07

Say No To Flash

At least once a week I have the same conversation with one of my clients. “Adam, I really want my website to be designed in Flash because it looks so nice.” Fifteen minutes later, I always hear the same phrase…”I’m so glad you talked me out of it!” In case you didn’t get the memo, Flash is dead.

Now, it’s important to understand that there is a time and a place to use Flash components in your website. In fact, I even use Flash on my own home page. The key to understanding the importance or irrelevance of using Flash to build your website stems from several different reasons.

For starters, search engines, including Google, Yahoo, Excite, Lycos, MSN, etc., all HATE Flash. Why? Because they can’t see it. Most people never stop to think about what makes up a website page from the inside and when you have a better understanding of website construction, it starts to make more sense. A website is nothing more than a programming called “HTML” (short for Hyper Text Markeup Language) which assembles different components together of text, images, etc., into something a human being can visually see on their computer screen. If you ever want to see what an actual web page looks like, on the top menu of your browser, click on View and then Page Source. This literally all a web page actually is. When a visitor to that page views the page with a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, that browser decodes that mess of code by compiling the code and making into something you can see. This all happens in the blink of an eye, and yet that is the actual process that happens every time you visit a website.

When you ad a third party component to the mix, especially Flash, you had a lot of other variables to what is happening in your browser. These things require a plug-in to make that component work. Flash is an element that was created using a technology now owned by Adobe. In essence, Flash is used for a variety of purposes including animation, games, and so on. It can be interactive or it can just play a slide show of images. The software used to create a Flash component is periodically updated, and when the programmer is using a new version and saves the Flash component, it will require the user, or in this case, the visitor to your website, to update their Flash Player to see that new component. What’s interesting about this, is that a very large population of computer users don’t update their players frequently. So if they go to your website and it has an important component that is Flash based, or if the entire website is in Flash, they can’t see it! So now you are forcing your customer to go and download the latest version, install it, and come back. Ugh.

It is important to understand that visitors to your website have a shorter attention span than ever before. Current studies say it approximately nine seconds or less. NINE SECONDS! So think of this logically, as if your website were a conventional, brick-and-mortar type of store. Imagine a customer walks in the door of your bakery looking for the product you are selling and you FORCE them to watch a video and take a tour of the kitchen just to buy a loaf of bread. Assuming you make the sale at all, your customer will unlikely return again because of the hassle of the buying process. The same thing holds true for your website. Forcing visitors to sit through a lengthy animation cycle or download a plugin will likely result in the loss of a sale. Now, think long and hard about the reason you built your website. Before you answer, I can answer for you…to make money online. So why do something to get in the way of that process when you have a hot prospect wanting to give you their money? You wouldn’t do it in a brick-and-mortar business do don’t do it on your website!

This isn’t to say that having an attractive website is unimportant. It’s VERY important to keep up with the latest Internet design trends. The key is to not sell your visitor on how gorgeous your website is, rather than to sell them on the product that you are selling! Just recently I was talking with one of my business parterners, Rebecca Avalon, about just this topic. She is in the process of redoing her website and asked me for some advice. The top header of the site used a lengthy 30 second animation made in Flash. It looked really nice and on a basic level, it didn’t interfere with all of the rest of the text content on the site. The issue was that the animation looped over and over again. It had a lot of bright colors and every time you refreshed the page, you had to wait for this animation to load again. It slowed down the entire website! Not only that, but because this animation kept looping, while you were reading the text below it, it didn’t take anything more than 20 seconds before your eyes started to hurt. So, after some coaching, she understood that her banner animation time should be shorter and should end on a still frame. Also, all subsequent pages in the site don’t play the animation…they just display that last frame of the video as a graphic image. This speeds up loading times and becomes less of an annoyance. Lastly, all crutial information to the business (ad copy, bullet points of importance to the service of the business, etc.) is removed from the Flash animation. This is in case the visitor is looking at the site from an Iphone or a browser without the latest plugin, so this way they can still see all the important features the business has to offer even though they can’t see the animation on top of the home page. The only down side to this, is if a visitor can’t see that animation on top, they may conclude that something important is up there and may leave out of discouragement. Again, another reason against the use of Flash! With an attractive still image on top, you alleviate all these problems while still accomplishing the same task. Remember, when in doubt, K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid!)

This leads me to the next major reason not to build your website in Flash…a search engine can’t see any of it. You have to realize that when search engines like Google arrive on your website, they scan through all of your content looking for (primarily) text that they can use to rank your website. They want to know if you are selling snow mobiles or aluminum siding. When your website is constructed in Flash, especially if you have any of your website text in Flash (a MASSIVE mistake), the search engines can’t read it. Remember, this is not a human being looking at your website, it’s a computer. It can only interpret HTML code, not Flash! Flash is designed for human beings to look at…it can’t be interpreted by a computer that is looking for HTML code. It would be no different than you walking into a room expecting everyone speaking English and all they speak is Japanese. If you don’t speak Japanese, you’ll be lost in the conversation. The same thing holds true for search engines and Flash. They can’t interpret it, so, as a result, they rank your website lower. While there are tricks to getting a Flash-based website ranked higher, ultimately websites compared side-by-side with identical content, the non-Flash based site will always rank higher.

So remember, use Flash conservatively in your website. If you want to have a cool animation to drive a point home, Flash may be an alternative to a static image. Ultimatley, the use of Flash is best done when you need to make a presentation or interractive element on your website that HTML cannot handle but when you are building your entire website with it, don’t be upset when your sales drop well below expectations. FYI, approximately 10% of the clients currently on retainer with us are ones who had a Flash-based website they spent a tidy sum in constructing that looked GORGEOUS but couldn’t convert to income. They came to the Millionaire Marketing Group to redo the website in a non-Flash based environment and consistently all of their sales went through the roof.

Don’t believe me that changes like this will amount to massive revenue shifts? Keep an eye out for my next blog on the $300 million “Continue” button!

06

The Rich & The Middle Class

I just got through reading a fantastic book called The Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires and the Middle Class by Cameron Smith. In the book, Cameron explains the differences in the patters that lower, middle, and upper class people do in their lives that either escalate their financial status, leave them stagnating, or even lower their financial position. In this Blog, I want to focus on three primary topics the author discussed in depth that are so vital in understanding how different types of people think.

The book follows the concept that in a financial class system you have five general categories:

Super Rich (multi-millionaires and billionaires)
Rich (solid 6-figure income to low millionaire)
Middle Class (the majority of income levels in America)
Poor (poverty-level / minimum wage income)
Super Poor (homeless with no source of income)

There are three primary reasons why some people are in a higher financial level than others. Short of having major financial catastrophes (life debilitating illness and the like), it comes down to the amount of risk someone is willing to take to become more successful and the average block of time someone plans in their financial endeavors. Lastly, it comes down to delegation of time and multiple streams of income.

First, let’s look at the risk factor. For most middle class Americans, high-risk is considered quitting one job to go for another one which is of lateral or slightly higher status. Unfortunately, many middle-class business owners fall into this risk trap too. They don’t want to create new things or go in directions with their business outside their own realm of understanding. They fail to risk so they stagnate where they are. Virtually all of the Super Rich were people who started with just one store or selling one item somewhere. It’s not until they ballooned their one store into 1000 until they hit that high financial status. It was the risk to say that, “one store just isn’t good enough.”

Many entrepreneurs get stuck in the middle-class because of their unwillingness to want to take more risks. For some, the huge risk was quitting a j-o-b and they just aren’t willing to go any farther. As a result, the wealthy status they rarely hit. They expect opportunities to just land in their lap and rarely, if ever, does that actually happen. Opportunities are created; they don’t just appear by luck. The troublesome issue is that fear is what creates a lack of risk. The fear of losing one’s house, the fear that the new opportunity won’t work, and the ultimate fear of failure. It is BECAUSE of fear, not in spite of it which causes people to become super rich. I can guarantee you that people such as Donald Trump and Bill Gates have failed in more business deals than most people could even fathom, and yet it’s those failures that makes them better, not hinders them to go for more. If you truly want to succeed in anything you do, understand you’re going to fail a lot. That’s just how the game is played. Remember, Michael Jordan has missed over 9,000 shots in his career. 26 times he was trusted to make the game-winning shot and missed. It’s for that reason he succeeds.

As for the time commitment, studies have shown that the wealthier someone is the farther out in time they look at their life. As the book breaks down the different classes, they see time as:

Super Rich: Looks at business ventures in a 5-10 year period out from today. They set plans in motion that will make them money years from now in a huge way. They build hospitals, hotels, etc. that all take large risk and monetary commitment over long periods of time and create massive returns when they cash-in.

Rich: Tend to look at their life in yearly increments. They often are heard saying, “My plan for next year is to have this new business launched that will…..”

Middle Class: Look at their life in month-to-month. Typical issues are how the bills are getting paid this month, how they are investing their retirement money right now, a new small project they want to start in a few weeks, etc. They often live paycheck to paycheck and work hard with little long-term rewards. Their lives are planned around vacation times and monthly budgets. When asked what they see in their financial future in one year, rarely can they come up with a good answer.

Poor: Lives day to day. Often have no expendable money, need some sort of financial or government assistance program to get them through the month. Are never worried with next month because, “I just have to get through today.”

Super Poor: See their lives in an hour by hour basis. Primary issues are where the next meal is going to come from.

So looking at this, where do you fall-in? It might be worth examining how you strategize and organize your professional life to see how you can start going for more.

Lastly, it’s about delegation of time. They have shown that typically the wealthier someone is, the more hours of work they expend in an average day. Typically they work weekends and plan their down-time rather than just expect it. The difference is between the rich and middle-class is that while the rich and super rich spend more time working, the time they do commit to is much more efficient. They clone themselves through staffing and use that staff to accomplish tasks to free up time so that they can focus on more important tasks. A typical issue with middle-class entrepreneurs is that they think, “If I don’t do it, it won’t get done” and as a result, they work many hours inefficiently. If you fall into this category, the first thing you should do tomorrow is hire a personal assistant. Many people see this as a financial liability because you now have to pay someo
ne. The issue is, if you are paying your own bills, running your own errands, answering your own phone, you are literally working your life as if you were working a minimum wage job. You truly cannot afford to be doing it all yourself. Delegate tasks that you can train people to do and you will be astounded at how much more money you make.

As for time management it’s about being able to work time more effectively too. Rich and Super Rich people all have multiple streams of income. They don’t own one business they own two, or four, or a hundred. They all have these individual systems working to create them money. The easiest thing for them to do this is to create activities that make them money in their sleep. The most effective way to do this? Own your own POWERFUL website. Use the strategies and systems of advanced Internet marketing experts at your disposal to get you on track to leap-frogging out of your middle-class environment into one which will reap the rewards you truly want.

At the Millionaire Marketing Group, we can do that for you. Website design, makeovers, E-Mail campaigns, landing pages, Youtube and MySpace marketing and more. E-Mail us today at
support@mmglv.com and we will be happy to brainstorm with you about how we can launch your next stream of income for you and turn the Internet into your own, personal cash register!