Flashing is Still Not Cool
September 24th, 2008 • Posted by Andrea Feucht • Permalink
This summer, SEO blogs turned their attention to the news of the moment: Googlebot is now indexing .swf (Flash) files.
Does this mean that now, finally, using Flash on your website is OK?
In a nutshell, no. Here's why — its about designing your site to be friendly to your audience, first and foremost. What do your visitors want? According to on-the-ground studies, they want to know:
- How to find you.
- How to contact you.
- Your hours.
- Your prices. (Maybe)
- Everything else, including: events, specials, your story, photos, testimonials, newsletters, ambiance, and a "spa experience".
Do I sound harsh? I don't mean to be. A well-designed site can be elegant and still convey all of the most important information that your customers want. But, if it is a lovely site with Flash elements and a preponderance of images that take a long time to load — especially on a mobile device — a potential customer like me isn't going to come in. Why not? If I cannot go to the website and immediately find an address, a phone number, and business hours, the website is almost useless.
Once I have that information, I'll likely stick around and read about the business, investigate my options, spend more time. But first I need the basics, and it is all to easy to overlook those when designing with an eye towards graphics and motion as the first priority.
Posted in Spa Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Spa Website Design • Share • Trackback