Using Flash in website design makes your site attractive and also interactive. However, there are certain misconceptions and myths people have about Flash. Most commonly, people believe using Flash design slows down a website and hinders its search engine visibility. Well…not entirely true and these “facts” are quite unfounded!
• Flash Sites Not Visible in SERPs!
This is the greatest myth about Flash. People generally don’t have a proper understanding of SEO and therefore, are unaware of the parameters that rank a site higher in search engines. To help your site rank:
• Content should be informative, keyword rich, original.
• Use of Keywords in Meta tags should be proper.
• Your link sources should be relevant and many. Popularity of your external links is important.
• Your anchor text should have keywords.
• Image alt tags should have keywords, and etc.
None of the above mentioned factors have anything to do with designing your website in Flash. Your site gets a better rank if you have dependable site links to your website. You might have a HTML website with rich keywords, but unless credible sites link to it, it won’t succeed much. Keywords, content and the overall design of your site should be optimized to help it rank in search engines. Flash just helps improve interactivity and enhance usability. If search engines can’t “read” Flash files, just don’t make any of your content appear in Flash. Simple!
• Flash Websites are Slow!
Some people believe, designing a website in Flash will make it 10 times slower than a HTML site. True, however, if you are developing an entire website in Flash, you are probably doing it to serve an exclusive purpose and increased load time should be acceptable to you. But using a “buy now” Flash animation in your HTML site will certainly not slow down your site!! If your site takes time to load, it’s probably because you included things like large-sized image files or heavy HTML codes without using a CSS stylesheet.
• Flash Sites Impose!
A Flash site can be made more user friendly if a ‘skip’ option is integrated, thus allowing users to skip a Flash intro, music, animation, animated text, etc, and go to the home page. It depends how wisely you design your website using Flash. If some users don’t like something, simply provide them with an option so that they can avoid it.
• Cannot Select Text or Copy it
You CAN select text and copy it from Flash sites, provided the developer has enabled this feature, implementing which is neither complex nor time consuming. However, search engines can’t read text in Flash files. So it’s best to avoid including content in SWF files altogether.
• Unable to Use the ‘Back’ Button
This is another misconception about Flash designing. You will find a number of Flash websites that have a ‘back’ button incorporated. Nowadays, it easier to include a back button or deep-linking with the use of SWF address.
