I don't think there's anything wrong with using a little flash on your site to jazz it up a bit......... but it's very easy to get carried away and become too graghics heavy.
Graghics increase download time unnecessarily and most web surfers are a very impatient lot. They wont wait. Remember that back button is always just a quick, click away and good-bye customer. Many of your potential customers don't have super fast machines and internet hook-ups like most of us do. Try to keep your homepage under 20k for maximum effect. Mine is around 19k and I have zero graghics on my poker sites homepage, just a java nav bar and even that adds a lot of bytes.
Graghic heavy sites also look exactly the same as hundreds of other poker sites they've already come across so many times before. I'd like to be as big as PokerPages too ...... but that isn't being realistic.
Why not stand out from the crowd and offer a different experience?
Of course if your website is just a front for your offline marketing promotions then go nuts and make your site as graphic heavy and as cool as you feel it needs to be to wow your visitors like Jeremy's impressive offline promo sites are.
Just remember that these are two completely different animals.
If you're looking for that free, search engine traffic then a simple site design will work to your advantage. The search engines love simplicity, they reward sites that are user friendly and the ones that will most likely supply their customers with the information they were looking for.
Take a look at this guy's extremely basic site design.
http://www.learn-texas-holdem.com/
He get's a sh*t load of traffic to his site, I wish I had his kind traffic...... because it loads fast, has tons of useful, original content and a couple of hundred inbound links.
There's been many studies done on the habits of web users, what they like and dislike as they navigate the web.
So here's some invaluable information for new webmasters.
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/webmaster-resources.htm
Don't buy anything there or pay for any services.
You don't need to...... just read the articles and incorporate the information into your website building. It's pure gold and will leap you ahead of the competition.
People use search engines to find helpful and useful information..... not to be impressed by cool site designs.
The vast majority don't care what you look like as long as your site looks half-assed professional and trustworthy.
Please don't waste all of your valuable time looking for the perfect colors for your website template, cool photos of poker stars or the best flashy banner advertisement.
It is your words that will produce future customers and make you money.
This forum looks pretty cheap and crappy...... don't you agree?
But it has been a huge success for Jeremy and is growing everyday........ why?
Because of the
words that have been typed here........... that's why.
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