Flash Website Optimisation Strategies

Posted by: gmessenger

20 July 2009

There have been some recent improvements in website optimisation for sites that use Flash. Your SEO team at dgm have published this Guide to help you understand how these improvements can be applied to your next Flash website.

Flash websites present some unique challenges for website optimisation. Traditionally, Flash has not been compatible with search engine indexing, meaning that the majority of content contained in a Flash site was invisible to search engines such as Google.

Recently however, Google has advised the SEO community that they are now able to index SWF files (Flash files), and the other search engines are soon to follow.

There are a few tricks that will make SWF files index-compatible. We will outline the two main methods here: HTML Indexing and SWF Indexing. The way SWF files are rendered on a page, as well as the construction methods of the Flash developer, will impact on the success of SEO for Flash websites, in particular how well they rank against keyword content. After all, this is the ultimate objective of SEO.

From Google:
The Google Webmaster Blog confirms what that search engine can now perform. That is:

• Index textual content displayed as a user interacts with the file. We click buttons and enter input, just like a user would.

• Discover links within Flash files.

• Load external resources and associate the content with the parent file. (On 18 June this year Google added external resource loading to their Flash indexing capabilities).

• Support common JavaScript techniques for embedding Flash, such as SWFObject and SWFObject2.

• Index sites scripted with AS1, AS2 & AS3, even if the ActionScript is obfuscated.

After careful consideration of the above, dgm still believes Flash websites are more complicated to optimise and less likely to rank highly than an HTML website.

If the answer to this question, “Can we build our site without relying on Flash?” is no, then continue with the Flash optimisation strategies presented here.

Two strategies are presented. The first uses an underlying HTML version of the website to gain rankings. This option has been in use for some time. The second option, which has now become available through the Google update outlined above, uses the SWF files to gain rankings. This method cannot be retrofitted onto an existing Flash site, rather it is for new Flash-based sites.

Method One – HTML Indexing

This method uses an HTML version of a website that sits underneath the Flash website, to gain rankings on search engines.

Most visitors to such a site would only see the Flash site, as it was intended. This is because their browser has the Flash plug in necessary to view the site.

The estimated 1% of users who do not have Flash would see the HTML version of the site instead. Best practice indicates that all Flash sites have an HTML version to accommodate these users. The HTML site can be plain, containing the exact content of the Flash site along with your brand and livery.

The search engine spiders read and index the HTML pages and exclude the SWF files. This means the designer can make the Flash as interactive as they like without worring about how the SWF file will be read by the search engine robots.

Where a website visitor is directed to such a site via an indexed page on a search engine such as Google, that user is directed to the corresponding Flash section of the website via a SWF Bookmark. In other words, the user experience is seamless – they see the exact same content on the Flash site as Google has used to index the site via the HTML pages. This also conforms to Google’s rules for indexing sites.

Flash HTML Strategy Optimisation Recommendations:

1. Do keyword research and identify your target keywords for the website.

2. Map your target keywords to your website content. You will need one HTML page per target keyword.

3. It is preferable that an XML file or CMS feeds the content of both the SWF and HTML file so that the content is exact. Varying the content from the HTML to the SWF could be seen as spam and is not recommended. Consider placing the SWF file/s in a subfolder and block indexing of this folder via the Robots txt file so as to control results purely via the HTML pages.

4. Use bookmarks within your SWF file and link each HTML page directly into the relevant bookmark section within the SWF file to provide a seamless user experience.

5. Use all the normal optimisation strategies such as Meta Tags, keyword rich navigation, H1 page headings & a good word count per page.

6. Do all the normal link building and external promotion a website requires.

Method Two – SWF Indexing

This second method is new in 2009, thanks to advances in the Google search capabilities.

Simply, a Flash site is built using multiple SWF files, one for each target keyword, then the navigation is used within the SWF files to link between all the files. Previously a Flash site would use one very large SWF file to run the entire site.

This method is the equivalent of creating one HTML page per target keyword – as in standard SEO practice. This allows Google to rank each SWF file on the merits of its content. When a Flash site is built as one single SWF file containing the entire site, that would be like building a site as one extremely long HTML website. Neither option is search engine friendly.

This method of multiple SWF files will mean longer development time, but the upside is that the actual Flash website will appear in the search rankings, rather than a copy of the site in HTML format.

Flash SWF Strategy Optimisation Recommendations:

1. Do keyword research and identify your target keywords for the website.

2. Map your target keywords to your website content.

3. Build your SWF files using Flash best practice.

4. Create a separate SWF file (the equivalent of one HTML page of a normal website) for each target keyword and then link your navigation between these files so that each SWF file sits on its own HTML page with a unique page name (URL).

5. The HTML page should contain the Meta Title, Description, SWF file reference & mention of requiring the Flash plug-in. The Flash mention is common on every page and is best built in a graphic so the text is not picked up.

6. Content that is not important for targeting keywords can sit in another SWF file that makes up the rest of the website.

7. Have content that supports your target keywords and preferably feed this into your SWF files using another file such as XML and allow Google to read this feed.

8. For best practice we recommend you still create an HTML version of the page with content fed directly from the XML feed for users without Flash installed. This is not essential for results.

9. Do all the normal link building and external promotion a website requires.

If you are optimising video content within a Flash website, each video should be constructed within its own SWF file and have a supporting heading & description so that the engines can learn what the file contains.

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