Designing is an integral part of websites that involve using flash animations, graphics, text and other elements. A lot of website owners don’t know is that too much of designing can weigh down your website, especially using software like flash. Basically using flash can result in a lot of search engines not being able to index the site as they are unable read Flash format at all. Flash can lead to a lot of other problems in the website too, and you should be aware of these factors before using it. This article discusses a few.
It’s slow.
Long load time makes your visitors cry.
It has been seen that flash can get the CPU to become heavy and makes it very slow. So, you can imagine the extent of reduction of speed for your website. Flash restricts different usability and creates other problems too. Replicating usability interfaces in flash can be a tedious task. There are buttons and scroll bars everywhere that make the process more confusing.
It’s annoying.
The loading time with flash is very high and this can make users impatient. The longer time your site would take to load, the fewer customers would revisit it. Longer time in loading also means loss of time for the user and hence they would prefer avoiding seeing it once, let alone visiting again.
It’s expensive.
Complexities of the flash pieces also exist because these are not pictures that you can cut and paste with animation filters. Flash sites require specialized skills and are not affordable for organizations with limited budgets. Why get into frivolous expenditure when search engines don’t prefer it. It is best to not use flash for the sake of creating something different for your website. Flash should be used only if the website formatting and structure demands it.
It’s not accessible.
Using Flash wisely can enhance the visual appeal of the site making it very welcoming for the users. But a complete Flash-based site can lead to huge business losses as it would mean poor search engine rankings and hence less traffic. Another factor that you should remember is that with the facility of accessing websites on your mobile phone, you would further restrict the usability of your website by using Flash. This is because Flash is not mobile friendly and all those who are using mobiles for accessing the internet would not be able to access your website, or at least get an impression that you might have imagined.
Search engines hate it, too.
A lot of individuals use Flash on the splash page but fail to understand that this makes their site look outdated. Technically, splash pages had gone out of vogue now. Your home page should be focused on providing information about the website, its contents, additional features, etc. Flash can just prove to be useless for your website, and in some cases it can cause more harm than good, as stated by most search engines.
To summarize Flash does not provide you with any additional benefits, but can only add to the size of the website. It reduces the speed of the website, wastes user time, and most importantly does not add any value to your website, physically and even financially.
