Intro / Splash Page

Tony Hardy

Tony Hardy

Well-Known Member
Hey everyone,

A client that I'm currently designing a website with is after a Splash/Intro page where they can have a little bit of animation and a choice of languages to select.

Does anyone have any suggestions? They said 'a Flash intro' but I'm trying to steer them away from that. Can JQuery do anything like it? Been trying to read up on it but keep getting in a muddle.

Cheers,
Tony
 
I'd personally say avoid a landing page. It serves no real purpose apart from pissing people off. The viewer has visited the site specifically to get information from it, if they entered the url so they already know where they've landed and don't need a dancing pixie to tell them. If they didnt enter the url and are coming in from a google search, they'll probably miss the landing page anyway. As for language selection, that's probably better integrated into the site because someone coming into the bulk of the site from a google search wont want to have to leave the page to get to a landing page to change their language to then try and find where google took them
 
My thoughts entirely. I'm trying to use my powers of persuasion. I just hope they go for it. They also want sound :(
 
To second Dave it is also a bloody terrible idea from an SEO point of view. Your home page is the most important page on your website so the dancing pixie is a massive no in my book.
 
I know. The worst part of it, is that it's a coder/programmer that's handling the project, and I'm just looking after the design side of things.

Surely they should know the pitfalls of landing pages and Flash.
 
If he still decides to go with something done in Flash, is there no way you can embed some invisible code, keywords, tags etc.., say, behind the Flash SWF file? That way he may not be top of google, but higher than he might have been with a simple flash intro. I thought I read somewhere that something like that could be done? Or was I seeing things?
 
I'm not 100% it's possible, but I'm sure I read it somewhere. If it is possible, I'll be looking into it. My current site is built in Flash. Simply because I can't afford to get it built properly yet and this was the next best option for me.

Why would it not be legal? I'm not a developer so not clued up like most on here, but what rules would it be breaking?

I had the same issue as you with my client for London Calling. But they were determined to have a Flash animation despite my attempt to move them away from that. So that's what I gave them. It doesn't contain any hidden code, tags, keywords or anything. But if there's a way I can add them behind the SWF file, then I'll be looking into how it's done.
 
Possible glut of ignorance here (really not my thing) but doesn't a Flash movie sits as a placed element in a web page? If so, why wouldn't you be able to stick whatever's required in the code...?
 
Meaning what? Keywords and the like?

In regards to legality, I was just thinking that putting white keyword lists on a white background is frowned upon, don't know if it's illegal or not, but it's not one of the most favoured techniques.
 
Hiding keywords on a page is meant to be frowned on by Google. However a while ago I had a good look at the top-ranking graphic/web designers websites local to me and they were all doing it. Guess there’s good and bad ways of doing it depending on how Google feel at that time.
 
Dave L said:
Possible glut of ignorance here (really not my thing) but doesn't a Flash movie sits as a placed element in a web page? If so, why wouldn't you be able to stick whatever's required in the code...?
Click to expand...

You're right Dave, a Flash SWF does indeed sit on a HTML page, so I suppose you can add all the tags, keywords etc.. you like within that same code. Makes me wonder why nobody's mentioned it to me before?

djb said:
Hiding keywords on a page is meant to be frowned on by Google. However a while ago I had a good look at the top-ranking graphic/web designers websites local to me and they were all doing it. Guess there’s good and bad ways of doing it depending on how Google feel at that time.
Click to expand...

I still don't really understand why it's illegal, let alone frowned upon. Whether you hide them on a white background or behind something, or attach them to visible objects, you still have the same solution. You still have to do the work to code whatever is there.
 
'Hidden' text and links are generally frowned upon by Google. I managed to get a website banned for just that when I started out a few years ago. Luckily it was my own site so no harm done really.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with adding alternative HTML content that reflects the text that is in the flash file itself. In fact it is a must for iWhatever portable devices.

If you want a good demo of how to do this then look at some moonfruit developed websites on an iPad or just disable flash in your regular browser. Proper flash sites can be optimised and can do well in Google.

The difference with a Flash intro is that you can stuff it with hidden keywords/text but it won't reflect the content of the page. That's where the line is drawn in my opinion.

It will also put visitors off I think. They have searched on Google for the info they want. They click on a link that they believe takes them to the page they want and they actually get a Flash intro. That's not good sport :icon_wink:

The other reason they are just a crap idea is that the home page can easily be bypassed if the visitor has searched for an 'inner' page or the site has Google sitelinks. So what is actually the point of it? The Flash intro will get less hits than other pages so a waste of time/effort/money.

So Flash sites are fine and can be (carefully) optimised to work. Flash intros are just awful and I will either 'skip' if I am interested in the rest of the website or navigate away.
 
Tony Hardy said:
Hey everyone,

A client that I'm currently designing a website with is after a Splash/Intro page where they can have a little bit of animation and a choice of languages to select.

Does anyone have any suggestions? They said 'a Flash intro' but I'm trying to steer them away from that. Can JQuery do anything like it? Been trying to read up on it but keep getting in a muddle.

Cheers,
Tony
Click to expand...

In view of all that's been said then, I'd probably encourage them to incorporate the animation into their home page and have a language selector in the header. I've seen (and not been too troubled by) landing pages which basically exist to allow you to choose your language/location but these are usually sites promoting properly massive, international businesses where the drive to achieve page ranking, etc., is going to be less of an issue in view of the company's status.
 
Agree with Dave here.

Perhaps centre the animation with the main navigation up top or to the side as normal. I've seen a lot of sites that include the language into the navigation bar, so no reason why you can't do that also. You then have the opportunity to loop the animation if it contains information. Obviously on a intro page, it'd be seen once then disappear when they navigate to the homepage.

I use a landing page which upon site entry, takes you to the 'about' page. I did it for no other reason other than I didn't know what to put on a regular home page without duplicating other pages of the site.
 
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Corrosive said:
There is absolutely nothing wrong with adding alternative HTML content that reflects the text that is in the flash file itself. In fact it is a must for iWhatever portable devices.
Click to expand...

Would that take less time and money than coding a site the regular way?
 
ARRIVALS said:
Would that take less time and money than coding a site the regular way?
Click to expand...

That depends on how far you want to take it. The reason moonfruit works well is that the alternative has a very 'website' looking layout so you are looking at coding it twice.

Try this example; Welcome - Fansia Tickle check with and without Flash enabled and you'll see what I mean.

My knowledge runs out there mind you because I can't use Flash so have never needed to do it :icon_wink:
 
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