Google recently shook the Web design and SEO worlds when it announced it is now spidering and indexing Adobe Flash text files. Heretofore, Flash was frowned on widely in Web design world and universally in SEO. It will be interesting to see if there will now be a surge in Flash infested Web sites. I hope not.
First off, Google's new indexing will not have a major impact on SEO (see links below). But even if it did, there are even more important reasons to use Flash with care.
Flash is excellent seasoning for a Web site, but unappetizing as the main course. There are two assumptions it's very safe to make for a business Web site. First, visitors come for information, not entertainment. Second, visitors are in a hurry. If the site's home page is a clutter of animation, it will frustrate the visitor's attempt to find information and find it quickly. The best way to dazzle today's online audience is to provide easily searchable and easily digestible information.
Employing Flash to provide visitors with a multi-media experience is sensible, but even here, a company has more engaging options at its disposal, such as videocasts, screencasts, and podcasts. The time for Flash may yet come, but not today.
Meta descriptions are the page descriptions searchers see when looking at Google search engine return pages (SERPs).
They are important. Well written ones attract click-throughs. Poorly written ones, ahem, don't. Let's take a look at some examples, from a search for "auto repair chicago".
Some of these are pretty good, but Marvin's Auto Repair and Jerry's stand out, don't you think? The meta description is a customer endorsement - excellent idea. Not only are testimonials persuasive in and of themselves, but when your testimonial is the only one on the page, it's really, really going to draw attention. Yelp has hit on a very shrewd search technique using word for human readers, not search engines.
Here are a few more results -
Nothing quite as eye-popping here, but we still have a few rock solid techniques. Specific information about location and services are helpful. Sales copy, such as "the finest", may not stand out in pages full of meta descriptions making similar claims. However, I like Quality Towing and Repair's "... high quality and guaranteed," because it's more specific and because guarantees are always enticing, particularly in fields like automotive repair.
Replacing advertising fluff with relevant details about location and services draws attention. Something as simple as adding an obvious word like "guarantee" can make your site stand out from the crowd on the SERP. Quite often, companies pay scant attention to writing meta descriptions, or delegate the task completely to their Web developer. This is dangerous if the developer is unfamiliar with the industry and/or SEO. Bland, uninspiring meta descriptions just don't cut it anymore ... Getting to the top of Google is awesome, but you still need searchers to click through to your site.
