Flash Vs. SEO
Life is like riding a bicycle.
To keep your balance you must keep moving.
– Albert Einstein
Hello all and welcome to another installment of Working IT Out! I’ve got a fun little brainteaser of an article for us today… It all started one lonely, rainy day, when I said to myself “Yea, Flash is cool and all, but does it really produce enough of an extra response to justify the poor SEO off-shoots?”
As I sat, pondering this and many other complicated questions, I thought well, maybe other people wonder this very same thing. And BAM! Out pops this article …
In this issue:
- Some of the Negatives of Using Flash …
- Some Benefits of Using Flash …
- How much Flash is too much Flash…
- And much more!
Why do people like Flash sites?
Or more to the point what’s the big deal about Flash?
Well, to answer those questions, we must first lay some ground rules and define exactly what Flash is.
I’ll start by saying movement or animation on a webpage or banner is not always Flash.
There are several different ways to accomplish motion on the web and Flash is just one popular way.
Another popular way is using an animated gif.
Usually, animated gifs are far simpler than Flash in terms of the design. For example, if you see one or two images repeated over and over again to produce movement, it’s probably an animated gif.
Something like this:
Animated gifs have been popular because they are simpler for most websites that sell space ads. One major reason that ad vendors like animated gifs better than Flash is that they can control the links better.
In the case of Flash, all links must be created within the file itself, thus if you have several different promotions using the same graphic, but you need a different link for each ad, you will have to have a separate file for each individual ad with its corresponding link embedded inside it.
With animated gifs you only need to have one graphic and then you can specify the different links as they correspond to the different sources you promote with.
So in short, if you are promoting the same animated banner to 10 different sites, with Flash you need 10 files and if you are using animated gifs you need 1 file.
Now, from the vendor’s perspective, animated gifs can be more convenient if they embed your links into their own ad tracking system. It’s not impossible for them to do so with Flash, but it’s more complicated and requires someone with knowledge of Flash.
This is important to note because some websites don’t allow Flash banners, but do allow animated gifs, so if you have a great idea for an animated banner, it is a good idea to have both versions in case the site you are promoting with doesn’t allow Flash.
So what’s the big difference between animated gifs and Flash?
This analogy is a good way to think of it. Animated gifs are like flip books and Flash is like cartoons.
Now I’m not saying that animated gifs are simple and great, just less complicated. In truth, animated gifs are much less quality, with much less flexibility, all wrapped into a larger file size.
When done right Flash can be a wonderful tool on your site and much more efficient and professional looking than an animated gif.
You can truly create some beautiful design while at the same time providing some excitement to the look and feel of your site.
The problem is making sure that you don’t go overboard on your Flash. Flash is not the best decision for all aspects of your site.
Unfortunately, some people fall into the trap of thinking “If some Flash is good, then more Flash is better.”
Of course, rarely life is black and white and Flash is no exception. The goals of your website determine the best places to implement Flash and also help determine times to avoid it.
OK, I’ll admit that I’m jaded when it comes to Flash … My first exposure to the computer field was with code not design, so I use to be of the mindset, code is important and hard, but design… those guys are just artist slackers …
Like most people, I feared what I didn’t understand … not until I started designing did I get an appreciation for the time and effort involved in designing.
Some Negatives of Flash
Now, I know this is a sensitive topic with some people, so please, stay calm during the reading of this issue and keep in mind it’s not about what you or I think as individuals – it’s what the masses think and the only way to find that out is test for yourself or find some other trusted sources that are testing.
One of the biggest struggles I have as a designer and an SEO strategist is how to walk the line between sound SEO practices while at the same time trying to have a professional looking, easy to navigate site.
Many would argue that you can have your cake and eat it too, and they’re right for the most part, but you can only achieve this symbiosis by planning your attack and defining the goal of what your site is trying to accomplish.
I always seem to wander back to the idea of goals when I’m discussing a site. The reason is simple … if you don’t have a well defined goal, you can’t decide the best way to market your site.
The plan you implement is directly linked to your ultimate goal. I know everyone wants great search engine traffic, but does the work involved justify the return?
This is where setting a goal is important. For example, if I’ve tracked the 60 day sales figures of all my various campaigns, PPC, banner ads, direct emails, organic signups… now I can take those numbers and figure out what campaigns are bringing in the leads that are spending the most money.
Once you know that, you can decide how important SEO should be for you.
For example, if I know that the average organic signup spends much more money than PPC leads do, then I should focus more of my budget on SEO, to encourage more organic signups.
However, if I find out the opposite, then why spend my resources worrying about SEO when all I have to do is use PPC?
The point is you can’t know what will work best for your unique scenario, until you test the waters and track your results.
If you don’t have the resources to do everything at once, then you use the research you’ve gathered on your competitors or similar businesses to emulate their strategies until you build enough capital and names to test on your own.
Alright, assuming we’ve thought about our goals and decided that we need some element of Flash on our site … Remember, having some Flash on your site does not mean you should design your entire site in Flash exclusively.
Here are some major limitations with SEO when you design a site entirely in Flash:
- Flash is hard on Search Engine Crawlers. The fact of the matter is most crawlers have difficulty following the “helper” code that Flash gives you to crawl your site. So if your goal is to make your site easier to crawl, thus indexed more often, then Flash may not be the way to go for your entire site.
- Flash sites are slow. Not only are they slow to load, but serving up large amounts of content is a slow process and complicated on the programming side.
- Flash sites are complicated. The time will come up when you want to make changes to your site, probably every day, and when that happens you had better make sure that you have a full time on staff Flash programmer because the odds are you can’t figure it out.
Even if you are a talented Flash programmer, if you didn’t design the site, it will take you forever and a day just figuring what is what and where to make the changes.
- Although pretty, Flash is generally more complicated than the average user wants. So you spend all this time making a cool animated menu system, but don’t take the time to make it easily navigable.
Many of you heard my various rants on customer experience, so I’ll spare you the whole thing, but remember customer experience has to be one of if not your largest goal to keep in mind when designing your site.
Every time you have any interaction with a client you are telling them how much you care about them, thus building your relationship with them.
Alright, now remember, I like Flash. I just think it’s a terrible idea to design your entire site in Flash. There are some great ways to use it …
Some Benefits of Flash …
It’s purty: Let’s face it, Flash is good looking. Really, there are no limits to what can be done, you’re just limited by your imagination, and time … You better have some real time on your hands if you’re developing in Flash.
Now I tend to get critical of people who ask for Flash, frankly because it’s not my strength, but the perception that exists, whether I like it or not, is that Flash is more professional. Truly, even I must concede that Flash provides an element of professionalism that just screams, “We’ve got top dollar designers and we know what we’re doing.”
Another great element of Flash is that it produces a small banner size for what you get. If you design something in Flash and as an animated gif, the file is almost always smaller for a Flash file, provided you’re trying to produce a quality animation.
Truly, the biggest win for Flash is on banners and mastheads. You can produce high quality banners and Flashy … ahh … Flash mastheads.
The real trick is to know when to say when.
For example, I wouldn’t use Flash when designing a menu system for the simple reason that Flash is hard on search engine crawlers. Now, you can work around it, but do you gain enough in prettiness to offshoot the fact that some search engine somewhere might not index your site correctly?
Maybe the answer for you is yes, but for many it’s no. It’s not worth missing even one potential customer when you can produce a high quality menu without Flash.
So this brings us back to the question of “Is Flash necessary?”
My devil’s advocate will always say “What’s more important, design or functionality?”… Take our favorite search engine, Google, do they use Flash? If so, I don’t see it.
It all falls back on the goals of your site. If your goal is to wow people with design and grab their eyes, then you should probably stick some Flash somewhere. If your goal is simply to pass content along and keep them focused, then Flash is probably going to just get in the way and draw their eye away from your message.
I hope this helps you as you consider the goals of your site.
Thanks and have a great weekend!
Editor, Working IT Out
THE TOTAL PACKAGE
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Comment by Dean Kennedy — October 7, 2007 @ 12:01 am
David, I think this is great advice! I generally keep away from Flash, as it doesn\’t suit my content and needs.
I know of one example where a html/text based site changed entirely to Flash, and online sales dropped about 90 per cent. Traffic from search engines has dropped off the planet.
I wonder though – for banner ads – if an invisible div positioned above the Flash content could make it easy to create and manage the 10 different sites you mention in your banner example. I haven\’t needed to try it, but I reckon that might work.
Another great article proves why I keep reading The Total Package all the time, thanks again!
Comment by Elizabeth — October 7, 2007 @ 1:47 am
Excellent advise, especially about the slow loading time and seo. There are still too many people using dialup and more than likely they will click off a sight that is slow to load. Sites that are entirely flash built load slowly on the low end of DSL. Is it worth losing these visitors? Not to me it isn\’t.
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