What every Web site owner should know about using Flash on their Web site.

Is it a good idea to use Flash in a Web site? In a word...sorta, kinda, but-not-really, unless done right. How’s that for clarification! Actually, Macromedia's Flash is a great program that, when used correctly, can make a Web site attractive and sometimes even more functional than it would be if you didn't use Flash.

But before we go into the use and issues involved with Flash, let’s spend a moment clarifying exactly what “Flash” is in a Web site. If you go to a Web site and see text or images moving around the screen, fading in and out or otherwise see the Web page moving in a way that makes you go “wow”, then you are probably looking at a site using Flash, a program created by a company named Macromedia.

I’ll be mentioning the terms “.FLA” and “.SWF” several times in the article so I should explain the two terms. When a Web developer is creating the Flash movie, they edit a file that is saved as a “.FLA” file. This file can be opened and changed as needed. When a developer has the Flash file ready for use on a Web site, they publish it as a “.SWF” file. These “.SWF” files are what the end-user sees when they view a Web site that uses Flash. The uploaded .SWF files are not editable. An analogy that many people will understand is the changing of a MS Word document into a PDF. If you want to make changes to the PDF, you have to have the original MS Word document. .FLAs and .SWFs operate in the same manner. To make changes to the Flash on a Web site, a Web developer has to have access to the .FLA source file.

It’s a little difficult to give a non-technical description as to how Flash does what it does to give the end results that so many people like. Flash “movies”, as they are called, are very different from coded page content in that they don’t depend on coding to position content. They use a technology called “vectoring” to determine exactly where each piece of content is and where it will be at any particular point of time during the playing of the movie.

This “non-coded” method of controlling content creates a huge problem for using Flash on a business Web site. Namely, Flash content can't be "seen" by Search Engines Spiders.

Search Engines Spiders (a small program) read code when they visit a site and Flash doesn’t have readable code. When a Search Engine Spider goes to a Web page that is totally Flash, the Spider doesn't see any of the Flash. It isn't impressed by all the moving words or pretty pictures. And it doesn't see the "Skip Intro" link you've put at the bottom of your Flash movie. So your home page might be very impressive to the rare human that actually views it, but your decision to use Flash as a complete solution for your business Web site has ensured that few Search Engines or actual human visitors will be seeing your Web site anytime soon.

Macromedia recognized this problem early in the development of Flash and decided to include commented tags with all of the words used in the Flash movie with each published .SWF to try to off-set the problem. Unfortunately for Macromedia (and for developers that make all-Flash sites), Search Engines decided to totally ignore any content included in comment tags. As a result, your “Flash Intro” home page with the moving text and images appears to most Search Engine Spiders as little more that a relatively blank HTML page. So when you make your default home page a “Flash Intro”, you are really hurting yourself with the Search Engines.

The same is true with the very-popular “Flash menus” that many Web developers use to make the very attractive roll-over effects (much better than standard JavaScript or DHTML roll-over effects). A Web developer creates a great Flash menu that the looks really attractive to end users but, once again, very few people ever get to see it since the Search Engines can’t see the links and thus never even try to index the links to the other pages on the Web site.

And let’s not forget that Flash files can become large and slow-loading when you use Flash for the entire site. Many Web developers in today’s broadband Internet world forget that there is still a significant percentage of Internet users that do not have the connection capability to download large .SWF files on top of the other elements in the Web page. I often hear the excuse “our targeted site visitors are more advanced or of an economic level that means they will most likely have a good broadband connection”. That’s a cop-out and an excuse for lazy development. Even broadband users appreciate quick-loading graphics.

And lastly, as far as the negatives go, it is very time consuming to make and to update Flash files so site owners will find that making even simple changes to their Flash sites will be much more expensive that if they’d opted for a non-Flash Web site. And beware those Web developers that publish your Web site without providing you with the .FLA source files. Many Web developers don’t give site owners the source files and the owner gets stuck paying for the development of a totally new Web site when they decide to use a different Web developer. That can be a VERY expensive mistake.

Web developers rarely upload the .FLA source files for a Web site to the Web server so, when a business owner tries to contact their developer and he/she has disappeared or otherwise become not available, then the site owner is stuck with Flash elements within their Web site that they either have to accept as unchangeable or they have to recognize that they will be paying to have the Flash recreated by a new Web developer.

I’m saying all this bad stuff about the program so now it’s time for me to confess that I really love the program. Flash can be used to create really attractive and memorable Web sites. But business owners should want their Web sites to be effective and user friendly.  A business Web site should be Search Engine-friendly first and attractive and memorable second. So what can they do to ensure that Flash helps their Web site rather that hurts it? Here are a few tips:

1. Use Flash selectively within your Web site. Avoid Flash “intro” pages that Search Engines cant view and that might aggravate a visitor that otherwise wants to view business pertinent information rather than fancy graphics. Use Flash in the headers, menus, or as “mini-intros” on your home page but make sure that every page has lots of Search Engine-friendly text.

2. Text links at the bottom, or “footer” of each page. This will ensure that Search Engine Spiders are able to get to and index each page of the Web site. Doing this will also make it OK to use the fancy Flash menus that so many modern Web sites use.

3. Make sure you, as the site owner, have your Web developer give you a copy of all .FLA files used on your Web site. This will ensure that you will always be able to have other Web developers make changes to your Web site’s Flash content if needed.

Business owners should always keep in mind that many Flash Web developers are more graphic-savvy than they are business-savvy and that they may be implementing Flash on your Web site that is graphically pleasing but also hurting the overall business goals of the Web site. Ask yourself if your business-oriented Web site visitors really want to spend time watching fancy graphics or are they more interested in learning about your business.

Flash is a great program and, when used correctly, can really make a Web site impressive. But “Full Flash” Web sites should be left to personal Web sites or for those rare business Web sites that don’t care about Search Engines or the ease of viewing by site visitors.
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