Posts Tagged ‘flash splash’
December 1st, 2008 | 
Author: When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally and serves its purpose. Here is the first of ten important rules of thumb to make sure your website performs well.
Do not use splash pages
Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. They became popular back in the days when most people were on a dial-up Internet connection, and visitors had a tendency to click away if the site took too long to load. The argument was that if the page loaded quickly, impatient visitors would be more likely to stick around. That may have been so in the past, but things have moved on since then.
Today, with fast connections becoming the norm this argument no longer holds true. Research as shown there are only a finite number of times a prospect is prepared to click links on your website – particularly if it’s a sales website – and that number is getting lower all the time. That extra click from your splash page to your main page, could mean the difference between a prospect clicking on the “buy now” or “go to checkout” link, or getting frustrated and clicking away.
It’s best to give visitors the value of your site up front without the splash page. If you have a long sales letter, try using CSS style sheets to make the page load faster.
In my opinion, you should especially avoid Flash splash pages. Even on a fast connection they can take ages to load. If you must use a Flash intro, give the visitor the option of skipping it.
Shaun Pearce is a video maker and webmaster. You can find out more about running a website at http://www.yourwebsiteacademy.com
Article Source: 10 Golden Rules in Website Design: Rule # 1
