Ask a Website Design Company ^BETA

12 February 2009
Most people like the look of Flash; it is eye candy for the web. I believe a client should get what they want.

With that being said, an honest web designer will not recommend flash to clients as a savvy design choice. Most clients do not need it and flash is expensive and detrimental to being found by search engines because there is no content on the index (first) page.

The sites that benefit from flash are fancy sites with existing clients. These types of sites are typically for music artists, high end jewellery stores, fashion designers, movie stars, feature films, exotic wines, photography studios, etc.

Sites that come to mind include:

http://www.harryrosen.com
http://www.jkrowling.com/
http://www.cartier.com/

So, if you fit into this category, push back and say, "Yes, I'd like flash. Can you do it or not?"

Be cautious, not every designer can do flash and there are many different levels of quality. Make sure to see previous work, ask for timelines and sign a contract with understandable language, clean concepts and visuals.

We hope you have found this answer both easy to follow and informative.

Yvette Cioran
IM Solutions

13 February 2009
When surfing or browsing the internet and I come across a great flash landing page - I admire the quality and workmanship that makes a great flash page...however, when my wife and partner comes across a great flash page - she moves on.

The bottom line is "different strokes for different folks". Some surfers will hit the exit button, like my wife, as soon as they realize a flash page is loading.

About.com's Jennifer Kyrnin, in her "Jennifer's Web Design / HTML blog posted a poll asking her readers (mostly designers) how they felt about flash.

24% stated that they could not stand flash and 31% stated that they only use flash "where it's useful"

Only 1% of those polled stated they use flash exclusively for their web design projects.

In conclusion, the main driving force for considering flash should be your "target market" and should be with most marketing decisions...and your website is a marketing tool. Who are your customers; What do your customers want; Why are your customers coming to your site.

Answer these questions and you will be on your way to making a informed decision.

14 February 2009
Hi Denise,
Flash is good and flash is not. Its all depends on what kind of business you have and what results you want to get from your website. If it is ecommerce website then you should not use the flash but as you said you just want to advertised your fashion and personal services, i think flash will be of great help for you because it will attract people to your website with great interest and will serve the purpose for you and your website.

Hope this will help.

15 February 2009
First I'd like to debunk the search engine myth with regards to flash. I've been using flash for just over 7 years now, so I feel I'm qualified and experienced enough to give my views on this subject.

My companies own website was built entirely in flash for the first 3 years of the companies history and was ranked very well in the search engines. This was before the likes of Google started to index flash content - yes Google does actually index flash text content! Do a google search for - does google index flash - you'll see it's true.

I'm the first to admit though, that it's not perfect by any means and does require a company that really knows what they are doing with the content and structure of the flash files. The point I'm trying to make is that flash has come a long way from the old arguments that used to be made, it is possible to get a flash site into search engines in this day and age. It is even possible to make basic accessible websites in flash with some effort, but that's for a different discussion.

For the Search Engines that don't spider the flash content yet, there are ways to get your site listed and positioned in them by using linking techniques and clever use of site structure. These techniques can also benefit your results in Google as well.

However I do agree with some of the comments that have been made. You should only use flash where it is necessary. Some sites work really well when they are completelty in flash, but most sites don't need it or only need it in small amounts.

If your site is in HTML/CSS (what all other sites are created in) and even if it has a few flash items, the options to optimise your site for search engines are greatly increased.

The best thing to do is to create a detailed web design brief and state on it what you want the site to achieve and ask for proposals from various different web companies on if they can achieve that goals or requirements.

To be honest you really shouldn't have to worry what technology is used on a project, that's supposed to be our job, as long as the solution provided can achieve what you want or need it to, that's the important thing.

I hope this helps.

16 February 2009
Although Flash sites may look extremely attractive with all their animation and rich graphics the main disadvantage to Flash is that it isn't search engine friendly at all. Although it is possible to some degree, it's very hard to optimise a Flash site for search engines.

If you're going to rely on search engines to generate traffic to your site it would be wise to avoid flash and stick to a semantic Web Standards based website - that can look as equally impressive as any flash site.

Please read our article on why Web Standards can benefit your business and you'll soon be convinced!

We'd always recommend using small elements of flash within an HTML site. Never build the whole thing in flash. Unless you have a bullet proof real world marketing strategy.

20 February 2009
It is true to a certain extent and it wouldnt be advised to have a flash site if your bothered about search engines finding you.

If you have a product that you wish to market that isn't already known of then a flash site wouldnt be a good idea. It could be a good idea to have a flash microsite which is what alot of companies decide upon.

A recent microsite that we created in flash for creativesheffield: http://www.sheffieldofficeportfolio.com/ has been a great success as the company have a great website that it links from.

Hope this helps

All the best,

Shaun

20 February 2009
As a general rule of thumb I'd say only use flash if you don't plan on getting most of your visitors through a search engine. For example, if you're advertising elsewhere or it's kind of an online 'business card' then it can be a great option.

What people have told you about it not being search engine friendly is true, however. Flash is a single file embedded in a webpage. Search engines read the text on your website, and as the text in a flash movie is embedded it cannot read it.

12 March 2009
Something else to consider.
Yes flash is awful for search results but why does any website need to be 100% flash?

Have your designer devleop a standards compliant and search engine friendly website using good old xhtml and then add specific flash components to suit your taste.

You could have many flash components, relatively small but with a big effect and still catch the eye of those search engine spiderst!

Peter Farrell
DoodleIT
http://www.doodleit.co.uk

20 March 2009
When it comes to Flash, it needs to make sense first of all. Flash is a form of being able to visually keep your customers engaged and to 'show off' some of the companies design capabilities. If the company is a design firm who does Flash then their site SHOULD be built in Flash.

Even websites that are in HTML format are not going to necessarily reach the top of search engines if they are not set up properly for SEO and are not being updated.

My website is in Flash, and since I can't be indexed as easily as an HTML site I have other ways to get my website out there. Every place I can advertise my company link I do, so I am always pointing people to my website which is a better plan overall because you can find me easily.

Because Flash is engaging, my suggestion is to have at the very least areas in an HTML site that are Flash and if the site needs to be then cater a proper SEO plan around it, like this website for instance. This helps to create that buzz to the website.

Coree

23 March 2009
If you're going to make a flash based website, also create a basic HTML version - make it an option for your viewers to pick which site they'd like to view - flash or html.

Some web surfers may prefer a basic website, especially if they're just visiting to pull information (like an email address to contact you, or something similar). They don't want to put up with the hassle of waiting for the site to load just to get a simple email address.

I've never been a fan of flash (to design with or to view), so I like the option of selecting an HTML version.

Just my two cents!

31 March 2009
Hi Debbie

As many people have already outlined, on the whole flash sites aren't very Google/search engine friendly. If you want to pick up most of your business via searches on Google for 'personal shopper' etc. then I could only recommend your website is html based.

However, that said there's no reason there can't be a nice flash header or centre panel. It should be easy to build it in seemlessly to the design and as long as there's a good chunk of text and relevant keywords in the title for Google et al to read, you can have the best of both worlds. It's not an either/or choice.

Hope that helps
david@achroma.co.uk

1 April 2009
I would reiterate one of the contributions above - in that Google has, for a number of years now, been able to index textual content within a Flash file.

Many other Search Engines cannot do this of course. There are however many 'white-hat' SEO techniques you can add to the containing html file(s) to aid regular search engine indexing.

Regards
Nigel

27 May 2009
Hmm.. OK lot's of stuff and most is based good sense.

But for what it is worth most flash designers simply uses the time line to place images and text and Google can read this but not as well as it can XML.

Most Flash designers of worth will know and exploit Actionscript. Flash contains an excellent scripting language known as Actioscript, a variant on JavaScript.

When using Actionscript you can separate the content from the flash file. This separate file is known as an XML file and can be hand coded or served dynamically. Most search engines can work read XML files (and for example google uses XML for sitemaps).

XML is very simple to read and edit and we use it for just about everything including e commerce / flash applications.

This means that the client can edit the XML file and when done the flash is immediately updated.

So go Flash, use XML and wrap it up in an XHTML/CSS container and you have the best of all worlds!

Good luck

Kev

3 June 2009
To Flash or Not to Flash... That is the question!

Well Denise there are a few points you need to take into consideration first.

Flash animations can look lovely. You can have Flash elements embedded in a website or the entire website can be Flash enabled. However, there are negatives about using Flash.

1. An all flash website takes long to download even on broadband. Your potential customers may go for a coffee break, or even worse, leave for good, while the site is downloading! Splitting the file into smaller parts does not solve the problem. Instead of waiting for 10 minutes at the start, you will have to wait for 4 minutes, 4 minutes and 2 minutes.

2. Quite often, you will tend to concentrate so much on the Flash elements that you don’t load in enough content. Unless your Flash elements by themselves are the complete presentation, you will need content. As mentioned above, search engines look for content not graphics.

The team at Fresh Web Design in Adelaide stand by this phrase... Content is King!

3. Search engines don’t like Flash since they can’t read the file. The only way of partially remedying the problem is by inserting text describing the Flash animation.

4. Flash websites sometimes have the header portion and navigations buttons displayed on the website using in Flash.
Search engines won’t be able to read the flash navigation and won’t know there are any other pages to index. To avoid this situation, you have to have text links in place.

There's heaps of information on the net about this, so have a look around... but chances are, you won't find too much info on flash based websites!

Hope this helps,
Thanks
Christos Winter
Fresh Web Design Adelaide

28 June 2009
Flash sites can be visually appealing and fun to use but there are serious drawbacks including Search Engine Optimization, usability problems, and then there's the expense of updating the site over time.

We simply don't build Flash sites but frequently insert Flash animations on the home page, which seems like a happy compromise. You get the benefits without the hassles.

One other observation, you said: "I want the website to advertise my fashion and personal shopping services, so it's not selling anything." So, in fact, you ARE selling something... YOU!

Good luck Denise!