This is a question many ask themselves when venturing into their web site’s design. For some it is their first design but for some it is simply their next design.

Flash really made a big splash several years ago. Anyone who was hip and trendy had their sites built completely in Flash. The sites, once they actually loaded, looked amazing. Unfortunately they neglected to take into consideration that by moving everything to flash, the site’s content was no longer able to be indexed by search engines such as Google. You see with plain text, all of the content is found within the web site’s source code. With Flash however it is contained within a non-readable and proprietary Adobe format.

Nowadays, with the popularity of terms such as SEO and the broader understanding and knowledge of SEO, Flash is taking a hit. Some developers choose to stay completely away from using it in fact. The thing is though, if Flash is used correctly it is still a very good method of making a modern, indexable, site. The key is to look at Flash in terms of being an element on a website rather than being the website.

More and more designers are beginning to see and embrace this. Using Flash to breath new life into otherwise stale elements of a page, or even to make an element more user friendly. In fact you see Flash used a lot today as a driver behind audio and video delivery. Take Youtube.com as an example, all of their videos are Flash encoded. And it is really becoming the standard. Gone are the days when a user or site visitor needs to worry about having the appropriate video software (Apple, Real Media, Windows Media,etc) for each site they visit.

Flash is not dead, it is finding its niche. Flash will not kill your SEO, if you don’t use it to display your otherwise indexable content.

As a side note, over the years I have attended many a conference relating to SEO. There are high ranking people for several companies (Search Engines included) who are working on finding ways to make Flash content indexable.

Wow, I first have to apologize for the huge delay in updating the blog. I made a personal decision to move on from doing “business development” work in the wholesale domain industry. I am still with the same company but in a different capacity.

Today I help small businesses get online with a CUSTOM built website. Thats right, I said custom, no templates.

For as little as $99 a month (no contract) you can get a custom built website, 10x 1 GB email accounts, domain name with privacy protection, and access to monthly maintenence time with a designer.

Anyway I will blog more on all of this later. Right now I am just getting ramped up.

David Snyder posted a very good article today on his blog that asks the question, what should come first (SEO or Site Usability)? David then goes on to try and answer this question or at least provide his opinion on the subject. It is a lengthy post, Dave please go give your wife and kids a visit before they forget who you are, but definitely worth a read as well as a plug on any social site you may belong to.

My opinion on the matter is that in general I would give the slight edge to SEO. If you can get people to your site, unless usability is really atrocious, you will succeed. Now you may have both good SEO and good usability and still fail, your offering may just not be good enough to put it nicely. SEO will help get first timers to your site, usability will keep them coming back.

Here is an excerpt from Dave’s post:

It is the chicken before the egg of the online industry.

Which comes first usability or SEO?

Designers and developers often take one stance on the issue, and SEOs another. I am not sure there is a right or wrong answer. Despite how many in our industry present information the only way we can quantify any degree of success in what we do is by measuring how profitable a web property is (I know not all websites operate for revenue, but who cares about them?).

Profitable sites have been built without sound search engine optimization.

Profitable sites have been built with poor usability.

Neither of these points can be argued.