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By the time you reach this web site it is likely that you have already visited a significant number of other web design sites. On many of them, you have probably been met with a beautiful and enticing Flash presentation that enriches the site, but Ampheon don't have one - why? It is because we can't do Flash perhaps, or do we have a valid reason for omitting it? Read on to find out...

Think of this real world analogy - you want to go shopping, you know exactly what you want to buy, and now simply want to go to various stores to get the best deal and the best service. In some stores you walk right in and find the product you want, sometimes a friendly shop assistant helps you too. In others, when you walk in you are told to watch a 30-second television advertisement about what the store can offer you - only then will you be allowed to locate and purchase your product. In this scenario, which store are you more likely to buy from?

This analogy paints a very real picture as to how many web designers feel Flash should be used. It also gives a real indication as to how the majority of Internet surfers feel. It has been demonstrated that the average Internet surfer will wait no more than 15-20 seconds for a site to load - if their Internet connection is costing them money, the last thing they want to do is spend unnecessary time locating the information or products they need. So, by adding a 30-second Flash presentation to the front of a web site, you are likely to lose many potential customers before the Flash clip has even finished - would you really want to do that? Would you want to stop customers as they walk into your store and say "hang on, before you can buy, you must watch this video". How many people will walk right out again?

Flash is currently being used very much like television advertising - to promote a brand, a product, or the company. But where do you watch television advertising - on TV of course, and at the cinema. You don't watch it as you walk into you local store prior to buying something because by that time you already know what you want! Unfortunately, the medium of television advertising and the medium of the Internet advertising have become a little confused in this respect.

This is not to say that Flash does not have its place on the web - it does. It is just not the best medium to promote a web site if you are aiming to sell something on your site. Flash is great if you have a strong brand (such as Vodafone or Coca Cola), where you are able to use Flash to promote that brand. It is also good where you already hold a large market share and want to highlight your product (such as motor manufacturers). On education, gaming, and some business-to-business sites, it can be used to great effect to enhance the visitor experience. But, if you are in a competitive market where time is truly paramount, don't build a brick wall in front of your potential customers that they must first navigate, because more than likely they will leave and go to the next web site - your competitor!

In a real-life example, one of our clients asked for a 20 second Flash presentation to be integrated into the main front page of the site. It was to load alongside the menu bar and the page graphics. We informed them that this would slow down the site load time, but they asked to proceed. A few months later they came back and asked us to remove it - why? Because their potential customers had e-mailed the client complaining that the Flash was slowing down the site and they couldn't be bothered to wait (moreover, the visitors were so irritated, they actually wrote to tell the client!). We removed the Flash - instantly the amount of time each visitor spent on the web site increased dramatically - the visitor experience actually became better when we removed the very thing that the client thought would improve it!

The final concern is the search engines. If you build a beautiful site in Flash, with all your site links in Flash, remember that none of the search engines can read Flash files. As such, they will be unable to navigate through your site, and therefore your site will not be indexed. What does this mean? It means that the chances of you being able to obtain a top-listed site on the search engines, and that is able to attract large amounts of visitors are significantly reduced.

So, when choosing your web design company to prepare your web site, think carefully if they recommend using Flash on the site. Are they offering you just a beautiful site that will live on the Internet, but that nobody will actually want to visit, or are they offering you a site that people will also be able to find and will want to buy from.

"Unless the first impression is favourable, visitors will be out of your site before they even know that you might be offering more than your competitors"

Professor Gitte Lingaard
Carleton University, Ottawa
Source: Nature Journal

A study in January 2006 suggests that visitors to your web site will make up their minds about the quality of your company within a twentieth of a second - that's not a lot of time to make your first impression!

So, take a close look at your current web site. First, the design needs to be usable, and easy-to-navigate. Imagine that you know nothing about your organisation, and then take a look at your site with fresh eyes. Can you understand how to get to the site information immediately upon arrival? Can you understand from the site text what it is you do? Did you have to wait for ages for the site to load because your site is running on slow servers, or because your site is graphics-heavy? All of these things need careful consideration, and as a starting checklist we recommend:

• If you're not comfortable writing the text for your site, employ a copywriter. You only get one fleeting chance to impress a site visitor and the first couple of paragraphs they read will be the most crucial.

• Are your web servers fast and reliable? If ýour site doesn't start to load within 1-2 seconds from the moment you enter your web page address until the moment the site text or images first become visible in your web browser, consider moving to a new hosting company.

• Does your site load quickly or are there lots of images or animated Flash files to download? If your site loads slowly because it is image-heavy, consider optimising your images (making the file sizes smaller without compromising quality), removing some unnecessary images, or having the server cache the images. Be critical - images should serve a purpose; if the images aren't necessary to support the page, then you probably don't need them.

• Does the design look professional and better than your competitors? With the global nature of the Internet you need to stand out - your potential site visitors will judge you by the quality of your site. Does your site look professional? Is it better than those of your nearest competitors (the sites that rank closest to you on the search engines)? If the answer is no, consider having your site redesigned - image is everything. You don't necessarily have to have the flashiest, most animated site - but you do need to have a site that will appeal to the visitors you want to attract.

If all of this goes over your head, or you just don't have the time to dedicate to looking at your site this closely, no problem. We're here to help and can give you a clear assessment on the current state of your site, and what would benefit from improvement. We've undertaken hundreds of projects to upgrade sites, probably just like yours, so contact us today for a free no-obligation discussion.

If you are based in the UK and store any information about an individual on your web site, you are bound by the Data Protection Act 1998 and other UK and European laws. The information you store could simply be a mailing list or a guestbook, or it might be more in-depth, such as customer orders through an online store, or an affiliate scheme. Either way, choosing the correct hosting provider then becomes a more serious issue.

So what does this mean for me?

Essentially, there are two key principles within the act that you must be aware of when choosing your web hosting:

First Principle:

"Appropriate technical and organisational measures shall be taken against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal data and against accidental loss or destruction of, or damage to, personal data."

The key to this principle is "Appropriate technical and organisational measures". Today, hacking of web sites in widespread, and the benefits of firewalls and other security measures well-known. Therefore, in choosing a supplier who does not value these elements of security, you are essentially negating your responsibilities for securing the personal data. In the event that anything should happen to the data you store (for example, if your web site were hacked), your clients may have recourse under the Act to demonstrate that you had be negligent with their information.

Ampheon believe that security is paramount. This is why our servers are protected with firewalls, covered by the latest security releases, and actively monitored for untoward activity.

Second Principle:

"Personal data shall not be transferred to a country or territory outside the European Economic Area, unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection of the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data."

Why is there such a disparity in the pricing of web hosting? One reason is that some hosting providers have their servers in the United States, where the costs are less than in Europe. However, as the second principle above discusses, any data you collect should remain within the European Union (as an example of protection, the US does not currently have any federal laws against sending unsolicited mail). So, if your mailing list is stored on a server in the United States, you may be storing the data outside the guidelines of the Act.

Ampheon's web servers are based within the United Kingdom, and are therefore fully covered by this second principle.

Further Information:

• Information Commissioners Office