flash animation



Why use Flash animations?

Because Flash animations take more time than straight HTML, they are generally more expensive to have on your site. Some types of Flash animations, such as image rotators that show a continuous sream of images one after another, are used regularly and thus have some sort of file set up that makes then cheaper and easier to install and maintain. For a lot of sites Flash simply does not make a lot of sense from the cost perspective. However, in some cases, Flash animation adds a great deal to the appeal of a site and keeps your visitors interested.

As with anything you place on your site, evaluating your reasons for wanting a feature—what will it do for you—is an important part of deciding whether or not to use it. Flash animations on a children's site, for instance, make a lot of sense in order to keep young, quickly distracted minds interested in what you have to say.

Flash Animations can make it possible to describe your services in a movie presentation.

Because of the way Flash can compress its files, a Flash animation generally takes up a lot less "bandwidth", i.e., the length of time that it takes your computer to download the Flash file so you can view it on your computer, than many other image forms. Because it can load a movie completely before playing it, or just load some of it and continue to download while the visitor begins to view the movie, it allows a great deal more flexibility in how you present your information.

Flash can make your site dynamic and let you offer more.

While most of the Flash animations we create are simple ones, there are other uses for Flash that can add a great deal to your site. Here are some of the Flash items we have put into place:

  • An MP3 player that loads the music clips one at a time, reducing the load time on the page, and that also allows you to move through the clips if you want to hear a particular one.
  • A Flash viewer rotates through a series of images, also one at a time to reduce the load time of the page
  • Menus created in Flash so that as one choose a menu item, sounds or more advanced animations can play.

Most of the time the Flash animations we produce are very simple ones and are not as expensive as you might think. Flash movies can be a worthwhile addition to your site, IF it makes sense to have them there. This is something we will be glad to discuss with you, should you feel Flash would add to your site.

What about creating my website in Flash?

We do not recommend creating your entire site in Flash unless you are already famous and/or have a business that needs no advertising. If you do not fall into this category, then a hybrid site that uses a mix of Flash and HTML is going to serve you better. This is because search engines still do not do well indexing sites created solely in Flash. Yes, there are companies that will sell you a completely Flash site and tell you that it will do just great in search engines, but that's not really true. This is in large part because most Flash sites consist of one page as far as a search engine is concerned, and search engines like sites full of information. They don't see a one-page site as fulfilling this need, and so the Flash site doesn't succeed overly well. Yes, good search engine marketing can help this to some degree, especially if your market is more regional (aka a smaller market area).

As with anything in life, there are exceptions to this general rule. But a hybrid site with elements of both Flash and HTML will do far better in search engines. We can certainly help you if you want to develop your site entirely in Flash, we just don't recommend it as a rule.