Stay Away From Flash Websites
One of the mistakes people make when they are getting a website made for them is they insist on having an entire website made up in Flash. They feel that it will give their site more appeal over other websites and that will bring customers in. The thing is, Flash can be damaging for your web presence and hurt you more than provide you with positive benefits. Therefore, it is important to stay away from Flash when getting a website made.
Search engine optimization with flash is incredibly difficult. While there are ways around it, such as creating html sections on flash pages and having separate files for each page of the site, it can be very difficult for a webmaster to rank in the search engines. The argument against this is a site like Godiva that has very little copy, but ranks number one for the word “chocolate.” The reason for this is probably because of the amount of links they get and, more importantly, because Google knows that Godiva is chocolate. They want to return what is most relevant and Godiva is pretty relevant. The issue is, for the average business, that’s not the case.
Another reason to stay away from flash is because it loads incredibly slow. A static HTML website can, most of the time, load with double the speed than a website that is made up in Flash. With so many people using high speed Internet now, they’ve grown very accustomed to near instantaneous loads. If a website is taking a long time to load, even if it is just a few seconds, they’re bound to leave before the glitzy site appears. Therefore, having an entire site that is Flash could take too long to load which will result in people leaving.
That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use certain Flash components, though. A Flash logo is an incredible way to get a brilliant looking logo without overloading the site with it. The Flash logo might take a little longer to load, but the difference won’t be much to the average visitor. More importantly, you still get the strong SEO benefits because it is only the logo that is flash, not the entire website. Those little changes make all the difference when talking about traffic to a site.
In the end, the choice is yours. However, it is best to stay away from Flash websites in their entirety. They might seem like a great idea because they are so attractive, but in the end, they’re bound to hurt you more than they will help you. So, stay away from them. It’ll benefit you more in the long run