Script:

Welcome

Most SEO consultants will suggest that flash is not search engine friendly and cannot be indexed.

Although a HTML site will naturally perform better in search engines than a flash site, this doesn’t necessarily mean that flash is ignored all together.

We have developed methods of integrating flash so that a user and search engines can see it.

Step 1.) Embedding the flash file:

Google actually provides flash embed code at its code.google.com website and recommends that you use SWF Object to embed your flash.

This method also complies with w3c standards.

Step 2.) Ensure you use your IE hacks:

It is important that you use the ie hacks provided via HTML comments, otherwise you will see a blank space in IE.

Step 3.) Adding content to your flash file:

Again SEO consultants often think that only dynamic text within flash gets indexed, again not true as your will see shortly. Our recommendation is to ensure that the text within your flash file has been written in flash and is not imagery.

Step 4.) Object Title

You can also give your object a title, like in most HTML you can name your flash file, be honest with your title tho.

We will show you an example looking at Creares flash file, it has been indexed by Google.

URL: http://www.seo-creare.co.uk/bounce.swf

You can also see that the content within the flash file has been indexed.

Conclusion - You can actually specifically search for just flash file using the following string: filetype:swf

Recently I was talking to friend who owns a successful business who originally used a programmer friend to create a web site some years ago.  Presently I am working for a leading design company as a SEO consultant.  As we were taking he asked me to check this web site and give him a professional opinion about the site.   He emphasized that the web site brought him little traffic and was just a landing page for his business (in his words) instead of giving out business cards.

At this I would like to point out that this person is not arrogant, he clearly is at the top of his profession and has his client’s interests come first. He also added that because of his reputation at doing such a good job, his client list was full and this had come about from word of mouth.  I know this to be correct because I am one of his clients.   With no aspect of a sales pitch I agreed that when I get the time I would spend a few minutes to evaluate the relevant optimisation and send him a report.
After loading the site I could see that the landing page looked much like one of those social sites that seem to give images of your family and friends. Which is fine if you want to make friends or promote your popularity and before you comment I know that they promote all kinds of healthy social networking and do wonders for the people who use them.  However, they not really the type of site I would like to promote any business to, even though I do use (stealth slogging) I mean blogging, occasionally.   I do prefer to submit a business to prominent directory that has the clout to give a client maximum exposure for there particular products.

The point that I am trying make is that the site was poor with no opimisation, the type of site that is so typical on the web and that I see so often when I am surfing the net for inspiration and sound technical advice.  Later I emailed him to express my concerns and when we met on my next appointment he thanked me for my comments.  If I was a salesman I could have pushed for a total redesign or refresh of his site and full optimasation as soon as possible but the fact is I am not and much prefer to leave that sort of thing to a salesperson to pitch for business.  I did recommend that he contacted our sales team for a chat so that he would fully understand the importance of having the site optimized professionally.  As yet he has not taken up the option but I am optimistic that he will eventually commit to this idea because I know that it would be so good for his business.