Over the years, Flash-based websites have gotten a bad rap from website visitors, search engine optimizers and web designers who were more concerned with user usability than the aesthetic appeal of a website. In the past, the major problems that faced flash-based websites and their users:

• Flash-based websites, especially those comprised entirely of flash, were a SEOs worst nightmare - search engines couldn’t read flash files so the only on-page optimization that took place was in the domain name itself and within the title element.
• While flash-enabled browsers are the norm today, this wasn’t the case only a few years back. If you had flash-based website, your users would either have to install a plugin to view the flash file or they had to use a different web browser - this is about as user-unfriendly as a website can get.
• Flash-based websites require much more bandwidth than a static HTML website; even though broadband internet is prevalent today - there is still a large chunk of the world’s population relying on 512k internet connections and slower. The internet has given us the opportunity to have information at the push of a button - and many people don’t react favorably to a 30 second long “loading” screen.
• Website visitors generally like to control how links open - flash-based navigation links essentially take away this freedom by removing the “right click” menu and forcing visitors to view links as they’re programmed into the flash file.

Now, these are only a few of the problems that have faced flash-based websites, both in the past and even today. While the overall user-friendliness of flash hasn’t improved significantly over the years - there’s been a recent change in terms of flash and search engine optimization that may very well cause all of us to see a significant spurt in flash-based websites; like it or not - search engines now have the ability to read flash files.

Adobe lends a helping hand to Yahoo and Google

Search engines have been trying unsuccessfully to accurately read the contents of flash-based files for years, and recently Adobe has given Yahoo and Google the software they need to do just that. In essence, this move on Adobe’s part has the potential of opening up the floodgates for flash lovers; a move tantamount to giving web developers a green light to use flash to their hearts content while allowing said website developers to truthfully assert that flash is now “SEO friendly”.

Truth-be-told, this advancement in flash-search technology is for all intents and purposes a positive step forward. Website developers now have a way to integrate Flash into websites without losing the ability to optimize these types of websites for search engines, which really is beneficial as it may help quality websites with useful services to rise up in the SERP.  While we don’t deny that this is a move in the right direction - the effects of this advancement lead us to the most important question of all: will this move forward in flash-based website optimization cause a step back in terms of user-friendliness in the global marketplace? Only time will tell.

Ethical SEO should be a technique that:

1. Does more good than harm.
2. Remembers the dignity and rights of everyone who is involved.
3. Treats everyone who is involved fairly.
4. Looks out for the overall benefit of everyone who is involved.
5. Enhances the participant’s experience.

With this in mind, it is also important to clearly understand what is expected of both the Search Engines, the users and both the web page and its owner alike.

Some of the things that are expected of Search Engines include:

1. Return the most relevant resources based upon the keywords that are entered by the user.
2. Index and maintain an index of all of the different web pages that are online today.
3. Be honest about the links that they sponsor on their search results pages.

Some of the things that are expected of web pages and site owners include:

1. Provide relevant content for the user’s search.
2. Remain honest whenever changing the content or keywords.
3. Adhere to the Terms and Conditions that various Search Engines have laid out.

Some of the things that are expected of the users include:

1. They should only use those search engines that return relevant results on their results pages to do their web searching.
2. They should be at least somewhat aware of what is taking place on the Internet.
3. They should be fair whenever a case of minor mismatches in search results takes place. This should always be their attitude unless these mismatches appear to be done with malicious intent.

Search Engine Optimization is complicated because Search Engines do not want you to figure out how they work or how they rank web sites. This is important because otherwise everyone would be able to manipulate them in order to be able reach the top. This is also why Search Engines always update their algorithms.

What you need to do is remember what the basic reasons are for people to go to a web site. These include:

1. Entertainment
2. Information
3. It sells something that you need.

Ensuring that you have a site that people will want to go to will help you rank better with the Search Engines. Of course, if you have a specialized web site then there is probably already enough content for anyone who wants it. However, many pages of really good content will help you here. Plus, as you create more content people will want to return to your web site to see what you have written. They will then continue to return if they like what they see.

All of this has to do with on site SEO, meaning the steps that you take in order to optimize your web site from the inside out. This is important because every page of content will be indexed by the Search Engines and thus each one will have its own title and tags. This will in turn bring you a lot more traffic to your web site. So, yes, more content does mean better SEO for your web site.

1. Start by evaluating what your business is all about and what your business offers. Every service or product that you offer is a potential keyword.
2. Ask your customers for any feedback about their web site searching habits so that you know what keywords they tend to type into the Search Engines. You may want to offer a discount for completing a survey wherein you gather this information.
3. Research any competition that is in the same field as you to see what keywords they are using. Of course, you will need to research a lot of different competitors but herein you may be able to find keywords that you may not have previously thought of.
4. Use a keyword research tool. This will help you see how many times a certain keyword has been searched for by visitors.

1. Black Hat SEO’s (aka SEO spamming) goal is to heavily leverage technology in order to get fast results. This means quickly getting their web site to the top of the Search Engines, which quickly catch on and ban them.
2. White Hat SEO focuses upon building quality content. These web sites are built for people, not for the Search Engines, and the webmasters rely more upon content, combined with their marketing skills, to get them top results.  These webmasters understand that this is going to take time and so they do not rush the results and thus run absolutely no risk of being banned by the Search Engines.
3. Gray Hat SEO varies in its use of questionable tactics as well as the risks that they take. While some techniques may be frowned upon by the Search Engines, they are not necessarily against their rules. However, other techniques may be more risky and should be carefully considered before use.
   

Search Engines measure your web site’s credibility in terms of its perceived importance by other websites, which is shown whenever web sites link to your web site. Therefore, acquiring inbound links is vital to achieving a prominent position in the Search Engines. Of course, one-way links from reputable, relevant sites are where the real value lies.

Here are 6 factors that will enhance link quality:

1. The web site that is linking to you needs to be reputable. This is determined by Google’s Page Rank (a measure of incoming links) and Trust Rank (a measure that is based on human editorial opinion).
2. The relevance of the web page that is linking to you is also important. Therefore, you need to make sure that it is really appropriate for that web site to be linking to you.
3. The higher up your link is located on the page that is linking to you, the more valuable that link is.
4. There should not be a lot of outgoing links on the page that is linking to you.
5. You need to make sure that your link anchor text (the “clickable” phrase on the page that links to your site) is relevant and keyword-rich instead of simply saying something like “click here.”
6. You also need to vary your link anchor text. This will make your links look more natural, which Search Engines also like.

All of this needs to be done gradually and should point to more than just your web site’s home page so as to also increase your credibility.

There are 2 ways in which you can build links to your web site: by following a plan or haphazardly. Of course, the planned way is much more effective. This is because taking the haphazard route will not allow you to get as much work done as you would with some sort of a plan. Your plan can be as simple as deciding just how much time you are going to spend on link building, then making the most out of that time by being organized. This can be especially helpful once you learn just how much of a truly monotonous exercise link building can be.

Unfortunately, there is no one perfect way in which to go about building links.  Therefore, your best option is to focus on a different technique each day in order to give yourself some variety. For instance, on Mondays you may want to focus on blogs, on Tuesdays you could write a few articles, on Wednesday you could submit to directories, etc. Once you have this type of a schedule in place, it is a good idea to try to stick to it. Of course, when you first get started it is perfectly fine to simply say that you are going to spend 3 hours on Saturday working on building links to your web site. However, you will need to decide upon just what you are going to get done during those 3 hours.

After you have your plan it is simply a matter of working that plan. In doing so you may discover that your plan is not as effective as you may have thought, which is fine. You will just need to make some adjustments and keep going.

Whenever you are working with Search Engine optimization, there are 4 main points that you should pay special attention to:

1. You need to decide which key phrases to target by researching which words or phrases your target audience will search for. These keywords must then be incorporated into your title, description and content between 5 and 8 times within the editorial content that consists of between 200 and 400 words.
2. Your site’s structure needs to be set up so that it can be properly indexed. You also should not build your site completely out of graphics, flash, javascript or other such dynamic content.
3. Web sites that are difficult to navigate, slow to load or leave you wondering what it is about will not perform very well. So, make sure that the flow of information is both logical and intuitive.
4. Inbound links are a very important part of organic optimization but herein quality also matters more than quantity. Relevant links are more important than “junk” links are and if you get a lot of “junk” links you will look like you are abusing or spamming them. Some examples of “junk” links are links that come from link farms and free-for-all link pages.

While paid search advertising is growing in popularity, the need for unpaid optimization is growing because paid campaigns can only offer short-term exposure and you will want long-term results. Plus web sites that have unpaid optimization tend to offer users a more quality experience.