5 Flash Myths– Why Flash is Not Evil

Many stigmas are attached to flash applications and still hunt this cool development tool.  These outdated myths were the results of old flash bugs and limitations that no longer hold true. Flash has been in the market now for more than 10 years and has a penetration of more than 98%. It is here to stay. In this post we will address the five common flash myths and show you that flash is worth your investment.

Flash Myth #1

Designers put all the flash in one program, making it hard for search engines to find and crawl the different pages of the website. This makes SEO (search engine optimization) difficult.

FACT: This myth stands true for the many SEO engineers who have no experience in flash website optimization. However, there are many available java scripts that will allow website indexing.

Specialized flash SEO companies have the necessary tools and knowledge to successfully optimize your flash website and will allow Google and Yahoo to index the entire site. Many successful agencies like Solution416 are achieving top 3 spots ranking on Google, Yahoo, and Ping. They even can achieve double listing per page.

Flash Myth #2

People claim that a flash website takes too long to load, so the user may get bored and leave your site.

FACT: This issue is more related to bad development practice than flash facts. If the developer/designer building your website decides to put everything into one movie, then the loading of the website will be very slow.

Good developers create a container in which they load different movies on demand. This reduces the load time from seconds to milliseconds. In fact, some flash websites actually load faster than HTML or Joomla websites.

Flash Myth #3

Flash development is very expensive and the extra cost is not justified because it rarely focuses on the needs of the site visitor.

FACT: When you build a flash website from scratch (not a template), the majority of the price is allocated toward the customization and the intellectual copyright. When the consumer understands that he is paying to get one of a kind website design and animation, then flash development becomes inexpensive. How else can you justify paying millions for a Picasso original?

If you want flash templates, they are available and are very cheap. On the other hand, if a website does not concentrate on grabbing the attention of its visitor, and does not facilitate the conversion from visitor to client, then this is a design issue more than a flash issue. We believe at that point you need to hire a new designer, not change technology.

Flash Myth #4

Some developers protect flash files to prevent others from editing them, which means you may need to hire them to make changes or design a new site.

FACT: Actually, flash runtime is a compiled version of the code, exactly like a .net application. In order to edit it you need source code. Whenever you enter in an agreement with an agency, you must understand whether you are buying the code or just a license.

We believe your best bet is to hire a flash professional, especially when your website is the first and only impression that your customers will get of your company. How often have you left a website simply because of fuzzy images, bad layout and poor design?

Flash Myth #5

Some people think that if you have flash you should use it as an introduction to your website and some even believe that flash should be reserved for introductions only.

FACT: Introductions to websites are not necessary and are usually a waste of time, unless they are there to serve a specific purpose. If you need to deliver a message you can always use the header of a page or a better positioned space on a website page.

We also recommend the use of limited animation inside a website during page transition because the attention of your website visitor should be dedicated to the message and the content.

We encourage you to take the plunge and use flash on your website. These common flash myths are no longer true and the benefits and advantages you will get from using flash animation are definitely worth your investment.

Our next post will outline these advantages and show you how flash can propel your business into new frontiers that will take your competition by surprise.

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