Flash & SEO

I have been confronted with the question "can I optimize a flash site?" The answer is no, a flash site usually consists of one web page with a large flash movie. Google and the major search engine players can not see the content within a flash file, and content being the most important part of and great search engine campaign, you lose a whole whack of information that google will recognize and therefore you will not be ranked high.

Now it is possible to get indexed in Google, they will reconnaissance your URL and if you do some great deal of link development they will even give you a PR. The only thing which you can rely on as far as keyword mind you is the meta tags and they have lost their value on Google for some time now. You will only have one page indexed and if your keyword in very competitive you will be going up with some giant sites who have 30,000 pages indexed which again spells out to content.

I love flash sites personally, I think some of the best websites have been in flash they look clean professional and you have to admit they look pretty darn nifty. There is a way to have a flash site and still have a chance at getting your site listed in search engines in a high ranking position. Simply you must offer your visitors 2 options, have one done in html for example and have the flash site. The HTML version can be optimized, and it will offer some of your potential clients who may not be able to read a flash program or have a dial up connection a chance to purchase your products. As well you can have the bots crawl your site and index your pages to make your rankings higher.

Search Engine Optimization is not an exact science there are many variables to consider, as soon as you have your web designer chosen make sure you do the research to get your site visible on the internet and get you some traffic. IF you are stuck on the idea of flash for your site, you may even want to consider doing a PPC campaign, this will get you the traffic that you are looking for without compromising having an optional HTML version on your site.

PPC can be costly in the long run as some keywords gradually grow more competive, and the fact of the matter is that if you are listed in your organic results the majority of the potential clients will always look to the organic listing before choosing the paid sponsors.

Which ever you decide make sure you know what you are getting into when you are designing your website, if you wish to market your site well, I suggest you stay away from flash sites and maybe consider doing some flash movies as well as visible text. When it comes to SEO, content is KING, the more you have the better you will be.