I live in the super high fast paced world known as the eastern part of the United States. Sitting between Washington, DC and Boston, MA, the world here moves faster then anywhere else I have ever been.
So as a director for a website you could imagine my being around a fast paced environment everyday would also translate to the website as well. To me, nothing can be more aggravating and frustrating when I go to a website and it loads extremely slowly.
A lot of today’s websites are inundated with a variety of graphics, flash and multimedia that, quite frankly is not necessary. Unless your website is Disney-esque, all you are doing is slowing down your online business card. You have spent either a lot of time, money or both to get your home page to do all kinds of fancy things, but are they practical ideas? Then you put on the home page right below the extremely slow loading flash demo, “skip this”, which most people do. So ask yourself, if most people skip the intro, why do it in the first place?
The answer is simple, you don’t really need it. Sure if someone does watch it, it seems really neat. In this article let’s talk about how those flash demos, and graphics can be more practical for your website and online advertisements when used properly.
Flash is a really wonderful tool. When used properly it can enhance the message you are trying to get across to your site’s visitors. I believe that when using flash you shouldn’t automatically just load it for the visitor and show it to them whether they want to see it or not. Instead, use a play button of some sort so visitors can make that decision on their own. Flash is a wonderful way to show a presentation on products, services, your business and so much more. Using flash properly will definitely enhance the visitor’s experience, however, make it overbearing and the visitor will leave.
If you take only one thing about graphics from this article, heed this advice. Remove the banner advertisements. In today’s web world they are useless. Nobody pays attention to them anymore and they look merely like clutter on the web page then anything useful.
Instead use button links or text links with a good photo demonstrating what it is you are trying to get the visitor to do. For example, on our website we work with Amazon to sell books and media in relation to advertising. We do not use some huge banner ad to do it as that would look ridiculous. Instead, we post a photo of the product, the title and then when the user moves their mouse pointer over it a new box will appear detailing information about the product. We feel it is a wonderful, less intrusive and less annoying way of getting the products across to our site’s visitors.
Although it goes beyond the scope of this article, you can cut down on a variety of graphics which slow down your website by using cascading style sheets, different graphic formats and various other tools. Become acquainted with them or have your web site designer use them. It will help speed up your site and in this fast paced world that is very important.
By: Bruce A. Tucker
About the Author:
Mr. Tucker is the Associate Director of http://www.Indocquent.com, an online resource where you can advertise your business, products or services throughout the world without pay-per-click prices or auction fees.
You can now download Indocquent`s free social bookmark utility for your website or blog at http://www.indocquent.com/social_bookmark/social_bookmark_landingpage.html.
Published By: Indocquent.com- An online resource where you can promote your business, products and services around the world.
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