Flash Websites & Bad Marketing
This article is for you if your website still runs on flash technology – that animated website that does cool (?) stuff and displays moving images, floating menus and content that zooms in and out
Flash technology was developed in the end of the 1990’s (now that sounds old, doesn’t it…) to enable streaming of video and audio in a better way than what was used then.
I am not going to discuss security issues here, but many security flaws were discovered in flash plugins (the software that enables web browsers to run flash) to the level that Firefox browsers now block flash (try to see if your site runs on Firefox now) – unless you specifically authorise the website (that amounts to 21% of browsers in the world).
I am also going to mention this once here – flash is not supported by smartphones (Apple & Android) and tablets (Apple & Android) – these are responsible in 2015 for over 50% of Internet traffic to commercial & local websites.
Think about what this means to your website…
You are missing over 50% of the traffic that is looking for businesses like yours (sorry, not yours. They will not be able to see yours…)
From a marketing point of view, flash is a big no no!
Search Engines & Flash Websites
When running a flash site, there is a single point of entry to the website – through the home page.
A better explanation will be – planning a house that has a single point of entry, all its structure is underground and only after you get inside, you can see what you have there (that’s more of a bunker and I don’t know too many successful businesses that use a bunker as their store front)
A single url (link) means that search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing and smaller ones) can only index one page only – the home page!
So, only a single entry or not appearing on search results at all…
Social Networks & Flash Websites
If you have an interesting page you would like to share with friends, colleagues or clients (great project, interesting image gallery or any other information that people might want to share) – you cannot!
You cannot share flash websites’ internal pages, unless specially programmed as a separate software and assign a specific url. The majority of flash website designers do not do that!
You will have to send the instruction of “how to get there…” to the person you want to share it with.
So, not appearing on social networks…
Tracking, Statistics & Flash Websites
Here’s another question to you – What are your website traffic statistics?
What’s that?
How many visitors did you have to your website, where did they come from, which pages were they interested in, where did they leave your website, what links did they click on?
Can you answer any of these questions?
Tracking flash websites require either to program some code to integrate your website’s SWF files with the analytics tool you wish to use. Or, using special software from Adobe that will track it for you.
Many flash website developer do not implement tracking into small and medium business websites.
If you have it implemented, you are a very rare breed.
If you don’t, you do not know where your visitors go, what are they interested in, where are they coming from (what works for you).
When you know these numbers, you can improve by changing, tweaking and testing. Improvement brings more clients and more income.
Without tracking, you cannot improve. Without improvement, how can you succeed?
Flash Websites & Load Speed
Flash is a resource hog. That means that the web server that your website is hosted on, works much harder in order to show your website to visitors. This means your website becomes slower to load.
How does that affect traffic? The visitors that have managed to find you (they are probably VERY interested) give up and leave…
So, even traffic that arrives to your website, gets to wait and some (if not most) will just leave without doing what you wanted them to do (you do have something you want them to do, right?)
Flash Websites Short Summary
How does having a flash website affect your business?
Let’s see:
- Using flash means you are giving up on over 50% of commercially viable traffic, giving up on an additional 21% of web browsers (out of the remaining 50% of traffic) -> you are losing so much traffic – I’m sure that if you would have known, you’d choose to correct it immediately…
- No direct link to a page of interest – less references, less traffic, less searchable results in search engine -> No traffic from search results! people cannot find your website!
- No tracking & reporting – no way to learn what your visitors are interested in & are looking for (you are missing on a LOT of leads, calls and sales!), no way to know what to change and what to enhance.
- Slow to load, hard to navigate through (with all the creative menu styles) -> not helping prospective clients to stay longer on your website and find what they were looking for.
I’ll spell this loud and clear –
When you are using a flash website, you are choosing to push away over 60% of potential traffic, you are choosing to hide your website from the world & you are doing whatever you can to make it hard for people that have already reached your website, to use it and get the information they require, in order to make a decision (to hire you or to buy your stuff) – This is bad marketing!
I am sure you didn’t mean to do that when you had your website done, but don’t you think it is time you fix this?
Ask yourself –
“How many prospects & clients called and arrived from my website?”
Unfortunately, I will not be surprised if the number is very low or that you are not too sure about it… (and you cannot track it as well, can you?) since your website seems to be near non-existent to the outer world!
Obviously, you are not the only one that has a flash website, but you are getting to the point where you are going to be… In 2010, 28.9% of websites worldwide, had flash embedded in some way. As of August 2015 this number has dropped to 10.3%.
Before you get up and do something about it (are you?), you’d better read through the next step…
-> Next: 3 Steps Before You Build Your Marketing Enhanced Website
More References Regarding Flash Websites & Technology
If you would like to see where and how I’ve got all the facts and figures in my article, I’d like to give you some references for your leisurely reading.
An article (from 2008!) explaining the problems than (they haven’t changed too much since) – Flash and SEO – Compelling Reasons Why Search Engines & Flash Still Don’t Mix
and another essay by Steve Jobs “Thoughts On Flash” from 2010 about why Apple products do not support flash technology
And these are from over 7 years ago!
Here’s a more recent article from Fast Company from August 2015 –
The agonizingly slow decline of adobe flash player
explaining the points and issues with this technology (and yes, there are some large players that are using this technology, but their reluctance to reply, says a lot) – some stats about flash usage in 2010 and now.
And here is what is required to track flash sites using Google analytics
Flash security issues are detailed here – vulnerabilities & risk factor & Mozilla blocks all flash in firefox
What about all these statistics I was throwing around – they came from here: