Want to Create Flash Intro? Follow these Tips

Having an advanced Flash intro in your web site design has its own advantages. Flash works wonderfully well in grabbing attention, particularly if you use proper animation and interactivity.

The advantage of having Flash intro is that it makes the home page look more attractive and eye catching. And if your web site is about video games, casino, lottery and other such interactive games, Flash serves as the icing on the cake. Viewers coming to the web site can get hooked to the games as the impressive Flash intro on the homepage works as a great enticement.

However do keep in mind that if you try to stuff the site with Flash where it is not required then it can be disastrous. To help you create an impressive Flash intro in an interactive web site design, here are some important and yet easy to apply tips:

1. Remember to insert a skip intro button in the Flash intro of your site in case any visitor wants to skip it.

2. Include a loading bar in the Flash intro. A loading bar indicates how much Flash has been downloaded.

3. Place HTML links to important webpages of your web site either on the top or the bottom of the Flash intro. This directs the visitor neatly to the section he/she wants to visit. It also aids the search engines in indexing the webpages.

4 In order to keep the visitor engrossed, put questions or some animated messages till the Flash is downloaded.

5. In order to help the search engines in indexing the site, make sure to use keywords in the META tags and in the text written below the Flash intro.

Follow these easy tips while creating a Flash intro and you would see how the Flash intro leaves your visitors spellbound. However remember to use an advanced Flash intro to enhance the look of the web site design and not to offend the visitors.

6 key design elements essential for the success of a website

The success of a website design is determined not only by the overall design scheme, but also by minor design elements. Imagine having an innovative design scheme and using colors which one can’t even stare at for longer than 30 seconds?

An advanced website design confirming to the Web 2.0 standards should deliver more with less in the following ways:

1. They should take the visitors straight to the site’s goal by using fewer, well-chosen visual elements to guide the visitor’s eye.

2. They should create the desired impact by using innovative yet expressive imagery thus saying more without using many words.

3. The design and content scheme as interactive website design elements is targeted at addressing the visitors’ need.

To help a web page achieve the above mentioned goals, the following advanced web site design elements play a major role:

1. How the primary call to action has been placed and the color of the action buttons

2. Whether the elements with links are placed as text or as images

3. How much breathing space has been given to the content i.e. how much “white space” has been left on the page to allow the content to gain notice?

4. How prominently the main heading is placed?

5. The number of visual elements that catch the visitors’ attention.

3 benefits of outsourcing to BPO companies

Plenty has already been written on the pros and cons of outsourcing. However, the dismal economic scenario does merit a fresh look at the considerable advantages of outsourcing to Business Process Outsourcing or BPO companies.

Outsourcing is done either to lower the costs by tapping the cheaper resources available with such third party BPO companies or to employ skills that are not available in-house.

In general, outsourcing confers the following benefits on business enterprises:

1. Saving on costs

This is the most apparent benefit of outsourcing. While cost of resources especially of skilled manpower is quite high in developed countries, cheaper and equally well-trained manpower is available in developing countries such as India, Philippines etc., at considerably much lower costs.

Apart from having skilled manpower, these countries are also catching up in terms of advanced communication infrastructure and have fast developing robust markets of their own. Hence, it makes sense to outsource certain aspects back end jobs or high-end development work to subsidiary units, partner companies and BPO companies in such countries to save on high labor costs and also explore the newer markets.

2. Better quality of services

BPO companies have a ready advantage of skilled, trained and experienced employees and also the capability to customize solutions and manpower according to the requirements of the client companies. This in turn ensures better quality of BPO services.

It is important to note here that good amount of research, skillful negotiation and a watertight SLA (service level agreement) are absolutely necessary to ensure that the most suitable BPO company is selected and that it would deliver consistent and sustainable quality services.

3. Better time management

Since outsourcing to BPO companies located halfway across the globe involves a major difference in time zones, the advantage is that 24x7 production and service delivery is possible. As one organization in country A goes off-duty the other organization from Country B takes on the baton.

While the above benefits are measurable, there are some intangible benefits of outsourcing too. One comes in touch with a different country and its unique culture and this understanding is very useful when one wants to expand one’s business in that country.

Using Flash…..Don’t Commit these Mistakes

Undoubtedly nowadays Flash has become one of the most important features for any website to do well and to attract visitors. Flash can enhance your website’s appeal, attract visitors and make it more user-friendly. But if used incorrectly and insensibly, Flash can drive away your potential customers.

There are some common mistakes made in Flash that must be avoided at any cost to attract and retain your visitors. Here are some mistakes which you must not commit:

Say no to blinking text

Strictly avoid using blinking text. There is nothing cool about it. If you think that the blinking text would attract visitors, then you are mistaken. In fact, on seeing the blinking text the first reaction of your visitor would be to depart from the site.

You may know all about Flash web site templates and components and their use. But it is not at all necessary to show all your knowledge about Flash and advanced web site design in one website, unless required for promoting the web site’s purpose. So be judicious in utilizing that knowledge and stay away from creating irritants like blinking text.

Use rainbow gradient sensibly

Do not use all the shades in rainbow gradient just because you have the option to use it. Go for the shades only if they enhance the look and only if they compliment the design.

Don’t use varied background colors

Use only one background color throughout the site and stick to it. If the background color jumps from one shade to another, then it would make it really difficult for the reader to focus on the text.

Don’t use deafening sounds

Use sound in Flash where it is required and do not stuff the site with unnecessary, irritating, loud, deafening sound or incessant music. Sound should be used to make the whole presentation complete not, make the visitor look for earplugs. If you do want to incorporate sound in your animated movie or presentation, go ahead, but do include a ‘turn off button’, so that visitors can switch it off easily.

Don’t use pop-up and pop-under windows

Don’t use Flash to stuff pop-up and pop-under windows into your site. Pop-up or pop-under windows might be a great form of marketing but they are a major turn off for any visitor. In fact the immediate reaction of the visitor is typically to close the pop-up window, without even taking a look at it. And if he is unable to do that, he simply leaves the site.

Keep these tips in mind while designing an advanced web site design. As I mentioned earlier, don’t stuff the site with all the Flash templates you know. Instead use your mind and to identify the right places where Flash will enhance the appeal of the site and use it there.

4 Tips For Successful Flash Based Interactive Web Site Design

Interactive web site design holds enormous possibilities for the websites. It helps in attracting visitors and holds their interest to make them come back to the site for repeat visits. And in the process there are strong chances that a visitor would become a lead and eventually a customer.

Web 2.0 sensibilities and technologies coupled with Flash based advanced web site design processes have spawned some truly interactive websites. Talking about Flash, it is one technology which, if used carefully, can make each visit truly rewarding. Let’s see how one can make a Flash presentation in an interactive web site design truly attention grabbing.

1. Create an interesting pre-loader

In the web world first impression is the last impression. Pre loader is the first thing that a visitor gets to see. So be original and take your time to add details which will make a visitor decide in your favor even before he/she has actually visited the site.

2. Integrate it with other design elements

Don’t consider a Flash page as a canvas to showcase your creative prowess, Rather treat it as a studio where all design elements like content, navigation are seamlessly integrated to make visitors undergo cohesive and uncluttered experience.

3. Make use of the entire browser window

You should utilize the entire browser window instead of remaining limited to the area that fits within the lowest resolution. For this, apply Flash alignment components to make graphics cover the remotest corners. This gives the viewer a non-congested and visually complete experience.

4. Create Interesting icons and use them smartly

If given appropriate attention, icons can truly make the difference. Create icons and details for each section and to highlight important information. They should be such that a visitor would immediately understand what the icons signify.

Advanced and interactive website designs can enhance the appeal of the website many times more than conventional designs. The important point is to make sure that the graphics are not repetitive and the presentation gives the viewer an option to skip it if required. Subtle and attractive designs always win attention and enjoy high recall in the visitor’s mind.

Multimedia Presentation Creates a Winning Impact

It is rightly said that a picture speaks a thousand words. Pictures and a video have a much greater impact on the audience than a simple text presentation. And if you can effectively combine text effectively with pictures and sound, you will leave a lasting impression on your audience.

That is why a multimedia presentation is an indispensable tool to effectively convey useful information about your products/services or about your company in general. PowerPoint presentations are passé. Many of them end up being dull and boring.

Multimedia presentations, on the other hand, are more interactive and appealing. They are effectively able to play with text, sound, video, audio, pictures, animation, and flash to create visual imagery with sound effects for enhanced viewer experience. In fact, nowadays they are the most preferred tools to attract important stake holders or prospective customers.

Products, services or complex ideas can be explained in a simplified manner using multimedia presentations. They allow you to connect with your audience on an emotional level which is why they remain with the audience for a long time.

One more factor which goes in favor of multimedia is interactivity. It allows audiences to give their feedback and query further. Such audience involvement makes the whole presentation more interesting and memorable.

All types of businesses, be it small enterprises or big companies, are now approaching multimedia developers to create multimedia presentations for various purposes such as:

1. Imparting training to employees

2. Giving a presentation of a new product launch to the clients and other stake holders such as banks, shareholders etc.

3. Educating customers

4. Demonstrating or selling.

Cost

The cost of making a multimedia presentation depends upon several things such as voiceover, length of multimedia, Flash, and whether you want to use 2D or 3D animation etc. Since multimedia doesn’t come cheap and effects are long-lasting, it is sensible to hand over the work of multimedia in the hands of some proficient and reliable multimedia developer rather than try to develop it on your own with the help of some multimedia presentation software. It is a professional job best left to a competent multimedia service provider who knows the intricacies of design, sound effects, flash and the various other technical inputs required to create an effective presentation.

A Story Sells…Even In A Corporate Video

You remember a good film, or even a good music video or maybe even an innocuous home video or perhaps a brilliantly shot advertisement. But do you tend to remember a corporate video? The answer most likely is NO. Have you ever wondered why?

Think of a corporate video and chance is you will find it following the beaten old track. The audio video production will begin with some establishing shots of the company‘s products or services projecting them as winners in the context of the current market scenario.

Next the spotlight will turn to the company’s previous track record, its infrastructure (buildings, factories, workstations, etc), followed by some growth figures presented graphically, a few odd quotes of top managers and a glimpse into the future plans of the company. All this will of course be interspersed with animated text.

Will you ask the presenter to play it again for you? Unlikely. Will you remember it for days to come? Again, the answer is no.

Then, will your corporate video despite the best of production values be a non-starter with your target audience? Well, if you follow a few smart steps I am going to reveal to you now, you can make a corporate video that impacts the viewers and conveys your marketing message effectively.

1. Good Story

Like any motion picture made for popular consumption, corporate videos too must have good storyline. A few images, graphs and quotes thrown together even in the most expensively made corporate video are not enough to create magic. Think of a story – it could be your company’s story or your product’s story or even that of an employee and build the video around it.

2. Employee tells the story

To avoid your corporate video becoming just another yawn inducing exercise in marketing, you can let your employees do the storytelling part. For the viewer, be it an investor or a customer, nothing can be more convincing than employees talking about their experiences in their own words. It immediately makes the video personal, lends it credibility and creates an immense attachment value for the audience. The best way to do so is to let employees be themselves and tell their own stories in their own ways.

3. Common Theme

The cast must have some common element running through their stories to give the video a cohesive and credible look. Having said that, don’t forget the variety in backgrounds and viewpoints. In other words, make the cast colourful but have them toe a common line.

4. Make it audience oriented

Since corporate videos are for audience’s consumption, connect with them for the best results. And the best way to do so is to understand what they are looking for.

For instance, if the video is intended for prospective employees, show them around your office campus through the video, have current employees share true positive stories of their experiences of working with the company, etc. Apart from this you can have your top managers share their own view of the company, its future prospects and the career possibilities it offers. You can help the audience visualize the work atmosphere and position your company as the best place to work in, given its growth prospects, its market status and its corporate identity.

These are some elements of a successful corporate video, and you yourself can try your hand at making one. But make sure you don’t end up with an amateurish corporate video production despite putting in your best efforts.

The audio video medium can provide you with immensely powerful marketing tools, provided you handle it right. Unless you have a good knowledge of the medium, it is best to approach some professional audio and video production companies offering state-of-the-art audio-video solutions for the assured results. But do keep a tab on what they are doing.

4 Top Benefits of an Interactive Website Design

The toughest job for a website is to catch the attention of the visitor, make her explore it further and be interesting enough to make her return for more later. Interactive web site design is one of the most popular tools websites employ to attract eyeballs, enhance stickiness and encourage repeat visits.

An interactive web site design keeps the visitor engaged, allowing her to interact with it and also in the process, provide loads of useful information as well. In fact, interactive website design has several benefits over plain boring static ones, including:

Benefits #1: Inter-customer interaction

A major reason as to why interactive web sites are able to retain visitors more and attract repeat visits is that they encourage and facilitate customer-to-customer interaction. Customers can interact amongst themselves easily and add content to the site by making comments, giving feedback etc. Encouraged by the participation of the users, new visitors register themselves and take part in the discussion.

Benefits #2: Helps in customer research

An interactive web site also allows you to conduct research about your products and services. On your interactive web site, you can conduct surveys or polls and ask customers to voice their opinions. This feedback helps you to identify your strengths and weaknesses and find out what’s hot selling on your website, where the glitches are and what your customers want from you.

Benefits #3: Gets updated easily

With interactive flash web site design, you can easily add any information or webpages anytime you want. Unlike HTML website, you don’t need to rush to your web designer for every addition or change. You can do it yourself by simply entering the new information through a user-friendly admin panel and rest would take care of itself.

Benefits #4: Aids in e-mail marketing

In an advanced web site design, the landing page typically has an e-mail form to help you capture ‘qualified leads’, in other words, potential customers interested in your products/services. Once you get their contact details through the form, you can use e-mail marketing to send more information to these interested visitors, read potential customers, rather than sending it randomly to a hundred odd people. This helps you to channel your energies and resources specifically to a high-potential target audience.

Overall, an interactive web site allows a company to establish and cultivate a strong and healthy relationship with its customers, leading to higher traffic, repeat visits and increased revenue.

6 Tips to Make Your Website Download Quickly

Your website may have all the qualities of a good web site – great graphics, good information, well optimized content and good navigability. But if your web site does not download quickly, what purpose would all these great traits serve?

A visitor’s attention span on the Web is of barely 3 seconds and if you can’t grab it within those few crucial seconds you are likely to lose the visitor (read potential customer) for good. You may have put in lots of razzle dazzle to make your web site appealing, but make sure the visitor actually gets to see at least some interesting glimpses of it within the first few seconds, if not all, to make her stay on. For this, your site needs to download quickly.

You can do the following to ensure that

* The HTML should be properly optimized without compromising on the quality. If this means ridding the HTML documents off any comments and superfluous linebreaks, so be it. But keep them in the source document for the purpose of maintaining the site.

* Keep the usage of file includes as low as possible by bundling several scripts into one file include.

* If there are several images in the website, use CSS sprite techniques to make all images download simultaneously.

* If your site carries third-party content, don’t be dependent on their servers. Rather use a script which picks up RSS feeds on local level. This will make you avoid delays because of DNS server delays.

* There should be definite dimensions for images and other related elements. This will make sure that pages containing those images will be rendered correctly without any “jumping around.”

* Keep the large scripts at the end of the document so that browser doesn’t get stuck into them before loading rest of the page, as it will if a large JavaScript is put in the head of the document.

This is not the exhaustive list of must dos to make your site download faster. To ensure that you get a website which is good in all respects such as design, programming, content, employ services of a professional yet affordable web site design and development company.

Flash web sites – 6 benefits

The advent of Flash in web designing has revolutionized websites, making them more interactive and dynamic than ever before . From online advertisements, to product websites to movies to games, websites across the board are making innovative use of Flash to attract users, increase traffic and boost conversions.

Flash lends an extra creative and market-friendly dimension to websites offering many benefits that are not possible with static websites. Some of these added advantages are:

* Flash enhances the appeal of any web site making its design more interesting and visually illustrative. Especially, sites presenting games, movies and other such interactive products need to be dynamic which is possible only with Flash web site designs.

* The advantage of using Flash is that around 90% of web users now have Flash player installed on their computer and you don’t have to worry about how your flash presentation is going to be viewed by the end user. Therefore, when you incorporate Flash in your site, rest assured it would be viewed by most of the people.

* Flash web sites can very effectively and easily present an entire company’s profile or product range in a matter of a few seconds, something which you can’t do simply with static images and text.

* Animation is best done with Flash. Viewers find it easy to watch animations created in Flash.

* It is quite convenient and easy to watch videos in Flash as it doesn’t need OS-dependent plug-in like Media Player or QuickTime for viewing videos smoothly.

* Films in Flash can be stored in very small file sizes and the best part is they are very easy and fast to download.

Flash can do wonders to web sites in terms of attracting eyeballs, enhancing stickiness and also marketing the product/service the website is promoting.

But it is extremely important to use Flash where it is needed and not to go for the overkill. Excessive use of Flash can harm the web site rather than helping it as some people are more interested in quick information rather than a fancy presentation.

Therefore, use Flash but use it sensibly.