I’ve never liked flash websites even when they became popular from 2000-2006. They always had problems. They usually take way too long to load. They often have annoying intros that last 60 seconds on a website I want to spend less than 60 seconds. The list goes on and on. I’m always passionate when I talk with a new client who thinks they want to create their website with flash. Long story short any smart business will avoid flash like the plague. Besides my own personal bias, I’ll give you 6 reasons that will make your business understand why you should avoid flash like the plague…
1) Flash is bad for SEO
Information embedded in flash sites is almost invisible to search engines. Even though Google has announced an improved crawling response to flash sites most flash sites are not up to standards for what businesses need these days to win the SEO wars. While search engines such as Google try their best to extract links and textual content buried in Flash objects, the process is far from perfect. Sites constructed completely in Flash often offer very little textual information – consequently what information a search engine does find ranks poorly. Even sites partially constructed using Flash often “hide” their internal site links using Flash-based site navigation. This means in order to make up what you lose in keywords you’ll have to pay more in google ads or places to even compete in your market.
2) Flash sites have trouble getting accurate analytics
For many of the same reasons, I stated above flash sites interfere with your analytics making it difficult for your company to gather valuable marketing information to track whether your efforts are working to improve your online marketing tactics. Also, you will not have accurate data to make valuable improvements to your user experience and to see where and what pages your visitors spend most of their time. If you cannot gather this data how can you understand what your website is doing wrong and therefore your online home base will not be a valuable sales tool to your company.
3) Flash sites look great but have bad user experience
While your flash site may look amazing your users don’t feel the same way. Your users want the ease of use and the ability to get to the information they need without running into many distractions. Flash sites tend to do a lot of cool things and make your website unique unfortunately for the wrong reasons.
4) Flash technology was cool in 2002
While you may think your company needs or wants a cool looking site created with flash the reality is the flash site technology was interesting in 2002 and even then they were annoying sites that often broke down or froze. Today they look outdated and make your company look like they are not on the front line of innovation and relevance.
5) Flash sites don’t work on different platforms.
In 2012 there is NO reason that your company shouldn’t be fighting to win on mobile. Smart Phones & Tablets are becoming the primary places users consume the web, shop, and gather information. And in the next 10 years, it’s only going to go more mobile. Flash sites often don’t work well with mobile or pads. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that your flash site will hinder your company. So it’s best to avoid this problem at the source by avoiding flash altogether. Flash from browser to browser and different operating systems also have varied usability.
6) You’ll blow a lot of money.
Flash sites are expensive to create. But once your site is done you’ll have to constantly update and refresh the design. Every time you do this you’ll need to pay a flash-based design company or designer which will cost your company a lot in maintenance. While most web 2.0 and open source websites once created can either be maintained by your staff and will be relevant for at least 3 to 5 years.
Well, I hope this site has made you as passionate about flash-based websites as I am. If you have a flash-based site its best to start making the move to create a new site and don’t worry creating a new site using open-sourced platforms like WordPress or Drupal cost about 1/5 what you paid for your flash site. If you’re reading this blog post and you’re looking to create a new website contact our company ArtVersion