Appropriate Tools to Match the Venue
Part II
by Stu Marks
Some extremely important points to consider, once you've realized that your product or service needs to be represented professionally by a glossy color brochure and a comprehensive web site.

Part I from last issue, click here

Bells and Whistles

In the last issue, this article talked about advertising and marketing using print collateral such as brochures.

Now, we move on to web advertising; primarily, your own web presence.

In the past, web advertising started as some what of an iffy thing. Horror stories of young geek-like techies taking advantage of business owners. Money taken, bottom-end-over-flashed-site-that-is-no-where-on-the-radar delivered. Or, the brother-in-law who swears, “Hey, I know what I'm doo-in.” Result? Never gets done, or done right.

Times have changed. Major colleges and universities are teaching solid stuff to our former geeks, and turning them into real, honest, almost normal citizens, serving a real purpose to society. It isn't difficult to find a dozen entities in a heart beat of a Google search that will be glad to deliver your site, on time, on budget with all of the bells and whistles.

It's those bells and whistles that I'm talking about here today.

#1 Bells and Whistles. “Bells and whistles”, or animations and Flash, are what drive many a web designer. It's also what they charge the most for. Don't be convinced that you need video, Flash animation, sound, or streaming video on your new web site.

Video, Flash and audio serve real purposes and can be an asset to certain types of sites. But, is yours one of them? These extra elements can more than double your setup fees, and Katy bar the door if they need regular updating. Do you hear cha-ching, cha-ching $$$ ? But the biggest reason to be careful before plugging these glitzy gadgets into your web presence is their download time. What good is your web site if it takes twenty, thirty or fifty seconds to download your home page, while your competitor is zipping past you with three second download times?

Before all of the hoopla over high speed Internet, the business community was doing just fine with low tech, high visibility web sites that spent more time targeting higher income than high glamour.

Here's the scoop on the extras…

STREAMING VIDEO

GOOD. Can keep viewers on site longer if the production is TV or movie quality with a story, or action shots that are highly instructional to your product or service. Streaming videos done right are commonly used through many industries to turn web site lookie loos into solid sales. Good video is a closer; no argument.

BAD. A down side to this type of production is production costs. If it costs $10,000 to produce it for TV, you can pretty much count on it costing the same for web.

BAD. If your video producer is a great movie maker, but doesn't know diddley about streaming video for web, you have just paid $10,000 for a production that's great on DVD, but takes minutes or literally hours (if he's REALLY wacked) to down load to your customer's computer. So, mail outthe DVDs in bundles and forget the web. Really.

BAD. Streaming video is often blocked from larger corporate computer systems like large insurance companies who have placed firewalls on their systems in order to create an environment with higher security standards.

FLASH

GOOD. Flash is actually a copyrighted name for Macromedia's Flash program. It was designed specifically for web animation. This includes a broad spectrum of the word animation . It can be as advanced as custom created cartoons, complete with character acted voice overs delivering your custom script regarding your product or service, with action figures delivering the lines. Just like Saturday morning cartoons. Or, as simple as your company logo enhanced with sparkles, rays of light, rainbows and the sound of angels singing your praises, or maybe even simpler, like words fading in or moving gently or quickly across the screen—no sound.

GOOD. Flash is also very compatible with video. You can take your $10,000 video, format it for Flash streaming, and now it downloads very fast, to any high speed connection, or very clean, fast dial up even.

BAD. Flash is not the easiest format to learn. Some take months or even years to perfect it. Therefore, good Flash programmers, or animators are not as easy to locate as simple web designers. Also, there are professional Flash animators, and those who think that they are operating at a professional level. Watch out for that second group.

GOOD. Flash is very versatile. It is often used very well as moving or animated buttons that enhance the site, and can make a site's navigation more intuitive for your customer, helping them click through to close a sale easier or at the least, encourage return visits. BAD. Flash navigation isn't necessarily compatible with all browsers. A browser is the resident software that you are using right now to view this web site. At the top of the screen it is labeled, or at least “branded” with the Explorer logo, the Netscape logo, or maybe the Firefox logo. Compatibility is decided by the client computer. That's the computer in the homes of all of the people to whom you are marketing your product or service. They might not have updated their browser for a couple of years, and it was old when they acquired it because big sister Evelyn gave it to little brother Erwin when she went away to college. You'd be surprised how often THAT happens. If your web site and all of its bells and whistles are not designed properly, then a large portion of your potential customers won't see anything but a big blank space where your nifty animation belongs. Or, they'll just get a message from their server letting them know that it just flat out refuses to download your web page due to “incompatibilities”.

BAD. Flash is often blocked from larger corporate computer systems like large insurance companies who have placed firewalls on their systems in order to create an environment with higher security standards.

GOOD. The bottom line on Flash is that, like anything else, used properly by well trained and experienced professionals, Flash is a very good thing, and easier to apply than streaming video.

ANIMATED GIF

GOOD. Animated .gifs are a file type that has most commonly been used for simple iconic animations that take up very small amounts of real estate on screen. The famous smiley faces that people add to emails are a good example of what animated .gifs are for. Done right, an animated .gif can add a modest amount of window dressing to the site.

BAD. Animated .gifs are often blocked from larger corporate computer systems like large insurance companies who have placed firewalls on their systems in order to create an environment with higher security standards.

SOUND

GOOD. Sound presence on your site can come in a few different forms. Certainly, if you're retailing music (legally, of course) then you'll need to let your customers hear what you're selling. This isn't a problem. Those who buy music from the web sources are used to the equipment and download times (within reason) that are common with these products. I am a voice over artist and have a sample site that allows folks to hear a short sample of one of my commercial jobs, www.stumarks.voice123.com .

This site has a link that delivers a quick audio file that is audible on most computers, but certainly on virtually all computers operated by those interested in hiring voice over talent.

BAD. The annoying background music that plays continuously on some sites is really… well… annoying. Don't do it. Please! Well, ask me first.

BAD. Sound files are often blocked from larger corporate computer systems like large insurance companies who have placed firewalls on their systems in order to create an environment with higher security standards.

In closing, let me say that a real professional will know the difference between all of these, and also know if your needs are in line with some of these bells and whistles.

Next time, I'll talk about Web Radar, or better known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).