6 Reasons Why Using Flash is a BIG Mistake

Most web designers and web design companies will try to convince you that if you want your business to have the best site possible that you MUST have a flash site. Flash, for those of you who are newbies, is a software program that can create really cool special effects and animations. You can either have flash elements embedded in your website or you can have your entire website done in flash.


Now I will be the first to tell you that Flash can make a site look pretty cool, but if you are actually trying to make some money from your online business that using flash is a BIG no-no. Here??s why.

1. Too Much Time
It takes way too much time to download an all flash website. Even though broadband and DSL users are growing there are still too many people that are still on dial up to rely on using an all flash site.

Your potential customers will get ticked off at waiting an hour to download your beautiful website and will leave to go to the next one.

A lot of times, designers will say that they can fix the download problem by making smaller portions or chunks of the main site. So instead of having to wait for just one huge file, you now have to wait for a huge file every time you click on a button to go to another part of the site.

It does not fix the problem at all. Your customers are still gonna get ticked after they click on your product button and then realize they have to wait another 8 minutes to download that page too.

2. Annoying Intro
I see a lot of websites that have these flash designed intros. The concept is to have a really cool looking intro to the company or product before launching the main website.

First of all, I have seen some really pathetic attempts at flash intros. If you can't design a good one you should definitely not try at all.

Second, most people search for the skip intro button and just click past it anyway. Or if you don't have a skip intro button, they just leave your website all together because they don't want to watch your useless and annoying intro.

I know that they can be cool, that everyone seems to have one, but unless your website is already bringing in some big time money, then don't risk losing customers by using a flash intro.

3. Not much Content
It seems to be a common problem that a lot of sites that rely on a completely flash design are lacking in the content department. They seem to think that by having lots of cool, flashy elements and designs that their visitors will not notice they are lacking in anything substantial to offer.

Make sure you have good relevant content in your website, the more the better.

4. Search Engines Don't Like Flash
Websites that are done completely in flash, all face one BIG problem. The search engines have nothing to index for your site. In your HTML file you simply have a piece of code that calls up the flash file to play. The search engines can't read this file or what is in it so they have no idea how to index your site and just skip right over it.

You must have readable text and content if you ever have the hopes of getting in the top 10 search results. You will never ever ever get in the top rankings with an all flash website. It??s just not going to happen.

5. Flash Headers and Navigation
Some websites have the header portion of their sites display a cool flash picture or have there navigational buttons done in flash. You can get away with this if you have lots of other good quality content for the search engines to read.

If you use a flash based navigation, include links to your other pages within the body of your text as well as text links at the bottom of the page. Search engines won't be able to read the flash navigation and won't know there are any other pages to index if you don't also have the text links in place.

6. No Plugin
Some internet users don??t even have the Flash plugin installed on their computer. Some people don??t like to download anything from the internet or have never even heard of flash. If they don??t have the plugin then your site won't even be visible to them. Even if you put a script up to tell them to go get the Flash plugin, most people won't even bother. This is just another annoying problem to a potential customer.

Now you are armed with proof that using flash in your website is a very stupid thing to do if you want to make any money. If your web designer insists on trying to convince you otherwise, then print out this article and smack him over the head with it. If he still won't listen then find a new designer.

Leah West

The Impact of SEO Web Design on Search Engines

SEO web design is a concept which emphasizes great architectural design principles based on how the search engines determine relevance and site information. The design should be able to give out the information that the user is seeking and at the same time be easily navigable. This is part of search engine optimization because the SEO web design should also be able to satisfy robotic crawlers and spiders in their quest for information regarding the website and other data.

SEO Web Design and Site Optimization

Search engine optimization is more than just a trend nowadays. It is used and applied by almost all sites on the internet that aim to make money and reach online popularity. Among the many strategies of optimizing a web site, SEO web design is one of the topmost priorities.

The impact of the design of the site on search engine robotic crawlers or spiders can help raise the ranking of the site. This is where SEO web design comes in. There are many ways to make the web site more attractive to robotic visitors and human visitors alike. Actually, spiders and crawlers from search engines do not mind the overall aesthetic value of the site. All these robotic crawlers need is the information it can get from the site. The tricky part is how to put relevant information in the site in order for the crawlers to properly index the site due to its relevance. SEO companies who specialize in optimizing web sites must also know how to put a site in front of others in order to bring it to the attention of the Internet users. The search optimizers who will handle your site must be able to know the right strategies to place the web site ahead of others in its field through accepted methods of optimization.

SEO web design is a competitive area where web designers, or what I prefer to call website architects, work hard to come up with ideas and designs that are aesthetically appealing and relevant at the same time. There has to be consideration for ease of getting around the website, being appealing to a wide range of visitors and finding the right place for the website. Making a a basic, visually appealing site is easy with the many technologic advances available today, the problem with these advances are that they are sometimes quite tricky to use thus making your website difficult to navigate in. SEO web design should be easy to use and friendly to both human and robotic browsers.

Easy navigational access can be done by making the pages of the site easy to navigate to and having easy to understand and use button or labels to click on. The pictures and images on your SEO web design should be just the right size and scale to enable users to see them promptly after clicking instead of taking a very long time to download. Waiting for images and other graphics to load can be off putting for most visitors and will eventually lead them to another site which is more optimized and easy to view. Even spiders and crawlers will give up on a site which is not easy to navigate and get into.

The overall appeal of the SEO web design should not only be focused mainly on the niche that it is targeted on but also for Internet users who might have stumbled onto the site. SEO web design should have a universal appeal even for the most specialized type of sites on the Internet. Some webmasters or website owners could opt for specialized SEO web designs and these can also be done with the targeted audience in mind. It will also benefit the site if it is indexed as it should be. You might want to have a specific SEO web design which is built around the entire concept of your site and this can add to the ranking if you are quite specific with what you aim to sell or market. If you are marketing a specific product or information, SEO experts can focus on this product or information and build the SEO web design around it.

Another aspect of SEO web design that needs to be considered is what your competition is doing. The saying, “know your enemy” is the key here. You do not want to have the same boring marketing strategies as the competition. Why? Because it is a good idea to keep abreast with what they are doing and how well they are doing in this field. There are many site optimization tools that can help analyze and determine what is needed for the site. Hence, in regard to SEO web design process, content is one of the prime needs and tools of making the site rank high during searches. Finding out or identifying the right keywords to integrate into the site can be crucial in making the site among the top ranking ones. Keyword search tools and having keyword rich content and titles can help to optimize a site efficiently.

SEO web design experts should also bear in mind that there are web strategies that may be unacceptable for search engines. Using these underhand or black hat tricks to perpetuate a site in rank can cause the search engines to ban the site and also the SEO web design company that did the search engine optimization work for it no matter how well the SEO web design is.

10 Tips To Design The Most Creative Website

If we would like to develop our company in World Wide Web, then it's necessary to create the most creative website, so people can visit our website and want to take the information about our services and products. It is said that the first impression is the last impression and your website is the first impression to your target prospective clients. The impression should be developed by your creative website in visitor's mind so it's essential to create more creative website for first impression on our client's mentality so they want to visit our site again. To design the most creative website, follow below tips.

1. About Pages
If you want to get the ideas of your visitors, then feedback is necessary. Contact us page is also advisable to start a relation among you and your clients. You must give your email address so visitor can contact you directly and you can give support completely. About us webpage must be included to provide the information about your company. The information can be year of establishment, your growth, and name of country from where you operate. Home page must be included with links to all the other WebPages. All web pages must be given and the link to Home page.

2. Attractive
Your website should be attractive. The color selection for the pages has to be looked nice. The color of background has to be light and design has to be attracted by visitor first look.

3. Professional
Your website should be professional, in proper title pages. The content must be placed and unnecessary content must be avoided in a proper way. At first site, it should be able to show the visitor's interest for continuing your website. For example, you can visit our site - flash web design fort lauderdale

4. Small size of WebPages
WebPages should also be good looking and creative as well. WebPages must not be very comprehensive. Surfing of these types of websites will be simply avoided.

5. Text
Content does not issue; issue is look of expressions in WebPages. The background of the webpage should be light and text should be dark, it will be impressive. To read the text easily, the background should not be dark. All the fonts of the WebPages should be chosen properly which are easily available on every computer. In this case, visitors do not need to install new fonts in computer to read your text of your webpage. They can surf and read your site easily.

6. Capitalized Text
If you want to emphasize something, only when you should use capitalized text. Don't uses capitalize text in every sentences, it is hard to read.

7. Grammar
You should not be careless in text which is written in the webpage. You must not make any mistakes which may prove your ineffectiveness. Before finalize the text of your WebPages, you must check it. Any grammatical mistakes must not be made.

8. Background Images
You should keep minimum background images. Generally, it makes your pages harder to view and read.

9. Image Formats
Generally designers are using two types of formats GIF and JPEG. Let's know the difference between both formats.
GIF stands for Graphic Interchange Format. For different types of images, this format is better with only some different colors like drawing, black and white images and little content that will be little pixels high. It is also supporting transparency. JPEG stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group. It supports 16 million colors which are the best suited for photographs and complex graphics. It does not work well on line drawings, lettering or simple graphics.

10. Frames
When you are using frames in your website, it makes website ugly, confusing and more complicated.
Thus, the expert web designing companies have the best skills to design and online marketing skill and know that how to develop a website that should be one of the most favorable advertising tools in the biggest market of the world. Are you looking for web design fort lauderdale, you can certainly contact us at Ardis Creative.