Yes or No to Flash???

Design a Flash Web site? Yes or no?

NO! If you are having a Web site designed for the first time, or considering a Web makeover and the potential designer tries to sell you on a Flash Web site. Run screaming – in the opposite direction!

Check out some of the most successful Web sites on the Internet – NONE of them are Flash sites. Shoot, Flash is made by Adobe and Adobe doesn’t have a Flash site! I wonder why . . .

Flash is a great tool for animation, movies, games, etc, but when it comes to a successful Web site, it’s an epic failure and here are about a dozen reasons why.

#1: Search engine optimization
This is the number one reason why you should NOT have a Flash Web site – you’ll never have the same SEO (Search engine optimization) success with a Flash site as you will an HTML site. Search engines simply can’t read Flash content and therefore do not get indexed properly.

#2: Mobile devices
Guess what – I can’t see Flash on my iPhone – and neither can your potential clients! And what’s more – Apple will likely never support Flash on any of their devices because of the resource requirements – the company is looking at HTML 5 for Flash-like viewing. Granted, not everyone uses an iPhone, but do you want to limit your potential audience???

#3: Bookmarking
When you visit a cool Web site and find some content you’d like to visit again, don’t you love the ability to bookmark that page? Well, guess what – you can’t do that with a Flash site! Oh, you can bookmark the page, but it’s always the same page – your bookmark will never take you back to the exact page you were interested in.

#4: Back button
Sorry, there just isn’t one. With a Flash site there is no way to navigate to the page your visitor was just on.

#5: How slow of a load can you wait for . . .
With a Flash site, the ENTIRE site must be downloaded before ANY content is viewable. With an HTML site content is instantly visible, even if the images take a second longer to load. How long do you like to wait for information?

#6: Text functions
Want to copy and paste content into an email and forward to potential clients/customers? Sorry – you can’t do that with a Flash site. There is no right-click menu and keyboard shortcuts just don’t work.

#7: CPU and bandwidth
Are all your clients using the most advanced computers on high-speed internet lines? Mine aren’t. Flash sites can take forever to load on slower computers and internet lines. Are you in the position to alienate potential clients because your site took too long to load and the visitor left – most likely to your competition with an HTML site? I’m not.

#8: Plugins
To view your site, the visitor MUST download the Adobe Flash Player on to his/her computer. No plug-in, no Flash, and, therefore, no site.

#9: Just because you CAN do something on the Web, doesn’t mean you SHOULD
This just might be my favorite reason why not to design a Flash site – but it also applies to all Web design. Sure, a lot of what you can do with Flash looks cool and can be fun, but after about five seconds it just gets annoying. Clients are coming to your site for information and content – give them what they want!

#10. Bad design standards
Most HTML sites have elements in common – it is these elements that help the visitor find what they want quickly. Navigation here, content here, links work like this, etc, etc. Flash Web sites have none of that so you risk your client getting lost – and frustrated – quickly. What happens when they get frustrated? They leave!

Don’t limit your Web site – don’t irritate your potential clients. Go ahead and add a little Flash banner on your site for visual interest, but don’t buy a Flash site.

Article by Julie Bodine
Owner/Creative Director | Margarita Marketing
www.margaritamarketing.com