I want to take a moment to debunk a lot of common myths about Flash web design. Flash is an awesome medium for a web designer to utilize to set himself apart from the next guy (or gal). In the same respect, Flash is an awesome way for Realtors and Real Estate Companies to set themselves apart from their competition. But a lot of Web Designers actually discourage their clients from using Flash on their web sites. "Why is this?" you might ask. Well I think the main motivation behind this is that the Web Designers are either too lazy to learn the medium, or they have fallen victim to the disinformation propagated by the "lazy" crowd.
Some Common Flash Discouraging Myths:
Flash Will Hurt Your Search Engine Ranking
Flash will not hurt your search engine ranking anymore than images will hurt it. As long as you keep your important content as HTML text, flash will not hurt your search engine ranking at all. I promise!
Flash Loads Slow
Flash only loads slow if you if you load it up with giant photos, music, and video. Don't get me wrong, Flash is an excellent medium to display video (see YouTube.com). Just make sure you keep the video as an option, possibly on a secondary page, so that so that users with slower connections don't have to wait forever for your front page to load.
If a User Doesn't Have the Plug-in, or They Have a Flash Blocker They Won't See Your Web Site
A good Web Designer knows how to set up alternate content that automatically displays in the case that someone is blocking flash content or doesn't have the plug-in. But this will only be about 1 to 3% of your traffic according to my testing, so it's really a non-issue. But for those 1 to 3%'ers, I always set up alternate content in the form of static images or HTML text that replaces my Flash animations should a user visit my web site that cannot or has chosen to not view Flash.
There is a right way and a wrong way to do everything. Just because someone doesn't know the right way to use Flash, doesn't mean it is inherently evil.
Thank you for your time.
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