by: Chris Lowden
Flash and heavy
image websites may look good, they often do. But how effective are they? Not as
effective as you may think. Most people think once a website is created it is
going to found by everyone on the internet. They couldn’t be more wrong. This
article will talk about why HTML is a key to a website and its success.
HTML is the only language search engines can
understand, anything else is like a foreign language. Search engines cannot
read flash. They cannot read JavaScript. They cannot read images. That is why
you are going to want to find a web designer who is going to be able to create
a strong based HTML website.
Now I am not saying that if your website is heavy
in flash, JavaScript and images it’s not going to be found. You still have you
Meta tags, you did remember those right? Search engines work on keywords, word
that people are going to use when finding your website. If you have read my
article on Better Goggle Rakings you will be familiar on this, if not, I would
suggest reading that next. If your website was developed in flash, you will
still have the Meta tags working for you, but those can only take you so far.
Websites that are heavy or well balanced in content are better. When a website
is made in flash the text is imbedded in the flash file, the swf or it is
loaded externally. It is not directly in/on the page for the search engines to
find. Same goes with JavaScript and images. With images you have a little lead
way, the alt tag. For those of you who are unfamiliar with HTML code, the alt
tag is what you code into an image. So when you hover over an image, you will
see the popup with the title written in it. But if you content is on the image,
forget about getting a good ranking. A general rule of thumb, websites should
have about 200 words of content, rich with keywords and unique content.
HTML is great and all, but there are a few things
it cannot do for you. Animations, sometimes good, but are often used wrong.
Floating menus, animated menus and drop down menus. Again, these can look very
good if done well, but they are invisible to search engines. Links are a big
thing to them too, search engines love to see a lot of links, incoming and
outgoing to websites. If you are linked with websites of a higher page rank
thank you is can be better for you and help your page rank. Now with that said
here are some things that HTML will give you that other languages cannot.
Keyword related navigation, again, back to the links. The links on your website
should relate into what they are taking you too. Sounds obvious huh? You
wouldn’t believe the amount of links I have seen taking me somewhere else other
than what the menu said. Real text; keyword rich, unique content that will
bring your customers to your page along with good page rank from Google.
Lastly, with HTML, the page is your canvas, free to do anything you want and
still have it be effective enough for your customers to be able to navigate you
site.
So what’s a website with out any images? Not a
whole lot in my opinion. But you just said websites shouldn’t have images on
them. Wrong. I said that a website with heavy imagery is not always good. Take
my website for instance, images all around you, but the pages are balance with
my content, content that is keyword rich. So read some tutorials on Photoshop,
slice it up and put some quality content in it and you should have a pretty
effective website. Just keep in mind all of the above. Websites that look
stunning are not always a good thing. Your website should look good, but it
should be effective and smooth for the user to navigate through.
Having your website created by me will not only
guarantee you a strong design and strong functionality. It will rank well in
Google, keep your customers coming back and they will not be getting them lost
in the navigation.