Thoughts on “Flash Websites” and SEO vs. PPC

Here’s another one of those cases where I copy and paste my reply to a question a new client has asked of me:

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Q: (Asks about his 100% Flash site – meaning its all one Flash file and thus in essence a 1 page website where you can’t easily track page views, conversions, user behavior, etc.)

A: There are several ways you can go about it:

a) Create a mirror site in HTML, thus giving you two totally different but same content sites… People who type in your domain or click on a link will find your flash site. People who find it via a search engine (paid ads or organic) will find the HTML site. In all cases the contact form must be an HTML page.

b) Just create an HTML contact form page that will enable tracking but the rest of the site will remain 100% flash.

c) Create one HTML site that has alot of flash components but is not a “flash site”. This is referred to as imbedding flash. This limits some of the features and functions you can pull off, but still enables more movie-like experiences than HTML with no flash.

The quickest / cheapest / easiest of the above is option B. The other two, however, will have significant Organic SEO benefits. Its very tough (read: near impossible) to take a 100% flash website (or 100% except the contact form as in option B) and have it perform well in organic search listings. When that is the goal, you typically compromise on option A or C.

I would simply say if cost-effective high-quality leads in the long-run are you priority go with A or C. If you are content fueling the lead-generation aspects with PPC and the higher cost (vs. Organic SEO) that that is associated with, as well as the lower volume cap than option B will enable you to keep the site virtually unchanged.