Well, now that the cat's out of the bag and virtually every designer, programmer, marketer, and newbie worth their salt has weighed in on Flash SEO relating to the Google/Yahoo/Adobe Flash SEO announcement. There are some haters, some lovers, and some who have even gone to the trouble of creating tutorials for the rest of us. Here are the tutorials. Go get 'em Flash SEO!
If you're trying to learn how use Flash SEO techniques to optimize a Flash website, start with these sites and you'll be on the right track. Happy SEO'ing!
We know that our readers are anxious for our Phase 1 Results of our official Flash SEO tests. Unfortunately, we're still waiting for our testing site to be properly indexed by Google and Yahoo before we can complete the first round to our satisfaction. Stay tuned, as we can expect this to happen any time...
Copywriters are one thing; submitters are another. As with any SEO project, much of your Flash SEO work will be in submitting to article websites, directories, search engines, and social bookmarking sites like Digg, Technorati, and StumbleUpon. It's tempting to hire a provider to do this for you, but be wary of spam. While no one knows for sure exactly what is the best strategy for submissions, one thing is clear: If you go overboard, it can hurt your Flash SEO efforts rather than help them.
That being said, you defintely need to earn backlinks. One way to do this is to toil away making daily submissions to new sites. Other ways include hiring firms to do this for you (see our Flash SEO Providers), trading links with relevant sites, or -- and most practical -- provide great content that people independently want to bookmark. It's important that you take care not to get listed on link farms or sites that use blackhat techniques; instead, look for high-Page Rank sites with a good reputation for credibility. Because if their users trust them, the visitors they send to you will trust you.
There is more than just Flash SEO buzz going on in the search engine realm. Microsoft has announced yet another service that may very well be the way to offset the excruciatingly complex Google PageRank.
In the past, SEO gurus and web development junkies alike have toiled over the complex, and often purposefully incomplete algorithm that the search engine powerhouse Google has used to rank and index web pages. While not one person alone can figure out the exact science that makes up the algorithm, there is always a team of innovative engineers looking to replace the algorithm with something more beneficial to web surfers … Enter BrowseRank.
According to a Microsoft BrowseRank document, the new technology will be geared more towards what the actual individual is searching for, and less on the already cumbersome and corrupt keyword based search relevance.
This could be a major step for Flash SEO experts, as well as SEO experts in general. If a site is indexed based on the number and type of searches that the user makes, then if you have an already popular Flash site, you could very well find yourself at the top of the food chain … "Ahem," sorry, search engines on the web. What an exciting thought, right?
The days of watching keyword reports until your eyes melt out of your skull could be over … Or at least, you may have an even better chance of competing against your competitors; if you can get your name in front of more active searchers in venues other than the World Wide Web arena.
In the previous section we discussed the importance of your domain name. Obviously the question has arisen and will continue to arise about why companies like Google, Yahoo, Squidoo, AOL, Technorati, StumbleUpon, and millions of others can get by with having no relative keywords within their respective domain names.
The answer is simple: Branding. One of the most important elements to consider in any business is: What will you look like in front of your customers?
Almost all businesses that have the expendable capital for brilliant marketing schemes will exhaust all of that extra capital on logo branding and corporate identity. Coca-Cola and Anheuser Busch are two great examples of companies that can rely solely on their name/brand to get them traffic on the web. Who isn't familiar with the red can with the dynamic wave? How many times have you watched the Super Bowl, simply for the commercials? It takes the effort of getting your name and logo in front of your target audience, and then your SEO efforts will become even more effective. Not only that, you will most likely NOT have to fight the keyword wars that are so common these days. That is why you see all too often, that these larger companies choose to have Flash sites, despite the previous lack of Flash SEO dependability.
We are fully aware that the focus of this website is almost entirely Flash SEO related, but we cannot leave out the competition and their claims when we analyze what needs to be done when it comes to making your site, in its entirety, SEO friendly.
One topic that will surely keep arising, because of media hype and gigantic marketing campaigns, is Microsoft's Silverlight and it's already (supposedly) SEO friendliness.
Many experts are calling the claim that Silverlight is SEO friendly, a complete falsity. The fact that Microsoft has enough money to make Eskimos buy Ice shaped like the Windows Logo makes it very easy for the company's PR firm to blanket Joe Public with statements that make no sense, and make their products seem amazing, when they simply do not deliver.
For a great example of the Microsoft machine making a claim that simply is not true, read Silverlight More SEO Friendly than Flash? I Call Shenanigans by Ryan Stewart. Mr. Sewart shows the real value of an XML spider for a Silverlight application in this eye opening article.
I applaud Adobe for their efforts to keep Flash alive and to make Flash SEO possible, and I hope that they can work well with the search engines to make this possible. As for the claim that Silverlight is SEO friendlier … I call Shenanigans too.
We've compiled a list of the Top 5 Flash SEO Resources, each of which constitutes required reading for anyone who wants to SEO Flash sites. Enjoy!
1. How To SEO Flash -- Jonathan Hochman's article is your first stop for Flash SEO. That's because he was there before the big announcement that Google, Yahoo, and Adobe were working together to make Flash more indexable. Despite the recent - and ongoing - changes to Flash SEO tactics, this article is still one of the most useful for successfully getting your Flash site SEO'd.
2. Flash SEO Revisited -- Tim Nash actually tested and compared the Flash SEO capabilities of yesterday with the Flash SEO capabilities of today, and he reveals the surprising results in this article.
3. Google Learns to Crawl Flash -- This is a basic overview of the new Flash SEO capabilities of Google. It has a link to the Webmaster Central Blog where additional information can be found. Also, be sure to scroll down the page for tons of relevant links in response to the Flash SEO announcement.
4. SWF Object Wiki -- This Wiki details how Google would like you to call Flash, and it only goes to reason that doing it the way Google says to will benefit your Flash SEO efforts.
5. FREE SEO Tools -- This About.com article reveals some great free SEO tools and resources for all search engine optimization, not just Flash SEO (one caveat - the SEO tools that spider will not read your Flash websites because they are not using Adobe's new Flash player, given to Google and Yahoo).
Have more Flash SEO resources that should be included? Write us here!
Search engine optimisation - Welcome to CommerceTuned, one of the leading search engine optimisation agencies in the UK today. We offer marketing leading, cutting edge optimisation services, our goal being to achieve and maintain high rankings in search engines for all our clients.
rch engine powerhouse Google has used to rank and index web pages. While not one person alone can figure out the exact science that makes up the algorithm, there is always a team of innovative engineers looking to replace the algorithm with something more beneficial to web surfers … Enter BrowseRank.
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