If your website relies heavily on Flash, you’re making a dangerous mistake and missing precious opportunities to connect with your clients.

Last month Apple CEO Steve Jobs wrote an open letter to Adobe slamming their Flash technology and announcing that it would not be supported on any iThing going forward.

This should prove to be the first nail in the coffin of Flash as a serious web application. Though some websites may continue to rely on it, they do so at their own peril.

However, many small businesses have used Flash for their websites for various reasons. It can be quick to deploy, it easily integrates video and slide shows that would require a developer’s crafty handy work without Flash, and many people think it looks pretty.

Those biz owners need to know why they should avoid heavy reliance on Flash. If more than 10% of your website relies on Flash, and especially if any navigational elements are using it, read on to find out why you need to scrap Flash now.

1. Websites built using Flash are rarely – if ever – optimized correctly for search engines.
   Most Flash websites are launched by non-developers who purchase a template, fill in their content and logo, and launch it. They aren’t aware that all the content in a Flash site is wrapped inside a “movie” and isn’t crawled or indexed by search engines very well, if at all. Google likes words, pictures, and tags attached to media like videos and music. Flash alone is just a movie that runs inside a player in the web browser. The text is not “searchable”. A developer can code your Flash site so there’s alternate text that Google can nibble on, but it’s still not as good as having a site built in HTML and standard tools.
2. Most Flash sites are difficult to navigate.
   Check out just a couple websites I stumbled across that are built in Flash: Bad site #1, Bad site #2 … How easy was it to locate the core message of those websites? Was it simple to find the contact button or the services pages? Did you know what the navigational cues were? Of course not. Most Flash sites are examples of graphic designers showing off their skills, while ignoring the fundamental rules of web “wayfinding”. To cite one specific example of why Flash sites are terrible: the “Back” button doesn’t work on Flash websites. Ask yourself, “If I knew nothing about my business, and I went to my website, would I be able to find out what we did within 20 seconds? If the answer is no, your site is bad. Fact is, most web visitors won’t give you that long, they’ll leave your site forever.
3. Flash doesn’t run on the i-Things.
   In 2009, depending on who you believe, 3-7% of all web traffic came from mobile devices. Early in 2010, WIRED MAGAZINE reported that 10.7% of the traffic on several major websites was coming from mobile devices, including Apple’s new iPad. The iPhone accounts for 50% of all smartphone internet traffic. Your customers are increasingly using handheld, mobile devices to access the web. Your website should be ready for that. Adobe has been notoriously slow at making Flash compatible with mobile platforms and devices. Apple doesn’t allow Flash on their i-Things. That means that if your website is running on Flash, half of the smartphone internet users cannot see your website. If they type in your web address on their iPod Touch, iPhone, or iPad, your site will break. They won’t be able to contact you or find directions to your store.

To conclude: if you have a website that relies on Flash you should rethink that strategy immediately. Oh yes, and don’t have music running on your website – it just bugs people. Really.

As a business owner, you need to know how to use Twitter to promote your products/services. Here’s a quick tip sheet:

• Use your business name in the address of your Twitter page. For example, if you’re Acme Pest Control, set your Twitter page under the address twitter.com/acmepestcontrol
• Identify a person who will Tweet for your business on a regular basis. This may be you the business owner, or it could be a trusted employee or your webmaster, media/PR manager, etc. Whoever it is, make sure they can find the time to Twitter and that they know the tips that follow.
• Link to your Twitter page from your regular web site and any other place you market yourself.
• Post or “tweet” sparingly. This is critical. As people start to “follow” you via Twitter, they will become irritated if you are tweeting them every time you think of some nugget you are sure everyone will benefit from. Tweet a few times a week at first, and make sure it’s about a special offer, or big news. As you start to get feedback from your followers, increase or decrease your frequency as needed. It’s a good rule of thumb to never tweet more than 2-3 times each day.

Think of Twitter as a method of quickly communicating to a group of your friends and customers, like a digital roladex of your business confidants. Don’t tell them secrets or gossip! If you’re a pie store, tell them when you have extra key lime pies that need to be sold that day. Or if you’re a non-profit organization, send a tweet to find volunteers for a last-minute event.

Most importantly, treat your group of Twitter followers as GOLD. These people have went out of their way to tell you they like your company, your brand, your service/product, and you. Reward them by delivering pertinent information in a sensitive manner.

Getting people to visit your web site is easier than influencing them to return.

It’s only a matter of time before first-time visitors dry up. So how do you get folks to come back the second, third, fourth time, etc?

Without repeat visitors, your site will fail.

Here are five tips that will aid you in attracting repeat visitors:

1. Reward your visitors by offering valuable information regularly such as industry related articles, tips, insider information, product reviews, etc.
2. Create a resource page containing links that appeal to your target market; once your visitors know that this resource is available they can return to the site to access the links easily.  Be sure to ask them to bookmark the page, and update the resources as much as you can to add value.
3. Encourage visitor participation through the use of blogs, polls and forums. Make sure that if you implement forums or message boards, that you monitor them carefully. Also, if you don’t get much traffic in the forums, it’s better to shut them down and focus on one of the other methods here. Nothing screams “dead web site” more than forums without any user action.
4. Offer a free digital product like an eBook or catalog and require that the user subscribe to your e-mail newsletter list to receive it. The free offer needs to be enticing enough to motivate your audience to give their email address (grab their zip code too so you can get demographic data). Send your e-mail newsletter frequently and pack it with valuable tips and info (see tip #1).
5. Publish a Content Series – that is, a serialized set of content, such as a four-part look at your industry trends. The first part has to be real good – drawing in your audience so they’ll come back for the rest of the series.

At Boone Digital we don’t just build a Web Site and leave you to manage it. We want to help you attract visitors, repeat visitors, loyal constituents, and customers.

Contact Boone Digital at 989-600-5392 or use our Contact form to request information about our Services.