The Pros & Cons to Pure Flash Websites

Over the last few years, there has always been the dispute between website designers and clients on websites developed completely in Flash. While they are definitely visually eye catching, they also have a strong negative effect.

Some Pros of having a Flash Website Design:

• Eye catching
• Interactive
• Easy to integrate certain features such as sound loops
• Reasonably Fast Loading
  

Some Cons of having a Flash Website Design:

• NOT Search Engine Friendly. Search engine bots are unable to view the text within a flash website. This is by far the most crucial.
• Difficult to update. Whenever there is an update, the original source file (.fla) needs to be edited.
• Sometimes not user friendly and difficult to navigate.
• Browser compatibility issues - Not all users have flash installed in their browser. If flash is not installed, your site will not be displayed.
• Longer time to develop.

There is a perfect median to having Flash in a website by integrating it into the web page itself as opposed to creating a strictly Flash website. This way, the website can have the same eye candy but at the same time, be search engine friendly and user friendly.

Custom Websites or Templates?

Let's face it, everyday more and more of these "template website distributors" are popping up all over the place that basically have the same templates for sale at different prices. Is there something wrong with this picture? Don't get me wrong, the templates themselves look great and all, but what customers don't realize is there is a catch to these "templates".

- The price. Yeah is says "Only $65 for this template!" but what people don't realize is that there is still a lot of work involved. I myself have seen a few of these "flash templates" in my time and I will tell you first hand, they aren't as easy as they look!

- Are they Unique? NO! They are exactly what they are called: Templates. Woulnd't you image that if the template was such a great design, that you aren't the only one who purchased it? There is no real way to tell how many people before you really have the template.

- "It says Unique/Custom Template for $2500" - What that really means is that they will stop selling it on "Their" site. Who knows what other websites will continue to sell it.

- "So now I bought my Zipped up Template, now what?" - Now the fun begins! First you need a domain name, then hosting (which if you are doing any sort of credit card processing or merchant account, now you will an SSL Certificate on top of hosting), next you will need to either learn how to design, programming, CSS, CMS, etc.... or hire a website development company.