Flash and SEO
An often asked question by clients is whether or not Flash websites can be indexed by search engines?
The answer is Yes with a big exception. Companies such as Google have come a long way over the years and now have the ability to crawl and index file types such as flash as well as pdf’s and many others. With that said there are a few steps you must take into consideration if you insist on going to go down the flash development path for your photography website.
This topic is much bigger than what can be handled in this short blog post and there are many resources publicly available on the internet if you want more detailed info, however below i’ll outline a few things to keep in mind if you decide a Flash site is really what you want
1. Mix your use of Flash and HTML
Don’t build your entire site as one self contained flash file, break out each section into it’s own swf file and then embed that into an html page such as contact.html, bio.html etc..
2. Use Flash Sparingly!
Only use Flash for things such as Photo Galleries and Navigation. This will give your site some interactivity while allowing you to optimize your textual content for the search engiens.
3. Create a secondary redundant site using HTML and CSS
It’s more work to manage, but this method will allow your site to be more easily located in the Search Engines, once the once the visitor arrives at your site they can determine which path they want to go down.
4. Don’t worry about it?
Many photographers aren’t worried about visitors finding them via the search engines, but instead opt to use their websites as more of a calling card, a place to drive potential clients to, to showcase their work. In this case throw the other three options out the window and build the flashiest site you can… Just kidden Search Engine Optimization is just one of the pitfalls of Flash Websites, others include accessibility by the handicapped or visually impaired. This will be covered in future blog posts.
If you have questions or comments please feel free to leave them for me and i’ll do my best to respond.
Until next week thanks for stopping by and make sure to check out our sister site www.prophotoresource.com
Cris Mitchell:
Feel free to leave a message and i’ll do my best to answer back in a timely manner. Also if you have a topic that you would like to see covered in future blog posts just let me know.
Thanks,
Cris…
Posted on June 20th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
David Farmerie:
Chris,
My understanding is that the most recent version of Flash has greatly improved on the search engine problem. This is more of a question than a comment.
Be well,
david
Posted on July 15th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
David Farmerie:
Also Chris, as an FYI, I am thrilled to read that you will have a future post on accessibility issues for the handicapped and visually impaired. This is an area that most people are unaware of and it is essential, as you know, for so many reasons.
This is the first time I have read through your posts and you are on the right track. I wish that I could have access to this type of resource when I started out. I will happily promote your site in every lecture.
Be well…..
Posted on July 15th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Cris Mitchell:
David,
Thanks so much for your support. Having a brother that is developmentally disabled has always made me aware of usability issues in one form or another. Yes i believe it is an often overlooked topic that should be covered in more detail and we’ll try to tackle some of those here and in the book.
Indeed Flash has made great strides in the past years with the search engines but it’s still not a perfect science and if you are worried about SEO than developing in Flash is probably not your best solution, but again as stated in the post there are things you can do to optimize.
Thanks for reading
Cris…
Posted on July 15th, 2008 at 6:34 pm