Splash Pages can be a Good Addition to Your Website :: Sell Websites Buy Websites

Splash Pages can be a Good Addition to Your Website The first question a beginning web developer should ask him or herself when designing a splash page for the website is not what image to use, but should a splash page be created in the first place. A splash page is â€Å"a branding page before the home page of your Web site† (O’Rourke). While this page can be good and serve as â€Å"gateways into web content† (â€Å"Internet Marketing Glossary†), one may choose not to use a splash page. Such a page can detract from the professionalism of the site; if a person or company wants to appear professional and wants the website to portray this, a splash page can ruin this desire. To seem professional, the rule in most cases is the simpler, the better, and a splash page does not simplify websites. In fact, these pages can be slow and add an additional step in the viewer’s process of arriving at the actual homepage. Designers of websites must keep in mind that viewers often decide in a matter of seconds wheth er they will stay at that site or not, and splash pages, if done incorrectly, can waste this time (Kyrnin). However, splash pages can be a good addition to a website. They gain immediate responses from the viewer, which can entice the viewer to enter the site. Also, if the designer is particularly proud of some graphic, animation, or other object that he/she has created, the splash page can be a good method to display this work. Similarly, it shows the designer’s skills with technology – a splash page that includes an original animated graphic tells the viewer that the designer not only can create websites, but can create animation. If the web developer does in fact want a splash page for the website, there are several issues to be discussed. First and foremost should be relevance. If the splash page shows a design of a political cartoon, the viewer would assume that the page is a political satire page, or at least a page related to politics. So if a viewer decides that, based on the splash page, he/she will continue on to view a site about politics, he/she would be upset and confused to see a site about guitars. The splash page sets the mood for the rest of the website, so designers should make sure that the appropriate mood is set.