Is Your Flash Website Killing Your Business?

With all of the new development in website design and coding languages, many people are trying their hand at designing and publishing websites. This is not a bad trend, if you know precisely what you are doing. If you are following a simple, enclosed guide, you may be doing more harm to your business than you know.

Among the newest trends are people designing and publishing sites based upon Adobe Flash. This, in itself, is not a bad thing. Flash sites are very colorful, usually, and can keep someone’s attention for a longer period of time than most static sites. Everyone knows that “page view time” is a good thing as pertaining to the search engines. What everyone doesn’t know is the down side of Flash.

One issue with Flash sites is the lack of HTML descriptions and keywords. Yes, I know that “some” people say descriptions and keywords are not as relevant as they had been, but I have seen the results of NOT having a valid description and keywords posted. I also know there ARE ways to get around this issue but I have seen very few examples of people actually doing the extra work.

A second concern is the amount of time it takes for the Flash page to load, commonly known as “load time”. This CAN be an issue for HTML pages also but I have found many slow loading pages are Flash pages.

If you are creating a site for your own personal use, that is your personal issue. You know what you have created.

If, on the other hand, your are creating a site for someone else, and have NOT described the issues that go with a Flash site (pertaining to site description, keywords and page load time), you have seriously mislead your client. The client seldom understands what is involved in creating a site and is expecting the builder to complete the task so their site has the chance to be ranked high in the search process. If you are using straight Flash, I don’t believe that is possible.

On a regular basis, I find clients that are upset because they can’t get their website to rank high in the searches. They don’t know why the site won’t rank and, usually, the site designer doesn’t know either. After a period of education about search engine functions and theory, the owner typically asks something like “so WHAT do I do now?”

Then it comes down to finding someone to change the site so it can be relative to the search engine bots.

This discussion is NOT to downgrade Flash sites. Flash sites are excellent when used for displaying content. They are not the bets when it comes to the sales and marketing side of a business. Yes, it CAN be done but it takes more work to accomplish a truly multifunctional site.

Bottom line, if you are marketing and selling materials or services, a Flash site probably isn’t your best choice. An HTML based site, built and optimized correctly, has the best chance of being seen by the search engines and getting your site ranked for the world to see you.