How to Optimize Flash for SEO in 5 easy steps

OVERVIEW

Flash and Google have recently partnered up to make Flash websites and Flash movies searchable. Google has moved quickly since they announced this at the Adobe Max Awards 2008. In fact, you may have even noticed Flash movies showing up when you search Google. Yahoo saw the importance of this and recently contacted Adobe to work out a solution to index Flash files. I personally believe that Ask and MSN will have no choice but to offer the same option in their search results.

SO WHY SHOULD YOU OPTIMIZE YOUR FLASH?

It’s easy. Even an inexperienced Flash developer can add keywords and URL’s inside their Flash files allowing developers yet another way to increase your websites keyword density. More importantly Flash looks cool and has a great wow factor. In the past many developers would not use it simply because it was not SEO friendly and they believed that it was a waste of space.

SO HOW DO I OPTIMIZE MY FLASH FILES?

STEP 1 – Utilize the stage

Only the stage in Flash can be optimized so you need to make sure that everything that appears on the stage is optimized for your targeted keywords. To do this make sure the text, images, movie clips, graphics and buttons are named keywords that are relevant to search. This is very easy to do even after you have already built your Flash movies. Open up the library (CTRL + L) and simply run down the list renaming everything keywords your are targeting.

STEP 2 – Dynamic text fields

Use dynamic text fields optimized for your targeted keywords. Make sure you use embedded HTML links with a tags linking to all of the pages on your website. If you don’t understand Flash well this part may be a little tricky. Inside Flash you can create dynamic text fields that will allow you to import text directly into Flash, if you optimize that text and add several HTML links it will make the Flash movie more important and help gain rank on Google.

STEP 3 – Keyword Density

Take your keywords directly from your website Meta Tags and use them in a bulleted list in your Flash file on the stage, but off to the side so you can not see them when published. This will give your Flash files high emphasis and allow Google to understand that they are more then just a simple movie.

STEP 4 - Navigation

If the Flash file has navigational buttons the text needs to be clear and keyword optimized so that the spiders do not get stuck on that page and are able to index the entire website. Add a small dynamic site map for the Flash if the file has multiple pages or multiple movie clips. This will give the robots a flow that they can follow and allow them to index multiple areas of your Flash file.

STEP 5 – Add additional movie clips

Add additional invisible movie clips. This will allow you to add targeted keywords and increase your websites keyword density. If you use ActionScript to set the properties of the movie clip to 0% Google will not be able to indentify that the movie clips are invisible.