Splash pages are 100% useless to your site visitors with the noted exception of adding extra eye candy to your site. But eye candy, with no real additional purpose, can ultimately be a detriment to the conversion process. It seems that the only people who like splash pages are the website owners who had them developed.
One of the more significant negatives of splash pages is the load time required to view them. Very few are willing to sit and wait for page to load, then sit and wait again for the “presentation” to finish. Imagine walking into Wal-Mart and being stopped at the entry doors forced to watch a 30-second video. Now imagine that you were required to stop and watch that video every time you visited the store. Need I say more?
Splash pages are little more than an annoying barrier keeping your customer from getting to the information they need quickly. They create an extra click in the information or product finding process, potentially causing lost sales by putting the desired information one too many clicks away.
This post is part of a continuing series on the topic of:
Designing a Money-Making Website
Sub-Topic: Avoiding Common Web Design and Marketing Mistakes
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Building a Professional Website that Achieves Your Goals
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