Optimizing a Flash website

[Matty J]

Ok from what I understand, when it comes to search engine optimization, a Flash site faces many more hurdles. I have considered using CSS layers to apply visibility: hidden; text in the "background". Basicly hiding the readable content behind the flash. But I was under the impression that bots (especially for the monsters) dismiss hidden text. And since using Flash to create an entire website basicly reduces the number of pages to 1 html page with the movie on it, that will greatly reduce the number of times keywords appear in my site, as well as other valuable things search engines love, ie. the title tags, and such.

Are there any sure-fire techniques besides PPC advertising, I can utilize to obtain greater recognition?

Thanks,

Matty
:confused:

Hi Matty,

You do indeed face big hurdles in relation to utilizing flash. I don't know what type of site you're running or the audience it is catered too, but there are a couple of things you need to consider (not related to seo). Unfortunately, flash does not always cater to all ages and can perhaps remove a large portion of your target audience. Even so, if your site is targeted towards younger generations, all could be well.

In relation to SEO, I would try and minimize use of Flash in your site (I'm not talking about removing it all together) and utilize some static text (HTML) where possible. Basically, you combine the two as effectively as possible. Often you see Flash sites using flash unecessarily where there could be a good argument for utilization of HTML. Other than that, links are going to be your biggest helper. Master links, and you're set.

[Brandon72]

Hey Matty.

The first responder offered some great advice. It's similar to the advice I always give my company's high-end real estate developers. For some reason, that industry is in love with Flash. They all want Flash websites, Flash intros, Flash everything!

The first thing I tell them is this. If you care about search engine visibility (and they do, because they're paying me for it), you have to incorporate some regular text content. It's a usability improvement in addition to being a visibility improvement. People can navigate better, and spiders can crawl better when the use of Flash is "contained."

To see some examples of what I mean by containing Flash, check out Adobe.com, WebTrends.com or ClickTracks.com. These sites use Flash for some visual pop, but they contain the Flash within its own space, and they offer textual content in addition to the Flash movies.

Hope that helps you out some.

Good luck!

[Junior Matt]

Hey Matty,

Tell me strightly, Is't Possible to optimize the flash pages?

[stymiee]

Sure, but no matter how well you optimize it won't even compare to an HTML page as far as SEO goes. If you decide to make an entire page/site in flash you are essentially forsaking good search engine rankings. Only through sheer popularity can you hope to rank well.

[Harry smith]

Matty,
If your site is full of flash, and is basically a flash site then for indexing try to move all your content out of your Flash movie and put them into an XML file or keep it in a database.
I think this will help Google to index this content by using progressive enhancement.
if you don't know what is Progressive enhancement method is, then here it is :
Progressive enhancement is a method of web development that goes hand in hand with Web Standards. You start with your HTML (your content), then add CSS (your look and feel), then add in additional behavior (Javascript, Ajax, Flash, any other interactivity that isn’t handled automatically by the browser).
This is onpage optimising, where you may be lacking behind, but you can cover it by having good off page optimising techniques such as : getting backlinks from related sites, posting informative articles in Good blogs, with signature for your site, many more.....

[stymiee]

Matty,
If your site is full of flash, and is basically a flash site then for indexing try to move all your content out of your Flash movie and put them into an XML file or keep it in a database.
I think this will help Google to index this content by using progressive enhancement.

Putting it into XML or a database is useless unless you take it from those storage formats and put in onto a web page. Search engines won't crawl an XML file unless you link to it and even then XML is a poor way to present content to a search engine. They're looking for HTML and its semantic markup. Using XML will to serve them content is a waste of time.

Also, search engines don't crawl databases. They can't. Like I said above, you have to use a dynamic webpage to pull that data out of the database and present it to them in HTML.

if you don't know what is Progressive enhancement method is, then here it is :
Progressive enh ancement is a method of web development that goes hand in hand with Web Standards. You start with your HTML (your content), then add CSS (your look and feel), then add in additional behavior (Javascript, Ajax, Flash, any other interactivity that isn’t handled automatically by the browser).

Progressive enhancement, while a good concept, doesn't apply to entirely flash sites. A site is either entirely in flash or its not. Using Flash for aesthetic value might fall under this but that isn't what we're talking about here.

[Austin SEO]

Replace a few Flash files by GIF files to see if that helps. Flash actually poses big problems in SEO.
Regards,
SNIP