Monday, September 22, 2008

Text Gets Attention! Not Flash & Images

Effective SEO Is Based On Text
I have often come across Internet users who want a website to be done. They are small startup company, just setting up their shop & store, have no clue about internet traffic, search engines and the likes, but sure they do have a list of what they want:

The most common requirements are
  1. Lots of Images
  2. Fancy Flash to Attract Potential Buyers
  3. Little General Information
  4. Good traffic
  5. Copy of somesite (sometimes...)
  6. Search Engine Optimized
I am sure you would say that most of the above requirements are fine. I too agree that these requirements are general requirements of any website, however, I do not like point 1 and 2 in the list at all.
Balthaser.com has been a great site to visit if you want to look at what all you can do in animation and flash. Their core business is to design and create animations and it is perfectly OK to have a site in pure flash, since most of the users visit their site by typing in the URL directly. I don't search for balthaser.com(since 2000) - and those who ever visit the site, remember the name to type it. Thus Balthaser doesn't depend upon search engine, now or in the past. But why would someone who is selling cosmetices or modular kitchen components insist on a flash only site? :) Cuz their friend has suggested that is the only way to go.
If you have such friends, my humble suggestion - please do not pay heed to what your friends say, they no nothing about internet and at times, just to have a wonderful site with 2 -3 visits to site is not what they or you ever anticipated.

Similarly they want a lot many pictures. Avoid text, let pictures convey the message. Haven't you heard that a picture is worth thousand words! I couldn't agree with you less, however, poor search engine doesn't have eyes to decipher the pictures. At the most the name you have for the picture may be registered but a bot doesn't care if your pic contains a nude or a child. Only it's name can get indexed -- Sad isn't it!!!

What most of the time majority fail to understand is that the purpose of any website is to serve humans - not bots, and if you create a site or a blog that caters to humans, trust me, bots would follow and so would your visitors.

We make avoidable SEO errors and end up losing visitor loyalty and revenue earning potential because we didn't get things done as they should be, but because someone suggested this and that, and someone else has done good with pictures and flash. You don't take a pill when your friend does, no reason your site should be like your friends or what is suggested by your friends. Follow your instincts and believe me you would succeed with the right focus and attention.

Cheers,
pubdomains.com - Domain Registration & Web Hosting Services

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