Old News Education: Flash Can Still Kill SEO

I would say that [potential] client education is one of the most important parts of what I do. And sometimes I forget, because I do it all day long all the time, that there are still some items that need clarification to most people. Today's education will talk briefly about Flash animation and how it should and should not be used.

There are basically 2 points:

1) Flash will kill your search engine optimization (SEO) - still
Search engines are still having trouble with Flash websites. While Google and those other two or three have said they are making strides to pick up on that Flashy content, it is still a crippling venture to choose to develop your entire website in that flowing, textured beauty (when done well, of course).

In the very best case scenarios and future scenarios where the search engines can pick up every word of copy on your site, your Flash site is still, functionally, a single page because the entire Flash piece exists on one page. So even if you have hundreds of Flash "pages" of content, even if you knock out best practice SEO for that page aside from the Flash bulk, you have an entire site that is essentially your homepage. And that's it. And you are effectively irrelevant.

I'm specifically nailing this to the ground right now because we had a nice little chat about it at Podcamp Ohio 2 and I just saw - today - that one of my favorite places to get a haircut and massage redid their website: entirely in Flash. Almost 1/3 of my business over the last year has been re-designing the work of a mediocre - or worse - designer/developer. And that shouldn't happen.

The people and businesses who are in the market for a website redesign need to know this information and the development companies providing these sites are either ignorant or deliberately misleading for the "wow" factor. And that makes me sad for the businesses and angry at the service providers.

Now, with that said...

2)Flash is NOT the Devil
Flash is - and has been since its inception - an excellent and attractive (again, if done well)addition to a site. If you want some of that pretty-pretty moving picture stuff on your site and don't want to make it invisible by creating the entire site in Flash, that is the preferred method of execution. The only thing that you must remember is that any text that lives in Flash components is potentially un-readable to search engines. So either reiterate that in copy or keep it to lovely images retaining all copy for straight-forward HTML text.


In the spirit of full disclosure, I am a web designer and developer that works hard for my clients to get them the best SEO results. In the spirit of honesty: I'd rather see a business spend money elsewhere knowing what they really need to purchase as opposed to wasting money and ending up with me, angry, distrustful, and just wishing they'd done it right the first time.

Get it right the first time: Never pay for a website that is entirely designed in Flash.

Podcamp Ohio 2009: #pco09

This past weekend I attended Podcamp Ohio 2 (PodcampOhio Twitter)in Columbus, Ohio. And it was wonderful. (note: this post went up yesterday but disappeared *shakes fist at Blogger*)

Walking into the OSU Geology building set the tone for the whole day. Before the registration table was a large pad of paper propped up on a easel. Someone had hand-written in marker: "Our hashtag for the event is #pco09. Tweet when you arrive!" I'm sure they didn't even need to tell us. As of this writing, almost 800 tweets have gone out with that tag.

Building-wide wi-fi was free (thank goodness - my Pre was picking up nothing in that structure), everyone was hooked into their smartphones, and about half of us had laptops. There were six sessions throughout the day with seven+ talks for each session, so making choices was NOT an easy endeavor.

Yay Free Stuff!

Swag bag was great and contained the official program with descriptions of each talk that was registered before the deadline, trial software from TechSmith (and the sweetest highlighter/Post-it tag dual-purpose pen I've ever seen) and some very informative information about Columbus. And I'd be remiss to skip mentioning the toy racecar, plastic "LOVE" ring, and balloon.

ávitāe energy water was one of the sponsors and we had the simple joy of purified water and caffeine hydrating us for the day. Our delicious lunch was Qdoba. Yum.

Ummm...What's a Podcamp?

For those of you who have not attended or even heard of Podcamp, it was launched in Boston by Chris Brogan and Christopher Penn and is officially categorized as an unConference, meaning speakers aren't there so much to rule the room, droning with slides, as to facilitate a discussion with the understanding that there will be people in the room who know more about the topic than you do. And that's okay. Everyone's a rockstar and the rule of two feet applies: you don't feel you're getting out of it what you want to, get on your two feet and go somewhere else.

I did see a couple reticent posts in post about the content of Podcamp Ohio. It is NOT just about podcasting but the whole of new media. There were talks about social media in general, specific social networking sites, podcasting, podcasting equipment and software, branding, and even SEO. It basically spans anything internet and new media.

What Your Boss Already Knows About You

In the fourth session, I gave my talk with the above title. We discussed how businesses are using social media to screen both potential and current employees, how colleges are using social media to screen potential and current students, and what we can do overall to find a balance between privacy and "being out there."

It was a smaller group, but very engaged in the topic and their stories certainly increased my understanding of the extent that schools and businesses are going today to screen employees.

And while most of the goodness came out of the discussion and starting/ending the talk with www.cursebird.com on the screen (Twitter web use of API, live stream of any tweets that contain swear words with trending graphs), you are more than welcome to a PDF of the slides here.

My Path

I started with Daniel Johnson, Jr. in Session 1 talking about job hunting success stories, including his own. I joined John "Lumpy" Lemke in Session 2 for the Audacity Hands-On Workshop. After lunch I participated in a wonderfully-overcrowded room where Krista Neher was discussing building a strong brand and how it relates to new media. I had to sneak out of that one (it was running long) to get to my own talk but after What Your Boss... I was over to Twitter Tools for Business with Wendy Suto, which I cut short when I saw a live tweet from Daniel Johnson, Jr. that there was an impromptu with Amybeth Hale and Michael Loban about job searches and recruiting. I fired away at the SEO Lightning Session, with Bill Condo as the main speaker. Excellent info shared by all.


Conclusion

My primary take-away from the unConference (which I've already tweeted) is a dichotomy of "Hey, I'm doing okay for my business" and "Holy crap I've got a ton of work to do!" Part of that work is getting deeper in the keyword aspects of my social media and web marketing life. I preach the importance of it and practice it regularly, but I could be and strive to be better myself. Also, in the next 3 months, my goal is to be using videos and audio podcasts to spread my new media gospel and offer my web design and internet marketing expertise to a larger audience.

Conclusion is that it was like being at tech geek social media home. I loved it and cannot wait until next year. In fact, I'm looking at Cleveland's which is forthcoming with a spring 2010 date, as well as Pittsburgh's, taking place in October. And I think I may be talking again.

If you missed Ohio's, check one of those out. If you're half as much into technology and new media and the internet as I am, you will not be disappointed.

DIY: XML Sitemap Submission and Validation

Tuesday I went through the process of creating an XML sitemap and demystifying autodiscovery. Today, as promised, we will delve into getting those sitemaps into the figurative hands of the search engines.

"Hey," you might say, "but if I've created my sitemap and bolstered it with autodiscovery, can't Google find it on their own?" Of course. But since no one except Google knows their own schedule, would you prefer to rely on a blind run or say "Hey Google! Over here!"

And while I am talking about Google in generalized terms, we will be covering validation and submission with the Big 4: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live, and Ask.

The Setup

The basic setup for most of these is the same: you will validate that you have control over the site and submit a "feed" or sitemap. The validation process is either adding a validation meta tag to your home page or dropping a validation file in your root directory. Whether a tag or file, it's just an alphanumeric validation string so Google et. al. can prove that you own or have direct access to the site. The secondary part is telling them where your site is.

Google

You will need a Google Account for this one. Once you have that, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools. Add a site. Validate your site by adding a meta tag to your home page or uploading a file to your root directory. Post the link to your sitemap. You're done!

Yahoo

You will need a Yahoo login for this one as well. Go to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites. Just like Google, you're going to validate with a file or meta tag and post your XML sitemap "feed."

Microsoft Live

Again, you'll need a Microsoft login, hotmail or the like, to get into this site. Go to http://webmaster.live.com/. Rinse and repeat: upload a file to your site for validation and list your sitemap. Blammo!

No work yet on how bing.com will handle the issue.

Ask

This one's easy. Simply put this string into your browser:

http://submissions.ask.com/ping?sitemap=http%3A//www.the URL of your sitemap here.xml

And that will ping the site to tell it your sitemap is ready for viewing and crawling.


Is sitemap submission a necessity? No, it is not; eventually the search engines will pick up on your sitemap or autodiscovery and get to crawling. But if you're a "cover all bases" and "ASAP" person like I am, go ahead and spend the half hour it takes to knock out all four of these and go to sleep a little easier.

I'm happy to take any questions or comments in, well, the comments area.

DIY: XML Sitemap and Autodiscovery

A sitemap has always been, traditionally, an HTML page that lays out your website's page hierarchy. Simple enough: use the unordered list tagset and categorize those pages. And for more SEO love, put a link to that page in your footer. Tasty!

But then it got a little more complicated, with both sitemaps and SEO. But - don't worry - not that much.

You may have heard the term "XML sitemap" and perhaps even the term "autodiscovery." And you thought "WTF? How do I do that?" It's really not as hard as you think. And if you have FTP access to your site, you can.

The XML Sitemap

A couple years ago (has it been that long?), Google spearheaded the idea of an XML Sitemap which is basically an XML file sitting at your root directory called, obviously enough, "sitemap.xml" It was soon adopted by MSN Search (now Microsoft Live!), Yahoo, and Ask. All the parameters and guidelines can be found at sitemaps.org, but it boils down to this: an XML sitemap that lists all the pages on your site, the last change date, the frequency of change, and the importance in a 0.1 to 1.0 scale (1.0 highest).

Creating a sitemap.xml file from scratch is a daunting prospect, to say the least.

So how about a tool, Eric? Of course. The free software I personally use to create these sitemaps is GSiteCrawler that you can download here.

The program is intuitive: you enter your URL, click some boxes specifying what you'd like logged, and let it run. (NOTE: this tool is for a live site; grabbing from a staging site will only confuse the robots/spiders and potentially be detrimental in a "duplicate content" kind of way.)

Generate the sitemap and save it on your system. Take a look at it in a text editor to make sure everything looks good, and upload it to the website, where the home page is.

Autodiscovery

Very soon after the sitemap.xml protocol was adopted, so was autodiscovery. It might be a fancy word to flaunt in front of people, but it's really quite basic. In your directory - where your home page is, where your sitemap.xml now is, should exist a "robots.txt" file. That file should contain information about what directories in your site should not be followed (disallowed).

Autodiscovery is a single additional line in that file that reads like this:

sitemap: http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

That's it!

So why's it called "autodiscovery?" Simple enough: when the robots/spiders visit your site, the first thing they are "supposed to" check is the "robots.txt" file so they know what they don't have to bother with, saving them time. This additional line of code increased their efficiency by immediately directing them to the exact file they can use to guide them through your site.

Fancy words, easy results.

"But Eric, I've got my XML sitemap and my autodiscovery in place, so how do I make sure Google, Yahoo, etc. know that it's all cool and they need to take a look at my site again?"

Well, sir/madam, that would be tomorrow's post: DIY: How to Let the Engines Know You're There.

Tune on in.

Questions or suggestions always happy in the comments.

Jaguar Grooming in Cincinnati, Ohio

This is not so much a clever and humorous blog post about jaguar grooming in Cincinnati, Ohio, as it is an experiment and an example to all those who have this one specific question about Search Engine Optimization: How do I pin down my niche?

Say, for example, one of your niche specializations was the grooming of jaguars - whether wild jaguars or the (?) domesticated jaguar - and you wanted to focus on gaining clients locally in Cincinnati, Ohio. Does OH have a lot of jaguars? I know not, but I'd start by putting together a slick, kickin' ad with the proper name and alt tag:


Jaguar Grooming in Cincinnati, Ohio is HOT!

Now, with my sweet ad - sans real contact info should one find this image not on this blog but on Google Image Search and want to have their jaguar groomed - and my informational blog post about how to get your jaguar grooming business up and running in Cincinnati, Oh (with requisite keyphrase density, variations, and misspellings), you now have a veritable trampoline with which to bounce your niche business into the lead on a Search Engine Results Page.

Just please be careful when grooming jaguars: they bite.

Extending the Extensions of Social Networking

For those of you who might have the idea that social-networking-up on your game means popping out an occasional blog and maybe a Twitter, you're mistaking a hot pan and a fridge half-full of random items for a savory, gourmet dinner. On a later post, I might go through each one of these in much more detail, but here's at least some bare bones to a good stew.

The home base and foundation, your purpose and landing platform for business (unless you're going with a different model) is the website. Sorry, the cooking analogy unfortunately passed away at the end of the last paragraph. From there, you add:

Your Blog.
If you do it right, it's the automatic second SERP link to you. I went with Blogger because it's owned by Google, easy to maintain, and I already have experience with it so there is a warm place in my heart, despite the bugs. I like to think of the website as the way you walk into a place ready to pitch your product or service or self. The blog is after-hours. A mild after-hours.

But just getting to express some of your personality is not all you need.

• Technorati Profile - Register with Technorati so you can be more a part of the community of the largest bloggregation site in existence.
• Template - unless you want to come across as a n00b, you better not settle for a provided template. Make it look like your site. Identify with it. And don't let people get there and question for a second where the heck they are.
• Linkbuilding - it is hard and time-consuming, but do it here. Now. Reach out in your community, "follow" other blogs of similar interest, contact authors, trade links.

Hold on a second. I did say "bare bones," didn't I? Just starting this post is enough to make me choke: I would write a month of posts expanding on things I've just touched on here. But not to abandon the mission:

Twitter is still relatively hot right now, not a killer to maintain, and worth someone's interest in your post that can lead to your site that can lead to a ...lead. But get out there. No one's going to go fishing for YOU. Post a couple times a day, do searches for other posts, check out profiles, and follow in the community.

Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, etc. Facebook's kind of a given because you probably already have one. Don't you? Jeez. MySpace is a lesser degree, but if you want to do it all the way, just do it. With MySpace, you're looking at another template to tweak, networking to do. YouTube means recording your expertise (read:rantings) and potentially editing it with computer capture video. LinkedIn is another extension as owner or part of a business, a place to talk about your services or products. Keep going? Okay, then there's also Plaxo and Orkut and Microsoft Live Spaces and hell, you can even set up an avatar and store in Second Life if you're that motivated to promote, but this is business, is it not? We have to do some triage of available resources and effective outcomes, no?

I have much more to discuss on each of these, and will perhaps even open an Orkut and SecondLife for the sake of the process and writing about the experience. But the goal is the same around the world: success. Or, at least in the world of social marketing, exposure.

And if you can use these tools to expand your online networks and grow your exposure and increase links to your sites and your satellites, then that is a modicum of success. Granted, if your site sucks, all of the extra work of social expansion is in vein. But that's a completely different set of posts.

Who Doesn't Want a Myspace?

Continuing the flow of the day, I've added a MySpace account for EJM Designs.

Like? Friend me, of course.

Available logos for MySpace kind of suck, so I'm eschewing them on this one. Just imagine blue and Gort-shaped white bodies with circle heads...

Now Listening: "New York, I love you, but you're freaking me out." LCD Soundsystem. Delicious. Sirius 26.

EJM Designs on Twitter

How about some SEO/SEM/PPC/Design EJM Designs Tweets?



EJM Design Twitter. Love it.

Sidebar widget coming soon, if it's not already there by the time you see this (oh, my: there it is!).

Join the conversation. Pass the love!

EJM Designs on Facebook

Getting this journey off to the right start.



Check out EJM Designs on Facebook Pages!

Join the conversation, pass on the love.

Yay! Search Engine Marketing and All Things Web!

My name is Eric Marschall and I am the owner of EJM Designs Limited, providing quality web design, consulting, and internet marketing, based in Cincinnati, Ohio.



Background: I've been designing graphics for ten years now, having gone from television to print to web in the process. Web design and development have been my forte for the last eight years. And for the past five years I've been making clients happy through my expertise in search engine marketing.

Just because I focus on search engine marketing in my professional world, that will not be the sole purpose of this blog. I love all things tech and internet and regularly spend time devouring sites like BoingBoing, DVICE, and XKCD. I have an eclectic and distinctive taste in music which has been sitting on CBC Radio 3 (Canadian indie) for the past few weeks, and if I get thirty minutes to turn on my 360, I may just complain about how much of a pain it is to knock off a Big Daddy, even with the grenade launcher.

Not to worry - I also keep on the edge of what is going on in the search engine marketing world and will offer links, opinions, and original articles as they pertain to Google, Yahoo, Ask, and ...has anyone heard from Microsoft Live lately? Quick! Put a mirror in front of his mouth.

Obviously, in the coming days you'll see changes in the look and feel of the blog as I squeeze my own template into this architecture, add links, etc.

Join the conversation, post a comment, send me an email (visible in my profile) if you have an idea or opinion or insight or question. I'm looking forward to being a part of the community as myself.