April 2007 Archives
As you know, Flash is the most powerful cross-platform, interactive development tool available to web developers today. You need to use this tool correctly, and I want to point out the three common misuses of Flash.
<strong>Using Flash Intros</strong>
In Flash’s early days, loading times for an introduction animation could be murderous. Even though today many more people have better connections, a Flash intro is still bad practice. When a user comes to your site there is usually a purpose. It is not to sit and watch an intro that is keeping them from obtaining your content. Most Flash intros do have a “Skip Intro” button. Your first time users will have no clue how long your intro will be and most likely will skip it altogether. This defeats the purpose of having an intro in the first place.
<strong>Creating Entire Sites In Flash</strong>
I have seen some extremely impressive Flash sites. And as much as I love Flash, I know it is not right to have an all-Flash site. First off, if you are not using dynamic content in your Flash site you have little to no chance of being seen by search engines. Second, your site should be 508 compliant. Your content needs to be accessible to people that use screen readers. You can’t give up substance for Flash.
<strong>
Animations Just For The Sake Of It</strong>
Gratuitous animations are a huge problem. Using animation just to show off is a terrible use of Flash. It can be distracting to the user, and when used improperly if takes away from the content in the site.
Think twice before using Flash in all the wrong ways.
<strong>Using Flash Intros</strong>
In Flash’s early days, loading times for an introduction animation could be murderous. Even though today many more people have better connections, a Flash intro is still bad practice. When a user comes to your site there is usually a purpose. It is not to sit and watch an intro that is keeping them from obtaining your content. Most Flash intros do have a “Skip Intro” button. Your first time users will have no clue how long your intro will be and most likely will skip it altogether. This defeats the purpose of having an intro in the first place.
<strong>Creating Entire Sites In Flash</strong>
I have seen some extremely impressive Flash sites. And as much as I love Flash, I know it is not right to have an all-Flash site. First off, if you are not using dynamic content in your Flash site you have little to no chance of being seen by search engines. Second, your site should be 508 compliant. Your content needs to be accessible to people that use screen readers. You can’t give up substance for Flash.
<strong>
Animations Just For The Sake Of It</strong>
Gratuitous animations are a huge problem. Using animation just to show off is a terrible use of Flash. It can be distracting to the user, and when used improperly if takes away from the content in the site.
Think twice before using Flash in all the wrong ways.
In January, we launched a new website for The Providence Group, a group of professional Realtors affiliated with RE/MAX® Greater Atlanta. This website has met with much praise; from the eye-catching design, to the 100% FREE home search, to the search engine friendly blog. With all these features, we were able to deliver to our client a website that they can be proud to show off, and that will serve to promote them to future new home buyers in Atlanta.Visit The Providence Group today.
A sitemap can come in many forms. It can be used in an Information Architecture document at the beginning of a project to provide a visual display of how the pages of a site link together. It can be an html page that exists on a website to show the user of the site all of the pages that are available to them. It can also be an xml document that is created and submitted to search engines.
These last two are the ones I will focus on.
HTML Sitemap
An html sitemap will usually live in the root folder of a website (www.mysite.com/sitemap.html). If a user wants to quickly find a page in a website but isn't sure where to find it in the navigation then they can go to the sitemap.html page. This page will have all of the links for the site organized by how they are arranged in the navigation. You can see ours at http://www.csmediagroup.com/sitemap.html From a Usability standpoint this is an important page to have.
It is also important from a Search Engine Optimization perspective. Having an html sitemap ensures that Google will be able to find all of the pages of your site. Our corporate site has its navigation in Flash which means that Google can't see it. Including an html sitemap provides Google with a way of indexing all of the pages in our site because Google will follow all of the links on a site to see where they go.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is an even better way of making sure Google sees all of the pages on your site. There are many automated tools out there that will create an XML sitemap for you. All you have to do is give them your url and they will do the rest. Once the document is created you can submit it to Google. Again, this is important to do to ensure that Google sees all of the pages on your website.
A sitemap is something that is often overlooking when developing a site but it is an essential part of good SEO and Usability.
These last two are the ones I will focus on.
HTML Sitemap
An html sitemap will usually live in the root folder of a website (www.mysite.com/sitemap.html). If a user wants to quickly find a page in a website but isn't sure where to find it in the navigation then they can go to the sitemap.html page. This page will have all of the links for the site organized by how they are arranged in the navigation. You can see ours at http://www.csmediagroup.com/sitemap.html From a Usability standpoint this is an important page to have.
It is also important from a Search Engine Optimization perspective. Having an html sitemap ensures that Google will be able to find all of the pages of your site. Our corporate site has its navigation in Flash which means that Google can't see it. Including an html sitemap provides Google with a way of indexing all of the pages in our site because Google will follow all of the links on a site to see where they go.
XML Sitemap
An XML sitemap is an even better way of making sure Google sees all of the pages on your site. There are many automated tools out there that will create an XML sitemap for you. All you have to do is give them your url and they will do the rest. Once the document is created you can submit it to Google. Again, this is important to do to ensure that Google sees all of the pages on your website.
A sitemap is something that is often overlooking when developing a site but it is an essential part of good SEO and Usability.
