Here are 4 solutions on how to optimize your website well even if they are running Adobe Flash. Since Flash cannot be interpreted perfectly and consistently by search engines, you run into 2 main problems.
Ø The important text content rendered in Flash cannot be read well by the search engines
Ø Navigational elements within Flash cannot be crawled by search engine spiders.
Having this in mind, here are four tips on how to implement SEO successfully on a Flash website.
- The Non-Flash Site Version for Sites Completely Made in Flash
Content: If your website is made all in Flash and has no other HTML elements except the code that embeds the Flash file(s), making another website with the exact look and feel (for branding purposes) but does not have all the bells and whistles of Flash will make the content readable by search engine. Since this is like totally having a separate website, you would really expect the non-Flash website generating the search engine traffic, which will then funnel visitors through the navigation leading them into the Flash website.
Navigation: Since there is a separate website with different pages targeted for different keywords, search engine crawlers will have the opportunity to see the links and follow them in the non-Flash plain HTML website and getting all pages included in the search engine index. With the nature of Flash, similar to AJAX, where each page view may not necessarily load a new HTML page with a new URL, it would still be best to create a unique URL for each "Flash view" that will be the entry point page from the non-flash pages. And once they arrive at the page, it can load the same Flash file and no need to reload a new page.
Advantage: You can design your Flash as intricate you want. No limitations since the SEO'd pages are on the non-Flash website.
Disadvantage: You need to spend more time and resources making the website. Having a Flash and non-Flash website is having two websites to maintain. More time, more resources, more money spent.
Quick Tip: Flash can input data from XML documents relatively easy. Server-side scripting languages such as PHP, JSP, ASP, etc. can also import data from XML documents. Creating a unified CMS should make life easier in the long run, but may take more time to set up.
- Alternative Content and Navigation
Content: On the same page where Flash is displayed, some equivalent content of what was found within the flash file is also presented outside of Flash as plain text within the HTML code.
Navigation If a navigational element was made in Flash, similar to the content, adding another alternative navigation on the site will help get all other pages crawled and index in the search engines. A common implementation of this is having footer text links at the bottom of every page.
Advantage: Unlike the technique above, you do not need to make another website. Just make sure whatever text content you have on your flash file. Have it available elsewhere on the page outside of Flash.
Disadvantage: Cannot be done on a full Flash website, but generally any website implementing SEO should not have a full Flash website.
Quick Tip: Flash should be used best here for areas where you want to attract attention. Perfect for your unique selling statement, current product or service promotions. Whatever content was found here should also found elsewhere in a plain text format for the search engines to read. The animation is mainly used to draw the attention (not to annoy) of a user to read and pay attention to the Flash and hopefully draw in the user to read and explore further.
- sIFR for Flash Designed Text
Content: Text font designs used on websites are declared either in the non-standard HTML <font> tag or in the declared font styles using CSS. Either way, these layout commands are telling the web browser to load the font file available on the viewer's local computer. In the absence of these font files, the browser will load it's default browser fonts that is oftenTimes New Roman. This limited web designers to use commonly installed fonts such as Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, Courier, Times New Roman, and other common fonts decreasing the creative freedom of many web designers. So in order to design beautiful typefaces, you can either use an image or Flash but search engines had trouble reading these. Scalable Inman Flash Replacement or simply sIFR (many pronounce this is as sifer) is an effective use of Flash text replacement. This is similar to how CSS image text replacement is done, just done in Flash. What makes this even better than CSS image text replacement is sIFR can be used more effectively in CMS applications since both can be easily generated dynamically. Although an image with text written on the image can be done dynamically also with tools such as PHP's GD library, it is not as easy nor resource friendly as sIFR.
Navigation: The text on any anchor link is important in SEO for this is what gives meaning to what the destination page is all about. The important keywords within the <a> tags are your targeted keywords. But if the link is applied on a image or a Flash file, you have to make sure the targeted keywords are still read by search engines. In images you use the alt attributes. Since sIFR is used to 'stylize' text and not for any other animated effect, sIFR is idea to add beautiful looking text links not sacrificing the crawlability of the links.
Advantage: Ability to create styled text font faces that are completely viewable as plain text in the "eyes" of the search engines. sIFR is very lightweight and scalable. Relatively easy to implement and Google has expressed their acceptance of this method. sIFR also downgrades gracefully if Flash is disabled or not installed on a web browser.
- Use SWFObject
Content: Probably something you have heard quite often if you have been keeping up-to-date with the latest SEO techniques and those who were not able to fully catch up may think this technology is so confusing. To explain this further, let's explain how Flash is added to a webpage. Normally, Flash will have HTML <object> and <embed> tags. Within these tags is the source of the Flash file with the .swf file name extension along with several parameters how this .swf file is displayed such as the height, width and more. The SWFObject is a Javascript function that detects if Flash is available.
SWFObject is a small Javascript file used for embedding Adobe Flash content. The script can detect the Flash plug-in in all major web browsers (on Mac and PC) and is designed to make embedding Flash movies as easy as possible. It is also very search engine friendly, degrades gracefully, can be used in valid HTML and XHTML 1.0 documents*, and is forward compatible, so it should work for years to come.
Since this is mainly a Flash detection script and it replaces HTML blocks such as a typical <div> tag, plain text HTML content can be placed within the div tag. And only if Flash is enabled will it display the Flash over the <div> tag. A simple code implementation would look like this:
In the section, the SWFObject is called.
script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"
Also in the <head> or optionally in the <body> you have the SWFObject call stating the .swf file to load.
script type="text/javascript"
var so = new SWFObject("flashfile.swf", "flashheader", "400", "200", "8", "#ffffff");
so.write("flashcontent");
so.write("flashcontent");
This will then look for the element with the ID flashcontent and replace it with the .swf file flashfile.swf. And anywhere within the webpage's content, you can have:
div id="flashcontent"
Text here, placed within these tags are search engine friendly. And can be read by search engines.
Text here, placed within these tags are search engine friendly. And can be read by search engines.
This script mainly checks the browser's Flash capability, since search engine spiders are not Flash enabled, thus Flash does not run. Aside from that, JavaScript is used to invoke Flash and search engines are not JavaScript enabled either. But since the content of the Flash file is displayed as plain text beneath the Flash in a <div> tag, search engines are able to read the content you gave of that Flash file.
Advantage: Can work with full Flash sites and websites that have only portions of it in Flash. Full Flash sites can degrade normally into non-Flash sites without having the need for a visitor to choose which site version to view. Flash page URLs and non-Flash page URLs are unified into a single URL.
Disadvantage: Very easy to implement shady to dark blackhat techniques with keyword stuffing behind the flash that can get you banned in the search engine. Although this is easily avoidable by simply not putting any content on the plain text HTML code that is not visible on the Flash file. As long as you keep it clean, you are safe
Disadvantage: Very easy to implement shady to dark blackhat techniques with keyword stuffing behind the flash that can get you banned in the search engine. Although this is easily avoidable by simply not putting any content on the plain text HTML code that is not visible on the Flash file. As long as you keep it clean, you are safe
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