My SEO sucks!

[DJ Samson]

I didn't design my site and I'm not very good with html. Basically it is flash and it has a decent amount of content. I'm selling my book on the site but I'm worried people who here about it can't use the search engines to find my site.

Are there ways I can help my search engine results? They are extremely bad right now. And when I mean bad, I mean awful. Even when you type in my book name or my site domain it doesn't make the top of the list. People keep telling me to hire a professional or buy this $2,000 package - but I don't have enough money to do that. What can I do?

My sites address is Reclaiming The Crown - a new auto racing book

Thanks!

[JLeezer]

The fact that it is completely 100% flash makes it extremely difficult (if not impossible) for a search engine to index it. I would recommend having someone redesign it as a non-flash site. That would be your first, biggest step towards being indexed. Or, if you aren't great at HTML and don't have the funds to have it redesigned, start looking into a content management system such as Drupal or Joomla. Either of those are fairly easy to setup and incredibly easy to add to, edit, or remove content.

[OnTheWayUp]

The fact that it is completely 100% flash makes it extremely difficult (if not impossible) for a search engine to index it. I would recommend having someone redesign it as a non-flash site. That would be your first, biggest step towards being indexed. Or, if you aren't great at HTML and don't have the funds to have it redesigned, start looking into a content management system such as Drupal or Joomla. Either of those are fairly easy to setup and incredibly easy to add to, edit, or remove content.

I agree with the above. Give the customer the option to enter the site through flash or html.

[zharlene]

It's a flash site but not "100% flash". The text part of the site isn't in Flash so web crawlers should still be able to find the keywords.

I'd have to say that the design is not that effective. You've got lots of space in the site, you might want to consider having the "buy now" button on every page, especially since you're trying to sell that one book.

[JLeezer]

It's a flash site but not "100% flash". The text part of the site isn't in Flash so web crawlers should still be able to find the keywords.

It most certainly is 100% flash. If you look at the page source for his site, there is NO text that is found on the site. In flash, you can embed text in a scrollable object, as was done on his site. If you can't find something in the page source, neither can the search engines.

[HarveyJ]

There's pretty much nothing you can work with for internal SEO, as it is so Flash heavy.
Redesigning the site is going to cost you a bit as well.

This is why Flash is BAD web design... unless you're relying entirely on type-in traffic from people actually knowing the URL, or being directly linked, kiss goodbye to the idea of people stumbling onto it when looking for things in Google.

WITH THAT SAID, you can work on external (and maybe parasite) SEO.
Talk about your site in car racing forums.
Go to car racing blogs and see if the bloggers will write something up about your site.
Add buttons to it so that people can add it to their social media sites, like Digg & Reddit.

[veikoh]

If your site is 100% flash there is impossible to optimise your site for SEO, however you can still use:
1. Site page title tag to describe it on best keywords
2. Incoming links anchor text using keywords. So, start building links.

[DJ Samson]

Thanks for the advice guys!

I've been thinking for a while about my options. I own another domain name with my hosting package and I was thinking would it be possible for me to add all my content to this other site and make it search engine friendly? And then when people arrive to the site through the search engines I can put a huge image on the front to redirect traffic to my original flash site.

Would this work?

Thanks.

[HarveyJ]

If your site is 100% flash there is impossible to optimise your site for Search Engine Optimization, however you can still use:
1. Site page title tag to describe it on best keywords
2. Incoming links anchor text using keywords. So, start building links.

Actually, if you've got text boxes in Flash that reference external files for that text, it IS possible to insert code into them.
You'd do it so you don't have to update and rebuild the ENTIRE site everytime you wanted to do an update, and any Flash site worth it's salt and that has regular updates uses this particular method.

But I'm not sure if that still counts as the "100% Flash", as it IS referencing an external non-flash file

[Hooman]

Actually, I strongly disagree with the points made above. Just because it's flash doesn't mean it can't be optimized. Your #1 problem is you don't even have meta tags!

You can optimize a flash site. Nike.com is fully-flash (Nike.com), and so are a plethora of other media-intensive sites. In fact, there are many ways to optimize a flash-based site. I used to think you can't do it, it's impossible, but that's not the case.

How did you expect to optimize your site if you don't even have meta tags in place?? That's your first problem, and it has nothing to do with flash. Second problem is that you're using flash, unfortunately, for a site that does not need to be in flash. Now, there's nothing wrong with a fully-flash site, but why do it if you're more text-intensive?

You're using flash when you don't need to. It's poorly designed all around. If you want, I can design and develop a new site for you for free. No catch, I just feel like it. Your overall structure seems quite simple, and it wouldn't take me more than 5hrs anyway.

[sky777]

Well if a site is developed in flash thats not a problem for seo.You need to concentrate on simple basic things .
1) meta tags
2) Content of the site( where ever it used let it be 1 para)
3)try to buy text links or do some link exchange with good site with a better PR .
4)Do some directory submission
5) write some good articles and post it them to blogs .

Well any comments on my comment is not required if you dont like the method KICK UR AS>>>>

[Aletheides]

Dude, get rid of the flash site. Honestly, it's not really great anyway.

Start a $100 website layout contest Contests Forum and start from there.

[sdolinsky]

Actually, I strongly disagree with the points made above. Just because it's flash doesn't mean it can't be optimized. Your #1 problem is you don't even have meta tags!

You can optimize a flash site. Nike.com is fully-flash , and so are a plethora of other media-intensive sites. In fact, there are many ways to optimize a flash-based site. I used to think you can't do it, it's impossible, but that's not the case.

How did you expect to optimize your site if you don't even have meta tags in place?? That's your first problem, and it has nothing to do with flash. Second problem is that you're using flash, unfortunately, for a site that does not need to be in flash. Now, there's nothing wrong with a fully-flash site, but why do it if you're more text-intensive?

You're using flash when you don't need to. It's poorly designed all around. If you want, I can design and develop a new site for you for free. No catch, I just feel like it. Your overall structure seems quite simple, and it wouldn't take me more than 5hrs anyway.

Nike is also an internationally known brand name that gets traffic just from the name. If you own a company known like that, then go right ahead and make whatever "cool" site you want. But as long as you're relatively unknown, you can't afford to do those kind of things. Having a flash and a non-flash site is preferable. Personally, I always use the non-flash site...haha for example, the US Marine's website...without the non-flash version, I would be so confused where to go!

That's my two cents,
-Steve

[SerialEntrepreneurs.]

I didn't design my site and I'm not very good with html. Basically it is flash and it has a decent amount of content. I'm selling my book on the site but I'm worried people who here about it can't use the search engines to find my site.

Are there ways I can help my search engine results? They are extremely bad right now. And when I mean bad, I mean awful. Even when you type in my book name or my site domain it doesn't make the top of the list. People keep telling me to hire a professional or buy this $2,000 package - but I don't have enough money to do that. What can I do?

My sites address is Reclaiming The Crown - a new auto racing book

Thanks!

I tried the link in your post but the URL wouldn't load...have you thought about optimizing the web site yourself and than pay an HTML person hourly to implement - probabyl cost you $200 or less to have implemented into your site...this way you can learn about keyword research, writing title tags, meta's, etc and link building techniques.....I wrote an Internet Marketing book that makes it plain & simple for you.....best of luck

[HarveyJ]

Ironically, last week, Yahoo & Google announced that they've been secretly working with Adobe and the new version of Flash, coming out with CS3 updated pack and CS4, will be SEO compliant.

Bloody hell...