Flash based sites are always a treat to your eyes.In the sense, they are always attractive and are fancy.As macromedia is working further and adding more and more advanced features to Flash, we can definitely expect ore and more flash based sites in the near future.However, there is a serious allegation that Flash based sites are a burden on web usage and the web real estate.So, where exactly should we stand.

The pros:

Interactivity

The Actionscript of Flash opens up a vast field of possibilities.From complex flash based games to simple live feedback forms, flash has been utilized to the full of its potential.This new dynamics and fanciness is sure to bring users back to your websites.

A standard browser compatible site

One of the main perceived advantages of Flash is that you dont have to worry about the cross-browser compatibility issues.Your flash site will look the same way it looks in Internet explorer as it looks in Firefox and Opera.As long as the visitor has the flash plug in installed and active, he is going to see the site.

Animation for better reach

Flash and animations go hand in hand.So, using the animation medium that Flash gives, you have a better way to reach people and convey things to them.Also, comparing to the general movie files which are raster graphics based, flash is vector graphics based and thus lightweight with a smaller file size.

The cons:

The Flash Player

Not all browsers will have the flash player installed in it.Also, not many sites have flash in them.So, for anyone to view your flash based site, they should have downloaded and installed the Flash player so that they can view your site and other sites that are flash based.As a matter of fact, not many people like to install flash player for bandwidth reasons.If the visitor doesn’t have flash player installed, you will have to route them to download the flash player or plugin which not many will bother to do.

Optimizing your site

One of the greatest disadvantage of having a flash based site is that the search engines will not index flash based sites and thus your sites presence on the site is very very limited which in turn means you will get very less traffic.

The site load time

The laod time of the flash based site is comparatively higher than the site which is just text and images based which makes some visitors loose their patience and move on.Their is a direct proportionality between the site load time and the number of visitors you are loosing out in due course of time.The more the time your site takes to load, the more poeple are annoyed and more the decrease in visitors eventually.The ideal tradeoff of using Flash would be to use it only if you have a necessity for it or your niche is totally flash based like flash games or so.You may also think of using Flash partly in your site say for your banner and chat.Using flash in a site is always a calculated risk.

Related posts:

1. Where to sell your sites? Buying and selling of sites is a regular activity...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Creating a website of your own is not that hard as it seems to be initially.At least, it is not that technical and difficult to accomplish.Most of us who are not that tech savvy would give up even trying out building our own website.However, with a simple web language called HTML (Hyper Text markup Language) which is the most basic and simplest computer languages, it is very easy to build our own website provided you have the willingness and drive to learn a few  things quick.

What is HTML?

HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language is the simplest markup language used in website creation.It is a basic mark up language.Which means that it will tell the browsers, how certain things have to be output to the user on the browser.Tags are used to markup the content to show them in whatever way we want.

Coding HTML.

Though HTML is a very simple language to learn and code at least at the basic level, many may still be not comfortable with HTML coding.In that case, you can buy software that are available which can do this work for you.In Macromedia Dreamweaver, or even Microsoft Frontpage you have this functionality which eases your work and makes it possible to get a site coded within hours.Furthermore, You can as well have access to online website builders who are third party service providers who offer web site creation help and support over the Internet.

Having said that, there are hundreds and thousands of books , magazine and other tutorials both online and off line that can greatly help you in any aspect of website building.In the modern world, information technology is the best and most cost efficient way in retaining knowledge, especially in this particular field.So get started and code your first website now.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The face is the index of the mind.Your website is the index of your business, your services and your potential to offer services.It is the online headquarters of your services or institution/organization.Thus, it is of highest priority that you take care as to have the best of the web sites that caters to the needs of your target audience.

Navigation on the site have to be laid out perfectly so that even the new visitor finds it easy to navigate your site with ease.Confusion in navigation will decrease your site visitors drastically over time.

It would be better to have minimal number of images on your site.They add to your site load time and also in most cases they are just aesthetic and don’t give much information.If you insist and feel that certain images are to remain in your site, you will have to optimize them using image optimizing software to limit their size thereby reducing the load time.

The best practices are not just restricted to the designing work but also to the text/content part.The paragraphs of text in your site has to be of a reasonable length.It shouldn’t be too short to provide nothing at all to the readers, and it shouldn’t be too long to make the readers frustrated.

A good website has to be compatible with all the major browsers and properly loading without any bugs and issues.It is a good practice to make your site obey the W3 standards.Different users use different web browser.So, if you don’t optimize your site for all the browsers, you are bound to loose a significant amount of visitors.

Avoid using scripting languages on your site unless it is absolutely necessary. Use scripting languages to handle or manipulate data, not to create visual effects on your website. Heavy scripts will slow down the loading time of your site and even crash some browsers. Also, scripts are not supported across all browsers, so some visitors might miss important
information because of that.

It is always better to avoid scripts and scripting languages if not absolutely necessary.If used, they haVe to be used to manipulating and handling data rather than used for creating visual effects.It is a very know fact that most of the scriptrs have a huge negative impact on the load time of the site.many can even crash browsers.You would have noticed this many time happe and you are forced to stop the script.ANother reason to avoid scripts is that they aren’t universally supported by all browsers thereby making it impossibke for people with certain browsers inaccessible to your site content.
Instead, you can use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to add styling information to your site which is light weight and easy.

Related posts:

1. What to Ask Your Web Hosting Service? When taking advantage of affordable web hosting, there are...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Attention has to be given in web design so that every minute detail and feature of the website is pleasing to your customer or visitors who are the potential clients.As a general rule of thumb, here are some tips for having an effective and user friendly website.

1) Avoid using splash pages in your website

The term splash page refers to the very first page that is shown by the web browser.They usually have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome to our site ” or “click here to enter the site”. In fact, there is no real purpose that is being solved with having such splash pages. Some users get annoyed when they see such splash pages and generally close the site without proceeding.That is not what we want here. Give them what they want or whet you are offering them right away.

2) Avoid banner advertisements on the site

Don’t waste your site space for unnecessary banner advertisements hoping that you will get a few clicks, affiliate sales or $$$.Even the average Joey has an idea of what banner advertisement is and just ignores it. Instead of doing that, you can give more valuable and engaging content to them with affiliate links in the content so that it looks natural, and make your visitors comfortable and think that they will buy it rather than you have persuaded them to buy it.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

Navigation is one of the main aspects of web designing.Your navigation menu has to be simple and straight forward.Even a total noob has to figure out the actual navigation of your site the very first time.If you can make that, you have succeeded.
Complicated and fancy flash menus and multilayered drop downs and navigation bars must be avoided. It is a fact that is proven time and again that If your visitors don’t feel comfortable with your site navigation, they just close the site and leave.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

Once again, you will have to take every effort to make the visitors comfortable with the site.They will have to know where they are currently and the exact path that they need to follow to reach a particular location to get what info they want.

5) Avoid using audio on your site
It is always better not to have some audio playing in the background constantly disturbing your site visitors. If you insist, make sure you give them some control over the audio that is being played.You can give them a muting and volume control functionality so that they can do that if they are not interested.The more options you give to the visitors, the better it is for them.Having said that, it is not a good idea to have an auto playing audio in your site on load.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.