Flash websites have been enticing web visitors and creators since their emergence.  However, there is debate over how effective this type of design technology is when it comes to online marketing. For some, Flash sites are considered to be preferred in comparison to the static HTML websites that have little to no moving parts. In spite of the popularity that Flash web design has garnered over the years, many businesses and online marketers concerned about  SEO rankings should beware!

Flash websites look cool, they add more visitor interactivity and make web sites more entertaining. However, there is  a lot more to the web than just having fun.  And, as we all know, there are a TON of things going on behind those beautiful and bright graphics that the average user views when surfing the web.

One of the biggest drawbacks to using a Flash website is the negative impact it has on the site’s SEO rankings. There’s no point in having a beautiful, exciting new website if no one can find it, right? So let’s take a look at  why Flash websites are still not compatible with search engine optimization (SEO) principles.

Flash is simply a software name created by Macromedia, which provides excellent animation quality on the web. Flash Plug-ins embedded on websites have the capability to make images, graphics, logos and animation appear to be in 3D mode, which is a lot livelier than basic HTML. In theory, the entertainment factor or enticement factor helps boosts up the odds that people will find your website more attractive and help to increase the amount of traffic on your site.  People who argue in favor of Flash web sites might also suggest that this type of design increases the likelihood that your audience will stay on your site for a longer duration of time, converting more prospects into customers.

While Flash websites are more appealing to the human eye, these websites will not be indexed by search engine spiders. In spite of showcasing enticing websites, owners of Flash sites may find it harder to rank decent in search engines because search engine crawlers have difficulty in detecting websites that utilize Flash. Yes, what the user sees on your website is incredibly important. At the same time, however; what web crawlers see is just as important. The difference between users and web crawlers is that web crawlers read the code that is hidden behind the images and graphics. In order to know how to rate and and rank your website in search engines, web crawlers MUST be able to view this code.

The myth about a customer staying longer on your site also does not mean a 100% conversion of sales. Based on statistics, the majority of online viewers are impatient, in terms of looking through what they really want. When it comes to web visitors looking to make purchases, price and product are the first items and information that users look for. If people need to sift through a ton of animation or close out introduction videos before they can get to what they are really after, this could be a deterrent and turn people away from your website.

Load time is another drawback with Flash websites. Both users and search engines are not fans of sites that take longer to load. Google added load time as a signal in their search ranking algorithms over two years ago and it has stuck ever since. Flash sites take much longer to load than HTML sites. As a result, they have lower SEO rankings and less popularity among users.

At the end of the day, simpler is better when it comes to your website. Sure, Flash in websites is appealing and enticing for some audiences, but it does not mean it appeals to everyone. The important thing is that you utilize web development  and design techniques that are both SEO and user friendly.

I’ve recently have had a few people ask me, “Why am I in Google, but not in Yahoo or Bing?”. Even though Google is perceived as the “toughest” search engine to get ranked in, it actually isn’t true. Each search engine has it’s own search engine algorithm that determines it’s own unique results. Some people “accuse” Bing of stealing Google’s algorithm, however there are so few people who actually KNOW what Google’s algorithm is, so I completely think that’s false.

What is Yahoo’s & Bing’s Deal?

For one, Yahoo tends to like spam links and considers both nofollow and dofollow links, where Google tend to get rid of a lot of spam sites and only considers dofollow links. So to get to the top in Yahoo tends to be harder because now you have to not only beat the real sites, but the spam sites that just post their links everywhere under the sun. So in order to get into Google you need to have a low amount of spam links and a high amount of good follow links. But to get into Yahoo you just have to be the master link site for that keyword. In order words to get both you need a lot of GOOD and quality links. Now, that’s not fun is it? Now Yahoo and Bing both relies heavily on onsite SEO. Onsite SEO is optimizing your site for search engines. So your title tags, meta tags (Even though this isn’t really relevant anymore), description tags, header tags, content, etc. So Yahoo tends to favor sites who are keyword heavy on their page, but the downside of this is that Google doesn’t like TOO much on-page because they want it to look natural and not Spammy. So in other words Yahoo likes keyword stuffing, which is like the first thing we learned NOT to do in SEO Class 101! This is what makes our jobs so difficult!

Recommendations to get ranked in Yahoo or Bing

This is how I look at it. If you get yourself in Google and not in Yahoo or Bing, than I actually think your doing something right. That means your doing White Hat SEO instead of just spamming the crap out of your site. So pat yourself on the back, this is a GOOD problem. For all of the people who have the opposite problem, you or your marketing company are probably spamming your site. If you are really having difficulty getting in Yahoo, I’d recommend keep pushing the quality links. If you are ranking in Google, than you are on your way to success. It takes a FULL 6 months of SEO to fully get ranked, doesn’t matter WHAT the keyword is. It can take up to a years worth of work to actually get the full results for the difficult keywords.

Now I spoke a lot about Yahoo, but what about Bing? Now Bing places a lot of emphasis on TEXT and CONTENT, which some people will argue that Google doesn’t. Bing also places a high weighing on relevancy of the content on your site and the keywords you are trying to be ranked for. So make sure your site is ranked highly for LSI Keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing – basically in a nutshell LSI keywords are keywords that aren’t the exact phrase you are using. This will prevent you from over using your main keywords and making your site look like it’s keyword stuffing and spammy). Bing and Google both also look at the domain age. The reason behind this is so that these spam sites that pop up for a one week-one year domain life won’t get higher ranked than a mom and pop shop down the street that’s  had a domain name since 1998.

So what does this mean and how will this help you?

As a business owner you need to think about where you want to spend your money marketing. SEO can easily be done by anyone if they learn it. Just like me, you can go out and read blogs and books and try to figure it out. The best thing I think is to hire a link building/seo company to come in and optimize your site and get you links in the correct places. But remember, don’t just hire anyone because once a page is index, it’s forever indexed!!!

The problem with SEO is that it is extremely time consuming. There are so many different variations and aspects of SEO that you have to take into consideration. Like if you are redoing a site, you have to worry about forwarding the pages so Google doesn’t get pist off. Or if you are creating a Title, where to put the words to best optimize. How many times you say a certain word because if it’s too little then Google may not think it is important enough, but if you use the word is too much of your content then google will think you are keyword stuffing. When building links to make sure that the site has a good Ranking and that the link is not a no follow link.  I can go on for hours the amount of different things you have to worry about when doing Search Engine Optimization, but the point is as long as you are doing SEO for the right reasons, then you will be fine.

What do I mean by that? Well, a long time ago, before this entire Google scandal (If I may?) started to occur where people were trying to just get on the “top” of Google, website owners use to post links to actually get GOOD and USEFUL traffic to their website. For instance, they would post a link that was relevant to them so they could get traffic that would be interested in what their site was about. Now a days I see people who own a clothing store posting on someone who owns an ice cream shop because they think it’s relevant enough just to get a link. They don’t care who they get to their site at that point as long as their traffic number goes up. Well I personally don’t believe that’s the correct way to do SEO and that’s not how I get SEO. My goal is to increase my clients revenue, not just increase their rankings for their keywords.

Anyway, so since there is so much out there where do we find all this information? There are so many firefox add-on’s that I recently started to use that are very useful.

1. Web Developer – This is an awesome tool because it helps you when you code. Since it’s best to code in DIV’s and it can sometimes be a little more tricky this is an awesome tool to help you code your sites correctly. It also allows you to do a bunch of other things, like disable javascript, css, etc. This tool doesn’t exactly affect SEO directly, but it will help make your page more user friendly for your users. It’s also my favorite tool
2. SEO for Firefox – This handy tool is inline with both Google and Yahoo, which is really cool. It allows you to see the Google Search in an entire new light. When you search, now below all the websites you will see a bunch more information about the site such as Rank, Links, If they are on Twitter, If they are in the top directories like yahoo dir and dmoz, etc. Perfect way to find out what your competitors have over you. The only issue with this add on is that you have to make sure you shut it off when you are not using it. Otherwise, you can get penalized because they will think you are trying to draw to much information to quickly. This could potentially cause them to stop sending information to you. So just be careful, but otherwise great tool.
3. Search Status – Handy little tool that is at the bottom of your page. It tells you the websites PageRank, Alexa Rankings, inbound links, pages index, etc. It also lets you see robots.txt, keywords, and their sitemap. Again, all these items you can obviously get yourself by going to the URL, but these tools are very good to quicken the process and find the tools needed to gain better ranks quicker.  It’s a very cool tool to quickly find out the answers.
4. Link Checker – This tool is awesome. In your tools drop down there is a link that says “Check Page Links”. You click that button while on the page you want to check the links for and it will go through check all the links and put green marks on the links that are not broken and put a red box over the links that are broken. Very handy tool for SEO because one of the things google looks at are broken links. If you have to many broken links google may penalize you for it.

There are many other add ons and SEO tools you can use to help ease the pressure. There are so many things you have to do, that sometimes it can get very tedious and cumbersome.  These tools are quick, easy, and efficient ways to get the same exact job done. Why bust your hump to get these answers when they can just be given to you?