Let me be as clear as I can about your future lead generation possibilities-- if your website designer plans on using a "Flash" site, then you can pretty much kiss serious lead generation using the organic (free) search directories good-bye. For those who are unfamiliar, Flash is a technology that allows for quick movies, objects that move and fade in and out.
You might notice this when you go to a site and there's some graphic movement before you're allowed to get the information you're looking for. This flash, or movie, looks pretty cool, but believe me, it's deadly in terms of drawing your target audience to your site. Why? Because the search directories such as Google, Yahoo, MSN do not recognize and are unable to index these movies, so there's little chance of you being ranked highly.
At this point, your site might be "cool", but you're essentially a pretty store in a strip center that no one can find. The worst part of all is that most website designers (who are also typically graphic artists) are oblivious to this search engine dynamic. While they think they're helping you, they're actually hurting you.
What type of site do you have...a static, a flash, or something in between?
I agree with you whole-heartedly that flash sites are the kiss of death. That includes those little butterflies that follow you around until you become so annoyed that you leave the site. Not only do the bells and whistles interfere with search engine crawling, but they also distract your potential customer away from the product that you want them to focus on.
Posted by: Shirley | August 10, 2008 at 08:58 PM
Absolutely, Shirley. I think (and hope) that owners recognize the impracticality of those things and stick with an aesthetically-pleasing, content rich site.
Posted by: Scott | January 13, 2009 at 09:36 PM