In our earlier discussion “whether META Tags are still relevant” we talked about making sure your website had the proper configuration of META tags so that your site could be indexed properly.
But one of the most common reasons we find for “invisible” sites are sites that are almost completely created in Flash, which is a graphic programming language used for encoding video, creating animations, special effects, slide shows, presentations, etc.
Flash, developed by Adobe, is a great program, don’t get me wrong. But to build an entire webpage using Flash is a big mistake and here’s why:
Flash is invisible to the search engines! When a search engine spider visits a page comprised entirely of Flash it’s basically seeing a blank page. Nothing, Zip. Zich. Nada.
Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN crave TEXT and basic HTML. This is assuming, of course, that you care about getting traffic to your website. Because if you don’t then be my guest — Flash-away!
In fact, the late founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, declared that Flash was dead for websites back in 2010 and said that Apple products such as the MAC, iPhones, etc would no longer support the display of Flash on it’s devices. Where Flash used to appear, now you only get little “Xs” where the Flash content used to appear.
Another growing factor in whether or now websites will be returned in search engines results are whether or not they are mobile ready, considering hat more than 50% of Internet users now access the Internet on their phones.
So to increase your chances of being visible: Use keywords in your META tags, don’t use Flash, have a mobile-ready website and also be sure your website is https, not just http, since the added security of an SSL certificate is also a top 10 ranking factor according to Google.