Since there was some confusion around the last post about Flash site optimization, I thought I would start this post by clarifying a few things.
First, this series of posts are meant to give you a basic guide to optimizing an existing Flash site. If you are building a site from scratch or redesigning your current site, I do not recommend creating a Flash based site. If you must use Flash in a new site or redesign, use it minimally, do not create the entire site inside one Flash movie, but rather make separate Flash movies for each of the site’s pages. This will make search engine optimization for your Flash site much easier and more effective.
Part II : Flash site optimization for wedding photographers.
Here are 3 additional do it yourself tips to get started optimizing your flash site.
I. Create an HTML contact form: this makes it much easier to track your inquiries and where they are coming from.
II. Create a Blog: How does this help optimize my Flash site you may ask… It does it by indirect means. It adds ‘pages’ that are ‘search-engine friendly’ to you site and provides more opportunities for potential clients to find your site through search.
III. Add text outside the Flash movie: Text should be written for site visitors, not for the search engines. Text should include your keywords where appropriate. DO NOT create pages of content just for the search engines. These types of pages can get your site banned from the search engine’s index.
There you have it, 3 more easy tips for optimizing your Flash site for search engines.
Have a flash site? You’re not alone, most photographers do and despite information to the contrary flash sites can be optimized, indexed, and ranked well. How do I know? I’ve optimized Flash sites and gotten them ranked highly for very competitive keywords.
Disclaimer: It’s not my favorite type of site, it requires a lot more work to get a Flash site ranked highly, and I don’t recommend Flash to clients who are considering a redesign. (Update: Unless the person building your Flash site understands how search engines work and makes adjustments to accommodate the SE spiders’ in ability to crawl content on a FLV site. Livebooks is one such website vendor.) Search engines do not generally like them due to the fact that they cannot ‘read’ the content inside the Flash movie, though Google is beginning to.
Here are 5 easy do it yourself tips to get started optimizing your flash site.
I. Use keywords in your title tag. For example if you’re a portrait photographer in Juno Alaska, write ‘juno portrait photographer’ along with your ‘studio name’. If your studio is ‘Cute as a Button Photography, then your title tag could read something like, ‘Juno Portrait Photographer | Cute as a Button Photography’.
II. Write a good, keyword rich site description. Writing an intelligent site description for your website adds value in the eyes of the search engines, but it also can induce a look from searchers. Including keywords (ex: Juno Portrait Photographer) in that description help the search engine categorize your site and rank your site when your potential clients search for your services.
III. Insert a text description of your site below the Flash movie on your website home page. DO NOT copy paste this section from the above. The search engines want to see new content not redundant copies of the same text. Also, it must be relevant and useful to humans!
IV. Add the physical address, telephone number and email address of your studio in either the footer or immediately under the Flash movie for potential clients and the search engines to find. This does two things, it increases your credibility in the eyes of the search engines, and it makes it easier for potential clients to contact you.
V. Make sure your images are ‘web optimized’ to load quickly in the browser. To do this save images at 72 dpi and use the save for web option in photoshop. Notice load times at the bottom of the images in the ‘save as’ window and try decrease the size of the file to the smallest size possible without compromising quality.
Generally speaking, anything you can do to enhance the accessibility and experience of viewers is generally a good thing.
Now, this should get you started, but, the devil really is in the details.
