Many web pages nowadays are embellished with Flash animation products, offered by Adobe. Flash technology allows, in a very simple manner, to insert small animated, vector-based drawings into your web pages.

Of course, these animations have some influence on the way your site is "seen" and indexed by the search engines. The problem of Flash Search Engine Optimization arises, which is a very serious matter in terms of conversion and web site profitability.

First, let's see what the structure of a Flash file is. When you create an animation, you get a file, named, for example, banner.fla. The ".fla" represents the Flash format extension. In order to display this file in a web page, you need to export it in Shockwave Format (extension .swf). It is this file, once exported, that you will be using for your web site.

If the animation you have created contains text, it won't be taken into account by most of the search engines, as they don't pay much attention to this format. Still, there are search engines (e.g. Google, dir.com, FAST Search) that know how to read the text inserted in the Flash animations. A web page (or even a site!) that is built entirely in Flash will therefore pass almost "unseen" by search engines, which index, almost exclusively, text content in HTML format. Nevertheless, the HTML file that launches the Flash animation will be crawled by search engine's spiders.

• It maximizes the animation's impact, which is appreciated in the Internet interactive and visual environment. Also, leaving aside the size of the files, it is worth mentioning that Flash (mainly vector-based) is still "lighter" than videos (not interactive) or simple pixel photos (not animated).
• It can be combined successfully with other technologies (e.g. PHP, MySQL, XML, images, video, sound, etc.). It is therefore perfectly possible to create a dynamic web site in flash that also has content.

A Flash animation placed on a web page has certainly more significance than a simple image. People like to be visually stimulated, and this is the perfect instrument to attract prospects and eventually convince them to buy a product. Perception is everything. Marketers want to offer a great looking package, and customers want to receive it.

What You Can Do About It
Optimizing Flash for the so-demanding search engines is not an easy task. The effort that must be done and the amount of energy that must be spent on SEO for Flash are far greater than for the optimization of a HTML site.

Following are some tips on how to optimize Flash on your web site:

• One of the best methods to optimize your Flash pages is to use the NOEMBED tag, the same way the NOFRAMES tag is used to index the sites built on frames. It's between the noembed and noembed tags that text content must be inserted after you have defined a clear search engine optimization strategy for Flash.
• Another Flash SEO method is the use of a CSS element, .div (which incorporates search engine accessible content), associated with a JavaScript function called SWFObject. This will allow detecting when browsers can display and view Flash. Search engine spiders that cannot handle Flash will choose to view the primary content, which contains links, headings, text, etc. in this case, Flash will not create any problems. It may not cause your site to rise spectacularly in the SERPs, but it will eliminate most of the ranking disadvantages that come with Flash sites.
• If you're going for the "all-Flash" approach (although most SEO practitioners strongly advise against this), there is also the possibility to create a HTML version of the Flash site and to offer that one for the spiders to index. You can create distinct HTML pages for each Flash page, and install the Flash movie on each page. If the visitor can handle Flash, they will see it. Otherwise, there will still be the HTML version, also accessible to search engine spider for indexing. You might lose the seamless effect that comes with Flash, but you will gain visibility and, possibly, some good ranking.
• Use the Flash Search Engine SDK tool called swf2html. It will extract the text from the Flash file and transfer it into a simple HTML document, so you don't have to do it manually. You will thus be able to see what the search engine spiders see.

Also, it would be useful to take into account some other aspects that might make a difference in your endeavor to make your Flash site compatible (and readable) with search engines.