Flash Intro Pages

Do or Do Not really is the question when it comes to using a Flash intro on your blog. In my opinion, 99% of the time the answer is “Do Not.” There are a number of reasons for this which I’ll get into shortly but to begin with I generally look at flash intro pages in the same light I see “spinners” on wheels. Flashy, yes, but also costly, unnecessary, distracting, without purpose and quite frankly, silly looking. Yes, your flash intro is probably little more than “bling” for your website. Some sites, and very few, call for a flash intro. If your business is “flash” and “bling” then it might make sense for you. Some sites that come to mind where it works are chanel.com, mgmgrand.com (click on “Enter Maximum Vegas”) but for most sites the flash intro really doesn’t make sense.

Reasons not to do a flash intro:

1. Once someone has watched it once or twice they aren’t interested anymore, it’s just taking up time before the get to what they came looking for. If you absolutely insist on having a flash intro, make sure there is a way to skip it but you are better off ditching it to begin with.
2. Flash is not easily, if at all, searchable which means that page isn’t getting indexed by the search engines in any meaningful way potentially loosing valuable search engine optimization. So all that work you put into crafting your text, tag line, … is wasted.
3. In most cases, your home page is your most valuable page in terms of messaging and getting people into your site. It’s URL is important, content is important, organization and layout are established and using a flash intro throws all of that out the door. You’ve just wasted your most important page in the name of “bling.” It’s like putting a Civic engine in a Ferrari so you can afford the spinners on the wheels… to which most will respond, “what in the world were you thinking?”
4. Increased file size on the homepage. Part of what search engines will rank your site on is how quickly it loads. Having a huge flash file is bad for you, especially when it includes music…
5. Generally, the flash intro serves no purpose. You’re wasting time, money, bandwidth and searchability.

In all fairness, I’m not trying to say never use flash. I love some of the things I’ve seen done with it. Consider using it in your header or for navigation, but I would say use it sparingly and make sure it has a purpose. If the use of flash can help portray your company objectives better than a static page then include a flash component. In some industries such as gaming, visitors will expect to see some Flash on your site. In such cases, Flash can really serve as elegant way to project a message but even in many of those cases, a Flash INTRO may not always be the best answer.