SEO and Flash

Posted November 9th, 2009 by Seantmcvey

I have not dealth with seo and flash up until now. My client's website has great content, but it is in flash so there is no html text. I have optimized what I could, such as title, alt images, and meta data. However, the site only ranks 21st for the main keyword I am shooting for. The company is fairly established and has some good inbound links. I understand that search engines see flash websites as a blank slate. But the client will not re-do their site. Is there anything else I can do to get this site on the first page of search engines?

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mikeluve23 32 weeks 5 days 20 hours 4 min ago

Well résiliation assurance auto I think the only solution is to build more backlinks!

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There is a workaround for

lexpresso 2 years 13 weeks 20 hours 27 min ago

There is a workaround for this…

+ Make your flash site XML driven, perhaps even dynamic using wordpress to generate the xml files that drive the flash site's content.
+ Now, parse the xml file using php to generate an html based website, or if you're using wordpress, then just develope a regular theme. If not db driven, then your xml files will be your "common denominator"
+ To make the home page of your flash website visible to search engines, create a site map below the fold. You could also just display:none. The point is that google will crawl the page and see the flash object followed by an index it can actually follow. While this is only meant for google, it could also be where it defaults for non-flash users or iPhone users. Flash users will most likely stick with the one movie.

The point of doing this is to maintain content in one place only. There's a nice flash template I found that does this. Here's the link: http://activeden.net/item/elegant-photography-template/39455

Let me know if this helps!

Cheers!

Lexpresso, thanks for the

Seantmcvey 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago

Lexpresso, thanks for the great answer. This is too technical for me to handle so I would have to outsource. Do you think this is the type of thing that is safe to do on elance? Do you have a guy?

I don't have a guy…I

lexpresso 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 14 hours ago

I don't have a guy…I could do the wordpress, html, and xml part, but not the integration wth Flash…if you go with something like eLance just make sure you breakup the work into "checkable" sizes to control quality or you may end up with a mess at the end. Also, be sure to get a sample of their work at the code level to get a second opinion from some pro action scripters if possible. Let me know if I can help!

Cheers!

Hi Sean, There is another

Michal Wurm 2 years 13 weeks 20 hours 43 min ago

Hi Sean,

There is another trick you could use. If you add a HTML only copy of the website that displays automatically only to people without Flash capabilities, it will take care of the problem.

All the users who can view Flash will see the Flash website, while people who can't for whichever reason view Flash will get the HTML only layer. Same goes for Search engines - they can't read Flash but they will be able to easily crawl the HTML version of the website.

I have done few websites like that before, one example can be found at http://www.digitalarts.co.nz/test/link/

If you'd like I can send you source code of that page so you can see how it's done.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Michal

Michal, Thanks for you

Seantmcvey 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 20 hours ago

Michal,

Thanks for you response. This is the most common answer I have gotten and it seems most logical. For a coder to do an html version of the site should it cost the same as getting another website coded? I am obviously new to the web coding world and I'm still feeling out pricing.

Thanks,

Sean

Hi Sean, I don't think it

Michal Wurm 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 19 hours ago

Hi Sean,

I don't think it should cost the same as a new website - the graphic design is already done and you could supply the coder the source graphics elements to make his life easier.

You might either consider one of the "You design, we XHTML" services like http://www.psd2html.com or you could outsource the coding to a freelancer (I use http://www.rentacoder.com for jobs like that).

I had the last website turned to HTML version by a Romanian university student for less than $100. He did a good job at it too.

Hope this helps.

Michal

This is great information to

Seantmcvey 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 16 hours ago

This is great information to know. Thanks for the references and the ballpark price. You da' man!

Hi Sean - I totally hear

GoodKarma 2 years 13 weeks 21 hours 7 min ago

Hi Sean -

I totally hear where you are coming from. I had a freelance client that had a gorgeous flash site with no html and therefore was nowhere to be found in the serps. My recommendation would be to add a blog to the site. Creating useful and valuable content on a regular and consistent basis will be pretty much the only thing to do to move up in the rankings.

Cruise around Hubspot for many outstanding articles and how-to's to help as well.

Good luck!

Yeah I wish my client was

Seantmcvey 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 19 hours ago

Yeah I wish my client was interested in a blog. I understand the seo importance of fresh content from a blog and I have tried to convince them. Sometimes it's just not gonna happen :( :( :( :(

I spend so much effort trying

Michal Wurm 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 18 hours ago

I spend so much effort trying to educate my clients on the importance of business blogging, yet only few of them get it and are willing to make the effort to start a blog.

We'll just have to keep trying I guess. I recently wrote a post called "10 reasons to start a business blog" which I'm hoping will spark an interest in blogging in some clients.

Please feel free to use the content to convince your client of all the benefits of having a fresh content on the website.

Sweet. I am def. going to

Seantmcvey 2 years 12 weeks 6 days 16 hours ago

Sweet. I am def. going to use this as a reference and also tell some others about it. Thanks a lot!

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