Flash when designing a website.
An obvious reason to bypass Flash as a website design tool is the cost involved. Though it is not as expensive as it once was, it is still an unnecessary expense. Some web design programs have the technology built in now, but those programs can also be costly.
Flash can cause considerable delays in loading your website, thus increasing the chance that visitors will abandon the site before it even loads. If you insist on using it anyway, at least do not put it on your home page or the introduction. Users have much less patience now and know that they can easily find another website that is easier and quicker to use.
One of the most convincing reasons today for ditching Flash altogether is that it is not compatible with mobile devices such as smart phones and tablets. Millions of online users bypass computers and depend entirely on these devices for surfing the web and visiting websites. Flash sites will not open on mobile devices, meaning that you are losing customers. In the very least, you will have to create an entirely different site to reach these consumers.
Though most amateurs are not aware of how web crawlers operate, suffice it to say that site using Flash are not searchable by them. This means that your competition will be the ones benefiting and you will be left out. Search engines use "spider" software to create web indexes and "crawl" links between pages, bringing traffic to your site. Flash inhibits these searches. Though there are ways around this, only very experienced web designers will know how to implement these techniques, and it could cost you a lot to get this expertise.
Not all computers have Flash technology installed on their systems, so this means that they will have to download the software to view Flash animations on your site. Though the software is free, many users will not take the time to do this. They will simply move on to the next website that offers services similar to yours. Try using really good images instead or even inserting video into your site to create some diversification and enhance the experience for users.
Getting your message across is the main goal of your website and is much more important than using trendy and flashy animations. Ordinary users go to numerous graphics and photo sites today anyway, and play with high-tech apps routinely. This makes them less incline to be impressed with "extras" on websites that they visit for information. Give them what they came for and make the content stand on its own. Use the insights here to keep it basic and make your business shine for its own merits.
