The decision of whether or not to have your website done in all flash should not be big one.  The designing of an all flash website may be more attractive and aesthetically pleasing but all flash websites should be avoided as search engines can not fully read the content or links embedded within the medium.

If the above statement alone is not enough to avoid building out an all flash website, consider the following:

1) Consider that a non-flash or limited flash website that is ugly but has content and text that search engines can fully read will out rank the nice and pretty all flash website.

2) You might consider your business big enough and niched enough where you feel that it is not necessary to SEO your web site.  But, how important is it for you to drive new traffic to your web site that ultimately will impact your bottom line? How will you increase your reach?  Are you developing a web site for getting more potential customers?

3) Websites usually consist of multiple pages and each page is an entry point bringing the visitor to the page that best represents their keyword search query. You can’t provide the best optimization with an all flash website.

4) Not all flash can be viewed by an individual; the individual should have a browser that is compatible for viewing flash.  This would lead to the possibility of a larger number of people exiting the site and the lost potential for conversion.

5) Flash increases the time it takes for your home page to load. Expecting your visitor to first wait while the flash content loads and then expecting them navigate through your website would be too much of an expectation from your visitors whose time should be valued.

6) It is more expensive and time consuming to update and maintain a flash website than a traditional website (In this context, a traditional web site is one that uses HTML with limited amount of script).

What you have just read is just some of the top reasons to avoid developing a website in all flash.  You do have to build an attractive website that will appeal to users but an all flash website is not the answer.  You can still build a website with great visual presentation by limiting flash only to certain portions of the website or not using it at all.  The bottom line is that you need to design a website that will give you the most visibility in the search engines.

Ankush Agarwal
Senior Search Marketing Analyst
MarketNet, Inc.

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