Splash Pages and other Nasty Things

When I saw this morning that a recently relaunched website of an acquaintance's business had gone from OK to really bad, it drove me to blog.

The very first thing I found is.... yes, a SPLASH PAGE.  Let it be clear:  in our world driven by search engines and impatient web users, there is NO use for a splash page.  It is outdated.

A splash page is that graphic home page that resembles the cover of a brochure.

1. Search engines do not read graphics
   
2. A home page is the most valuable online real estate on a site - for a user and for a search engine
   
3. I and millions like me, have no patience for an unnecessary click - which is what it takes to get past the curtain to the show
   
4. A splash page is guaranteed to chase at least 50% of traffic to the site away.

And while I am ranting about the really bad website, some other thoughts:

• Use standard font styles and sizes for headings, content, captions and links.
  
• For goodness sake, don't say "Coming Soon"  While you write your content, think of at least one useful sentence to put there in the mean time - even if it is only your contact information.