Media

Sure “flash” is fancy, but is it getting in your way?

The technique of adding Flash animations to your site is tempting, because it looks so cool. But these devices can get in the way of customer navigation. Think about whether your visitors will sit still through your movie before they can begin to shop and buy.

More importantly, Flash animations are not searchable, unless properly created. For example, the GoogleBot cannot recognize most types of JavaScript, so Google may not be able to index Flash files loaded through JavaScript. FLV (YouTube) files are not indexed; in fact any file that does not contain text elements may not be indexed. This means that much of the content inside a beautiful and costly all-flash website may have zero SEO value.

The good news is that engines like Google have opened the door to flash searchability, by integrating the indexing of textual content contained in Flash files into their keyword search algorithm. Flash URLs are now indexed as well. This means developers who know how to capitalize on this text indexing can offer you the best of both worlds, the stopping power of Flash combined with searchability.

There are other limitations to Google’s capability to index Flash. For example, the GoogleBot cannot recognize most types of JavaScript, so Google may not be able to index the Flash file if the website is loading a Flash file through JavaScript.

Additionally, Google will not index any of the external resources of related to the Flash file. Thus, if your Flash file contains an XML, HTML, or another SWF file, the Google will index those files separately. These files will not be treated as part of the content of the “page”. If, on the other hand, the Flash file is embedded in HTML, the content that the URL consists of will be indexed as a complete “page”.

Is flash still useful for my business and website?

You may be second guessing yourself by now and wondering if flash is worth the time, trouble, and money. If flash is properly implemented as a part of a full SEO plan then absolutely, but as your entire website, probably not.

Flash can be commonly referred to as Rich Media or Active Media. These types of images draw attention to your website and cause users to stay around to watch or click through your flash content. They also stick in the memory of your potential clients to provide a point of differentiation between other websites competing for their attention. Chances are that if a user sees something totally new or groundbreaking they will not only watch it and return to watch it again, but also tell their friends about it.

An excellent example of this would be a “viral video”. A man puts a video of his cat dancing with his dog to a waltz beat on www.youtube.com. A handful of people see this video and think that it is so cute that they need to send it to all their friends. Before you know it this video has been passed worldwide at no cost to the original user. Most of you reading this article have one or two of these forwards in your mailbox at this moment, and you may have even sent e-mails like this in the past.

Does this type of free advertising by word-of-mouth or word-of-e-mail sound good to you? How about having customers and their friends return to your website again and again to look at your flash images and every time see new products, content, offers, or sales media? Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about how flash can integrate into your SEO plan to be a power tool for your e-business.

The Flash Power Tool

The difference between a moving interactive Flash image and a static or unchanging picture on your website is the difference between a hammer and a nail gun. While the hammer could do the same job, if building an entire house the nail gun is more efficient. In other words, if a picture is worth a thousand words, then Flash Imagery speaks volumes, and this imagery, if used effectively, can hold a potential customer’s attention long enough to turn them into a client.

When you first reach a website, if all you see is type, you get bored quickly and then move on. If you see clunky or blocky images, or even a few good pictures, you might hang around to check them out. If the images you see are relevant to your search, you might stay even longer. Now imagine landing on a website that has what you are searching for, and has compelling movies and imagery changing as you watch. The longer you watch the more you see, and all that you see is relative to you and what you were searching for. Which would you come back to next time?

That’s great! You can use these movies to showcase your products and services. Your most recent headlines can be in a font that fades in to attract attention, and all this is now the first thing a person browsing your site will remember seeing. You might even have an installation video or a game where users get to shoot at an elusive motorcycle to win a gift card. So why is this not the way to design your whole website? If flash images are the most attractive way to reach users on your site, then why is it not the absolute end-all best way to build a website? Unless you have an endless advertising budget and the name recognition to back it up, SEO is important to you and your website driven business. Sadly all that beautiful flash work is sometimes invisible to the programs that index your website and its content because they are unable to read any image content or JavaScript in flash images, so those images aren’t valuable until you get potential customers to your site. This is why proper use of flash images as a part of an overall SEO plan is so important. As most power tools, flash requires some safety goggles. Let’s look at how we can use flash safely?

Your Website, Rich Media, and Proper use of Flash

Rich Media is a buzz word to describe everything in marketing as it applies to the World Wide Web. Anything that draws your attention is rich media. On the web today this term is most often used to refer to user interactive flash images such as the homepage image on shophemi.com, and JavaScript activated images in the content of a website such as the tabbed news module at the bottom of our speed2marketing website pages. This type of content requires some extra knowledge and skill to implement if considering the SEO ramifications. An example applicable to our clients in the automotive sector would be flash navigation on a services brochure website, or navigation between product images in the content of an automotive parts e-commerce website. Since navigation is a key SEO element careful skills, planning, and implementation would be needed to take care not to lose any SEO value. This is another area where the speed2marketing skill set allows us to serve our clients in ways that other web design and marketing firms may not be equipped for. We take the steps upfront to ensure that your cutting edge rich media website is not only the most attractive, but also the most valuable asset that our clients can have all with a value proposition they can afford. Contact us to find out how valuable your website is and could be to your business.