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Internet
Marketing Tip of the Month
Splash
Pages Gone Too Far
March, 2002
By
Cassandra Tabora
Internet Marketing Specialist
The
popularity of Macromedia Flash for website animation has led many web designers
to add animated splash pages in front of their traditional home page. While this
technique can add excitement or inform (see our example at www.LudlowSteel.com),
it can also:
The
first point is obvious if you have ever seen a "Movie Loading" message
while waiting for an animation to start. Web surfers have short attention spans,
especially when quickly browsing through search results or industry directories.
Frivolous animations with dancing logos or photo collages will cause a
percentage of site visitors to click Back and go elsewhere. Consider if your
splash page is the best, quickest way to engage qualified site visitors. A
better approach may be to integrate Flash animations on a page with other
content and navigation buttons. (See www.MagicAmerican.com.)
The
second point, the effect of a splash page on search engine listings, can be made
worse by these mistakes:
Flash-detection
redirect page. In this case, the "home" page of the site
contains only JavaScript coding to determine if the site visitor has the
plug-ins necessary to run the Flash animation. If yes, the script redirects
the visitors to one URL, and if no, to another URL. Most search engine
indexers (spiders) can't follow links in JavaScript code and will go no
further into a site than this initial page that typically has no meaningful,
searchable content. A better approach is to program the JavaScript code to
produce a graphical representation of the Flash animation on the initial home
page in case Flash is not installed. No URL switching is required. See our
example at www.DARpr.com.
Dependence
on links in Flash. In Flash animation, a web designer can design buttons
and menus that link to other pages of the website. However, a site that
depends on Flash links for site navigation is also a dead end for search
engines, which don't read or index Flash animations. Be sure to add
traditional text or graphic links on your pages with Flash animations, or at
least a "Skip Intro" link that search engines can follow to more
traditional secondary pages.
Missing
elements of searchability. Search engines rank pages by text content, page
titles and meta tags. Many web designers forget to add these elements to the
HTML pages that hold their Flash animations. This is another argument for
integrating Flash animations into your existing home page framework.
Case
study: We consulted with BamStar to dramatically improve their search engine
rankings for www.BamStar.com
by moving their Flash movie from a splash page to their existing home page and
removing the Flash-detection script. HotBot now ranks the site 16th for searches
of "bamboo." See search
results.
Contact
Dynamics Online for information on how we can help
optimize your website for maximum searchability and usability.
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