Evil Auto Loading Flash Videos

Nov 102009
 

Music, videos, script, and anything that has to do something after page load is a burden on users. When is enough enough? When people started figuring out how to add music to websites it took off like crazy. Then people figured out that users might already be listening to music, heard lots of complaints about it, and they stopped. At least most of them.

Well now there is a new technology, and it’s called video. Want proof that history often repeats itself? Just look around for websites that automatically load video now. The numbers are insane, and apparently these people have no clue, or have completely forgotten the lesson learned from adding auto loading music. Users don’t want auto playing extras! Continue reading »

Why Meta Tags are Essential

Feb 262009
 

I was recently reading a forum post on how one of the members said meta tag are worthless, and that they are no longer using them. Boy, is that bad advice, and I was reminded of how bad that advice was when I looked at a new clients site today. It was made entirely out of flash.

If You Use Flash You Must

First, take a look at Meso Design. Their site is all flash. Keyword content? Zero. When search engines index their site, the only information that they can get are from the meta tags. So if you do things in flash, this is the only reason you need to use meta tags. I know there is a bunch of hype on how Google can scan flash, but it’s just in its infancy, and only Google can do it. Besides figuring out what a site is about though, what else does a search engine do to your site? They list it in a search result.

Do You Want Your Description or A Computer’s Description?

So take a look at Meso’s product design site again. If you were a computer what part do you think we be used as the description of the site? The logo? The green header? Who knows.

Here is what Google came up with:

googlesnap

So how did Google come up with that? It’s in the Meta. By good fortune the developers of this site included the meta tags defining the sites description and title. Key value here is that it was a description they picked, not some computers pick.

Meta Tags Make Sales

Say what? It’s true, they do. Though Meso hasn’t taken advantage of it yet, they will. If you word your description right, you can turn it into an action item. Here is an example of something that is happening to the smart webmasters out there. They rank #5 for a popular keyword, but they get more hits from Google than the #1 spot result. Why? Is their site more relevant? Nope. It’s because they have  finely tuned their page description to not just describe the page, but to get visitors to act on it. They have turned their description into and advertisement, and it’s paying way better than if they simply ranked #1. Imagine what will happen when they get ranked #1. Out performing, out performing, out performing.

A Little Sample

Their are tons of sites out there that can help you develop quality meta tags, but I thought I would at least give you an example by showing you mine. Here is mine from my usability analysis page.

<title>Usability and Design Analysis</title>
<meta name=”description” content=”Want to improve your website? Get my usability and design analysis. This analysis is an easy ROI, and could substantially improve your desired visitor action.” />
<meta name=”keywords” content=”usability, usability and design, improve website, return on investment, usability analysis” />
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″ />
<meta name=”Author” content=”Best Web Image” />
<meta name=”copyright” content=”Best Web Image” />

Meso Design

For those of you that skim like many of you do, you may have guessed that Meso designs websites. They do not. They are product designers.

Fast Flash

Nov 122008
 

Because yesterdays post was about fast forms, I decided to stick with the theme in two ways, real estate, and fast. That is about the only similarity though. This one is about flash, its alternative, and how on this Austin Real Estate site, has some flash that runs too fast. I actually wrote a post about them a while back as well, and that time I was referring to their header flash object.

A Better Way

austinFirst, you need to know what flash object I am talking about on their site. It’s the second one with the animated map. The animation runs way to fast, and it actaully took me a couple of runs to read the content. What was its message? Basically, that it was the secret real estate site that other realators didn’t want you to know about. It was selling itself.

My initial reaction was that there has to be a better way to sell yourself. Simple text does get the message across, and you could get rid of the flash all together. I think the author’s objective with this flash though, is to caputre the visitors attention with animation. I think here is an excellent opportunity to take on video, and just get rid of the flash.

Video

I think replacing their fast flash file with a video would be a great improvement. Their current flash, though fast, doesn’t convey a very large message. It also doesn’t get you to do anything. Using videos to sell products online has become a very popular method these days.

Benefits of Video

  • You get face time
  • You can quickly convey a message
  • You can gain credibility by giving it a face
  • It converts customers very well
  • It captures the audience attention with visual and audio
  • Images seen can say much more than text

Creating a digital video is also, now, pretty easy, and embedding into a website is a snap. In fact, the whole process is easier than building a flash file.

Had enough flash? Looking around their site to see if they had any more flash, I was happy to find none. I was certain I would find it on their blog, Austin Real Estate blog, but it was clean. No more flash bashing from me today. I do actually like it, it just depends on its use.

Keywords Lost

Sep 152008
 

Flash is cool, but you still need to be careful how you use it. A classic mistake to make when designing a website is to use images to convey a text message.  Search engines can’t read them, some pda’s won’t display them, and it will most likely create an accessibility problem for those who rely on text version only browsing. Having text in a flash object is basically the same thing for most search engines, and for those of you that have heard that Google can now start reading text in flash, don’t think that it can read all text.

Text in Images is Invisible

Text in an image is invisible to search engines, and when that image is in flash it’s just as invisible. Using  this Austin Real Estate site, you can see a great example of flash failing the owner, the search engines, and the users. Looking at their screen shot below you can see the flash they used in the header.

withflash

I don’t know about you, but if this was my real estate site, I would definitely want those keywords visible to search engines. Search engines can’t read them. How do I know? Well for one, Google is the only search engine currently claiming they can read flash sites. So that means unless it’s Google, it can’t read it. The second more important reason, is actually seeing that Google did not read it. Here is a link to text version Google has cached of the site. Notice the text Google indexes for the site starts at the menu below the header flash. Text in this flash? It’s invisible.

Google Can Read Flash

If Google can read text in flash, why can’t it read this sites text? It can’t read the text in this flash because, really, there is none. It’s just an animated image that has some text on it. There is no menu, text content, or links for Google to do anything with. When Google finds text in flash, it’s reading things like the flash menu, or links within the menu, not the pictures. What failed this sites SEO? Images conveying a text message!

Design For Performance

Aug 182008
 

What do you think? Should you design for user preference or user performance? Most webmasters would say design for user preference. It makes sense at first, designing to what your site users prefer. An example would be using flash for a younger audience. Many prefer flash because it looks cool, it’s interactive, and not boring in design like this text based site. Preference doesn’t equal performance though.

Preference Does Not Equal Performance

If you tested a site that was designed for user preference, I am sure you would find that preference did in fact equal performance, but not entirely. Just because someone likes your site does not mean they will successfully complete your desired visitor action. Looking at it another way, a visitor may not even like your site, but does complete the desired visitor action.

When designing your site or making improvements to your site, think about your objective. Use facts that are improving performance, and not general visitor feedback such as “I like your site, it looks cool.” It’s hard to be cold and calculated, “just the facts, mam”, but why build a site that just looks cool. Best web design should consider performance first, and then build for user preference. Then you will get the best of both worlds.

Flash Templates

May 022008
 

Very sweet, low cost, cool flash templates. I was checking out Dreamline Studio today, and they may be the solution to a problem I have. Pre-made flash templates. I’m looking for a little extra flair for one of the sites I am working on.

Dreamline Studio is a web template site specializing in flash. They will also be offering html templates, but right now it’s over 100 flash templates to zero html templates. Besides having site templates, they have component templates as well. There are a few carousel templates, lots of gallery options, and pre-loader screens. Need a flash shopping cart? You got it. There are flash intro pages, splash pages, and a few miscellaneous items. All worth looking at.

What got me was the cost. Check out this template, $75. Totally cool site template, and all you have to do is edit the data with your own. You need flash software to edit the details, but I hope you would have this if you intend on hosting a flash site. There is tons of stuff like that, and some were as low as $25.

Verisign secured, paypal, and most cc’s, this site is ready to sell.

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