What Is A Splash Page?
A splash page, or a page that functions as a gateway before users can see your content, is a web design technique long extinct. Most splash page examples are long gone but some still remain. Website splash pages are almost universally disliked by visitors, they cripple your search engine optimization capabilities, and they typically don’t provide any user benefits except in certain circumstances.
Visitors Hate Your Splash Page
Most modern splash pages have a bounce rate of about 25%. It’s higher for flash splash pages, even pages with a “Skip Intro” link. Think about what this means. You lose 25% of your visitors before they ever see your site. That’s a quarter of your profit, if you’re converting users via a sales funnel, and for what? Showing your logo? If there’s no other reason for your splash page to exist other than showing off some design work that you paid for, your splash page is not a worthwhile barrier to your content or your sales funnel.
Search Engines Hate Your Splash Page
When a search engine crawls your homepage and finds a splash page, two things happen. First, the search engine finds no targeted keywords and doesn’t know what terms to use to rank your homepage, one of the most valuable places on your domain to place keywords. Second, the crawler sees only one link leaving the homepage, and from this it determines that this is the only page on your site that matters. You lose the ranking benefits of linking your blog or other content directly from your homepage. This can effectively destroy any SEO strategies and efforts you’ve done for your site. With the ever-increasing importance of digital marketing in today’s world, it is crucial to ensure your site avoids these simple mistakes.
No Benefit to Usability
In most cases, your website splash page is offering absolutely nothing to your users by its existence. Unless you need to segment users into home and business customers, offer more than one language (and receive a lot of traffic from non-US visitors), or have to place age-related or other disclaimers on your entry page, your splash page is doing nothing for your site.
Kill Your Splash Page Before It Kills Your Website
Most webmasters who still use splash pages would benefit from removing the page and using a more usable & professional design on the homepage of the site. You’ll see immediate benefits to traffic, search rankings, and usability, and webmasters will soon find that no one complains when that pretty graphic or video is gone.
Image – © senoldo – Fotolia.com
I'm the Director of Digital Services and Partner at Ballantine, a family-owned and operated direct mail & digital marketing company based in New Jersey. and started in 1966 by my great uncle!
