November 27, 2000
Blog Entry

Warning: Flash Intro Pages Can Cost You Visitors

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Should your B-to-B site start with a Flash intro page? Many experts say "No." While Flash is a very useful tool -- especially for online product demonstrations and presentations -- business sites could hurt their results by forcing visitors to sit through a Flash introduction. Some visitors with older browsers can't view Flash. Others (especially repeat visitors such as favored customers) are annoyed by constantly having to watch it to get to their destination.

What if you compromise by offering a "skip flash" option on your front page? The problem is, you're still forcing someone to opt-out of Flash. The visitor has to wait for the page to be loaded, choose their option, click "Skip Intro" or "Non-Flash" and then wait for your home page to be loaded. While this may take less than a minute, most visitors only give a site 15 seconds before deciding whether to stay or go.

Chuck McLeester, VP Strategic Planning of B-to-B agency Roska Direct councils against Flash introduction pages because of visitor impatience. He says, "You have to deliver people the items they want within 2-3 clicks. If they have to go through more than that, you'll probably lose them." Is your lovely Flash intro really delivering so much value that it's worth losing visitors for? Probably not.

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