The BrowseWorks Blog

Removing the Splash (Intro) Page Increases Website Traffic

Mar 10

Written by: George Alexandrov
Tuesday, March 10, 2009

A splash page is an introductory page, usually with some kind of big graphic or animation, which people see before they enter your website.

I will start with a question that I ask customers who feel like their website should have a splash page:

"How does your visitor benefit from seeing the splash page?"

If you can give an unbiased answer (i.e. not justifying why you like it), please let me know.

Here are 3 negative effects of splash pages based on my professional experience:

1. Diminished Search Engine Optimization

When a search engine indexes a website it considers whatever it finds on www.yoursite.com to be the home page. So if you have a splash page it will consider it to be the home page, whether you want this effect or not. A splash page does not display any meaningful information for the search engines. Usually it is worse than that - it has no information because it displays an image or some flash animation. This results in poor ranking of your website with search engine results.

2. Angered Repeat Visitors

There a couple of websites with splash pages that I visit from time to time. Every time I do that I catch myself rolling my eyes as I am looking with the mouse for the "enter" link. A repeat visitor is not interested in some flashy intro. Most likely they want to see what's new with your business, obtain more information about a product, or just order something. Why not make it easy for repeat visitors by removing the obstacle and spare them one extra click and a few seconds of their precious time? By the way, two seconds is a lot of time on Internet. If you have a competitor who does not have a splash page, a repeat visitor will prefer their site, as it is less work to navigate to.

3. Reduced Website Traffic

When someone clicks over to a website with a splash page, they have to do the extra work of an extra click to get to the actual site (what they really want). The danger of many splash pages is that it is hard to find where the "Enter site" link is. Why? Because many graphic designers can go wild on coolness of the splash page that it is hard to even find the "Enter" link. The result - your visitors will end up seeing your splash page and ... leaving your website without ever coming back. I recently examined a website with an extreme case of "splash" - the splash page had a ton of images and no instruction what to do. I was able to finally find the "Enter site" button after scrolling down for three or four screens worth of images without instructions. In essence, the splash page is a barrier to your website that helps visitors leave. In this specific case it was a barricade.

Another extremely negative effect on web traffic is that splash pages rarely capture the attention of a visitor. A website has less than 7 seconds to capture a first time visitor's attention. This is the function of the home page. A splash page can never beat a thoughtfully engineered and laid out home page. The result is, again, losing traffic (i.e. business).

Why do business websites still have splash pages?

I believe that owners of websites with splash pages believe that an intro page tells the visitor what their site is about in a cool looking way. In my experience most splash pages fail to do even that, unless they reside on the website of the latest Hollywood flick. You should tell what your website and your company is about on your home page. This is best done with a short slogan saying something specific you, and also a sentence or two in larger font summarizing who you are and what you do. Then, without the need for scrolling, clicking, or searching where to click, the visitor should be able to see more information about your services, your company and anything else that is important enough to appear on the home page (such as latest news, recent blog entries, etc.).