When I pointed this out to the site owner, their comment was “well I don’t want people on phones on my site”. Whilst their response was meant in jest, it did actually highlight a very important point that many web designers fail to appreciate when designing websites with ever more advanced and complex content structures. Whilst Browsers are becoming expected to deal with ever more complex scripting and dynamic content structures, the mobile browser is still often unable to process even css let alone javascript, php and flash.

As an example of how not being able to read css can affect a page, see the two following examples:

Hawkinzwebdesigns – this uses css to structure the page layout
Hawkinzwebdesigns – this has css disabled

And with the ever increasing use of phones, and mobile computing devices to connect with the internet, it is becoming an increasingly important aspect that web designers have to consider.

So what does this mean – most websites built more than 5 years ago will be largely accessible to mobile browsers, but newer websites will be less likely to be so ‘readable’ There has been a move by some companies to detect mobile browsers and build mobile browser friendly websites, eg facebooks mobile website is m.facebook.com which reduces the content per page to make them faster loading, and keeps what content is provided to the ‘basics’.

One easy solution for website designers is to include a “mobile” link near the top of their home page to link to a more mobile friendly version of the site. Making a mobile friendly copy does mean more work, as you will find yourself duplicating content often. But at the heart of mobile content is the idea of presenting information in a more easily manageable way. As Facebook shows, you can still use dynamic content in a mobile page, but you have to re-think how you present the information.

This is the ultimate question a good website designer has to face repeatedly – “how am I presenting the information, and is it the most appropriate way for my viewer?” NOTE: the best way for your viewer does not always mean the lowest common denominator, nor does it always mean the most eye-catching way. Often it is about understanding where your viewer is coming from, and what they are expecting to see.

This post is not going to talk about the design mechanics of building a splash page, but rather what you should be putting in, and leaving out, of your splash page.

Firstly you want to ask yourself
“what is unique or special or different about what I am promoting?”
ie, why should someone be looking at what you are offering? Related to this – if you are promoting an affiliate page – “why should they sign up under me rather than someone else?”

Once you have an idea of what it is that you can focus on, the next question is
“what is the purpose of my splash page?”
ie – Are you trying to make them sign up straight away? Go and get more information? Go and visit a different page? Collect their contact details?
This is important because it will affect what and how you present the information you include on the page.

You now should have a good idea of what you want to say, so how are you going to say it?

There has been a trend towards including video on splash pages as there is a school of thought that says videos are more effective than static pages. Whilst in general terms this may be true, there are a 2 points to bear in mind:

1. There has been an increase in people blocking videos and scripts, which means they may not be seeing your video.
2. The video needs to be very fast loading, and make its point in the first few seconds.

Because of the issue of people blocking videos / scripts, if your splash page is relying on just your video to make its point, then you will be unable to make any impact on the viewer, and so your page is worse than using an affiliate page.
The video needs to make its point fast, because most people will only be viewing your page for just 2 or 3 seconds – so if you can not grab their attention in that time then you have lost the opportunity.
Therefore you need to consider the video to be at best a supplement to the main message rather than replacing it.

Likewise, if your splash page relies too heavily on scripts – especially if you are using a script-driven signup form – then you will be excluding some potential respondants. Scripts generally are not recommended in a splash page as they will slow the loading time as the browser will take the time to load the script, and if the script is positioned before the sales pitch, then the content will load slower and may not even be seen! (remember the page only has a 2 -3 second viewing window for most surfers)

Try to avoid using an all-in-one graphic that contains all your message as:
1. they tend to load slower because the file size is bigger
2. if they graphic fails to load, then all your message is lost.
If possible, try to use a mixture of text and graphics so that your eggs are not all in 1 basket.

There is no ‘golden formula’ for making a winning splash page – despite what some marketers will tell you – remember you are marketing to people, not robots and individuals will respond differently to the same input. Some people will respond better to humour, some to facts/statistics, some to emotional factors. Therefore you need to test and adapt your content to see what works best. You will probably find that you end up with a variety of pages that are ‘targetted’ at different people.

Try and get a punchy, attention grabbing ‘headline’ – something near the top of the page to grab their attention away from whatever else it was they were doing when they saw your page – it does not have to be text, it could be a graphic.
Next, you want to get your primary message across in 2 or 3 short, concise statements – remember the idea of a splash page is that it is a quick taster of more, not a full 4 course meal
Finally, the call to action – this is what you want the viewer to do next eg click a link, enter contact details, etc