I’ve talked about the Future of Flash in the past, and well, technically now that the future is here I thought we should discuss it again.

First of all, I still stand by my original thoughts about Flash and SEO, however, Google has recently made some interesting improvements. One problem flash developers were facing was that Google would index any external content linked in the flash files as a separate entity. That’s if Google would index the external content at all. But now Google has added “external resource loading”.

This means that when a SWF file loads content from some other file—whether it’s text, HTML, XML, another SWF, etc.—we can index this external content too, and associate it with the parent SWF file and any documents that embed it.

- Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

So What’s The Current State of SEO and Flash?

Although most SEOs would argue to stay away from flash because of it’s inability to index the content properly, I would argue that it almost doesn’t matter anymore. SEOmoz said something that caught my ear in their “New Policies Based on Updated Correlation Data“. They basically implied that header tags have less weight associated with them than they did in the past. It almost seems as if Google is paying less attention to the HTML markup and more attention to incoming links and conversations around the content.

So if your flash is getting indexed and you have a quality content with relevant incoming links, you should not have any problems with Flash being indexed and ranked properly in the search engines.

Now before you go and rip my head off I should state a few obvious problem that still exist:

• There are still accessibility issues (portable devices) when using flash elements however a good flash developer should know their way around them.
• HTML still provides a better format to organize your content for more efficient indexing

The main takeaways here should be that people should not be afraid to at least experiment with flash. It no longer has the indexing issues it used to have. Also, Google still supports the use of SWFObject which takes care of a lot of the indexing problems flash still has.

- Photo by Mazintosh << de nuevo en Granada >>

With the Internet moving at the speed of light it is important that companies keep up in an age of on-demand lifestyles. It may not be for everyone, but for most it is essential that you be kept up to date in the latest communication methods. Furthermore it is more important than ever that your company is only clicks away from your next most valuable client.

Here are a few things companies need to know these days:

1) Your website is more than a business card. The days of static websites floating out in the Internet are gone. Websites these days need to be focused on providing the most appropriate and up to date information to it’s viewers at all times. This is why it is almost essential that your website be on some sort of content management system that allows your most qualified staff to update your site with ease. It’s also important to have some sort of analytics in place so you can optimize your site based on it’s usage.

2) Position your self. Forget the yellow pages, is your site optimized for Google searches? Like I said before, we live in an on-demand world now and you need to position yourself to be found by your target audience. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website with keywords and easily indexable code. Some content management systems help with the SEO by cleaning up the HTML and linking structure of your site so it’s important to take into consideration when choosing the best platform.

3) Communicate. Who needs cold calling or newspaper ads when you have services like LinkedIn and Twitter ready and willing to facilitate your business networking at lightening speed. The mind shift has already taken place and people are openly talking about their lives with millions of other people from around the world. Learning how to use and leverage these tools to expand your business’s potential is a necessity in this economy.

4) Embrace your community. Companies are starting to submit to the candid discussions happening in social media. It’s no longer about controlling your image but rather responding to your communities feedback to make it better. This is a great reason to start blogging and monitoring the blogosphere for relevant conversations in your industry.

-

The times are changing fast and you can either get on board and ride a long or you’ll get left behind.

Contact Magicomm today to learn how we can help you make the transition.

- Photo by boboroshi