That is in essence what the search engines are seeing when you design a flash-only site. It is easy to be wowed by clever animations and beautiful photography, but today’s Web 2.0 standards call for functionality over design. In our current economy, with clients spending much less on traditional means to drive traffic to their site, it is even more important to capture and keep new customers with new technology marketing.
A well-designed, functioning site should contain social networking, blogs, RSS feeds, and backlinks to move it into the search engines’ view faster. How is this explained to yesterday’s client? In simplest terms, the squeaky wheel gets the most attention. The top search engines notice a site that has fresh content; a website that has myriad links tied to popular, well-known sites shows up frequently in searches.
So how do you marry functionality without losing the creative edge your company was founded on? It’s easier than you think. Step down from the “design only” role and step back into being a marketing strategist. Back links, blogs, and social networking are simply strategies – like plotting out a campaign of carefully placed billboards or choosing the right media vehicles. Think of links, blogs, and feeds as bait for the search engines and remember your primary goal. There are many other ways to wow your potential buyer once they are intrigued enough to take the bait.