Flash site - attracting search engines.

FlyTVR

FlyTVR

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I had the need to get my site up and running quickly. I didn't have time to use Html, DHTML, js, Asp .Net, Mvc(2), etc etc - so I used Wix. With a day or so of work I've got an OK site - but it's flash based. Nothing for free!!!! :)

Question, how do I get Google, Bing etc to find me? I've got no control over meta tags etc.

Help - please :)
 
Quite frankly, what you would be best off doing is leaving that site up for now - and building another website (offline or in a sub-directory) with the appropriate tags & content to replace it.

With Google, content is king - but as it cant crawl your website (It can crawl certain flash sites, whether Wix sites can be, I don't know), you effectively have no content.

For sure you can get listed on google, but no way near as high as you could with a website with crawler readable content.

You can submit your site here.
http://www.google.com/addurl/
http://www.bing.com/webmaster/SubmitSitePage.aspx

No doubt a SEO boffin is going to come and discredit everything I've said though :p

EDIT: Just found this link, maybe it will help? http://support.wix.com/index.php/SEO
 
I'm tempted to host a blank page with loads of meta in it that redirects to my wix site. Silly idea?

Come on you web gurus!! ;)
 
Jamesbuk said:
Quite frankly, what you would be best off doing is leaving that site up for now - and building another website (offline or in a sub-directory) with the appropriate tags & content to replace it.

With Google, content is king - but as it cant crawl your website, you effectively have no content.

For sure you can get listed on google, but no way near as high as you could with a website with crawler readable content.

You can submit your site here.
http://www.google.com/addurl/

No doubt a SEO boffin is going to come and discredit everything I've said though :p
Click to expand...

Sorry James, crossover there!!!! Thanks.

Any cheap (free) and reliable sites I can just host one page?
 
Yeah I think we crossed over ourselves several times there as I was editing my post :p

I added a link to a tutorial on the Wix Support site about SEO. Take a look, maybe that will help?

A blank page full of meta tags isn't likely to help - whilst Google does read Meta tags - they are far from the be all and end all of SEO, and putting them in is quite unlikely to get you all that much higher on Google.

Also, I have a feeling Google blacklists/penalises websites with all meta-tags & no content.

Regards,

James
 
FlyTVR said:
I'm tempted to host a blank page with loads of meta in it that redirects to my wix site. Silly idea?

Come on you web gurus!! ;)
Click to expand...
Not sure, as soon as google sees the redirect I presume it will ignore whatever might be on the page, but could be wrong. Been a while since I looked into some of this stuff. Have you looked at any html5 based solutions instead of flash?
 
jim_j said:
Not sure, as soon as google sees the redirect I presume it will ignore whatever might be on the page, but could be wrong. Been a while since I looked into some of this stuff. Have you looked at any html5 based solutions instead of flash?
Click to expand...

No, not looked at html5. Not enough time in the day :( Besides, I'm trying to get away from all this IT stuff ;)

Must be a simple solution to all this?
 
google know all the tricks (aww come on.. does that surprise anyone?) and will blacklist your site if found to be trying to trick it..

I still see sites with white text on white background (or any same color) with hundreds of keywords .. probably the oldest and most stupid trick in the book :)
 
KIPAX said:
google know all the tricks (aww come on.. does that surprise anyone?) and will blacklist your site if found to be trying to trick it..

I still see sites with white text on white background (or any same color) with hundreds of keywords .. probably the oldest and most stupid trick in the book :)
Click to expand...

Thanks.

So, what's the solution then?
 
FlyTVR said:
Thanks.

So, what's the solution then?
Click to expand...

If you ahve a website you want to get good results in google.. but google cant read it and workarounds could get you blacklisted... the solution is staring you in the face...

Lose it and make one google can see..

Its not the answer you want I know.. and someone may come along wiht a different answer :)
 
FlyTVR said:
Thanks.

So, what's the solution then?
Click to expand...

A well written non flash site would be the best way to go. Is there a way to embed a flash slideshow as per your requirements for displaying the imagery and then building text around it with Wix? Have you tried Simpleviewer Pro? At $45 you can customize it beyond your imagination and embed it within an HTML document. This way you can have complete control over tags, meta's, and other aspects of the build.
 
So...... I've been bitten by flash. Fair enough, and in the long term maybe a new website may be the order of the day.

But, for now could I create a new website with one page - simple HTML with a click here to enter the site (which I normally hate). This page has sufficient text to satisfy Google, and the one link redirects to my real site. Surely this is not enough to peeee off the googlebot thingy jiggy?
 
That's a start - you could also add to your current flash homepage -it is only flash but there's no reason not to:

Start with a landing page - consider the following options;
link just to flash,
add a blog - really good for SEO,
add a dda compliant non flash site, which could be linked either from a simple link on the landing page or coded so that non flash browsers automatically redirect - this is my chosen plan -to catch the ipad-ipod iphone browsers.

If you read the SEO stuff from google it makes lots of sense, Google is trained to look for relevant content to give people the content that they're looking for. So the more relevant your content is the better. You need to ensure you're telling your potential customers what they want to hear. So if (for instance) you're the cheapest wedding photographer in London; Head up your website - cheapest wedding photographer in London. And have an article based on your cheap pricing and you being a wedding photographer and based in London and how you're cheapest etc. And head your pricing page Our cheapest wedding photography pricing.

All of that is relevant and NOT Spam, just having lists of keywords can get you blacklisted - but writing relevant text is exactly what google is designed to find.
 
So, I've taken all your advice. The website is now 95% HTML. Wait and see.

Cheers all!
 
So, if my website is mainly in html and only has flash galleries on one page, would most of the written content still get 'seen' by google?
It's all a bit of a minefield!:thinking:
 
Elli said:
So, if my website is mainly in html and only has flash galleries on one page, would most of the written content still get 'seen' by google?
It's all a bit of a minefield!:thinking:
Click to expand...

Hi Elli - that's the idea. :thumbs:
 
I have a splash page, it's very keyword rich and those keywords are hidden away at the bottom of the page where people are unlikely to see anyway unless they scroll down.

Mine's worked wonders, I'm on pages 1 for a lot of my most important keywords and on 2-4 for a lot of the others. Those that I've recently added to the splash page are increasing all the time and this has all been steady over the past six months.

Having a flash site isn't as doom and gloom for Google as people would like you to think it is. A blog is also a must though.
 
Sorry Roger, only just noticed your reply,

In response to your point - YES Dman does have a valid point and this kind of tactic will work to a certain extent...

I'm not opposed to the idea of adding keyword rich content where it's out of the way in order to gain ranking as it obviously works, but rather to the notion that it's all you need to do or that it's a good basis for a SEO campaign.

Tactics such as keyword stuffing are only a short term solution, sooner or later your competitors will start doing some SEO, or there will be a ranking algorithm change and you'll slip down the rankings, if your in it for the long term good content is essential to maintaining consistently high rankings (along with a comprehensive approach to SEO of course) but it's not easy and often gets overlooked in favour of easier quick fix 'solutions'.

I almost missed his closing comment "A blog is also a must though." this is especially true for photographers sites as there's usually precious little content for search engines to get their teeth into, plus there's a few other good reasons to have a blog, which I wont get into right now.

And one final thing which is often overlooked - the most important role of a website is to earn you money! page views and rankings are pure vanity, conversions are what pay the bills, and these are heavily dependant on design and content, hence my hatred of the old fashioned splash pages.
 
If you want a flash website use swfobject to provide the indexible HTML fall back content. Simple. People telling you that you can build a flash site that can't be indexed by Google are lying to you.
 
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