Flash Hurting Ranking?

[nomayo]

I have a flash header at the top of my site
http://www.ejfloridavillarentals.com

could this be hurting my search engin ranking on Yahoo?

I'm trying to get listed with these keywords
florida villa rental, sunset lakes, orlando florida, pool villa, gated community

But I'm having no luck. I may have done some things when I first started working on the site like small text and some keywords that weren't in the body of my site, or keyword density was too high. I've been using IBS4. Could I pentalized for those things?

Thanks for taking the time to view my message
Brandon

[bhartzer]

Having a "flash leader" on your page will not hurt your rankings. As long as the search engine have some text on the page to work with, you won't have a problem.

You are, however, going after very competitive keyword phrases, and I don't think any of the on-page factors will help you out-rank the competition. You'll need a lot of links to compete, so that should be your focus (after you have the on-page content there on your site and you've done some basic on-page optimization).

For example, the number one ranking site in Google for "florida villa rental" currently has over 1160 backlinks. I currently only see one for your site (although you may actually have more).

I'm not familiar with IBS4, but from what I can tell it looks like a link farm or a link scheme--I would stay far away from it. You can get your site banned for participating in link farms and link schemes.

[nomayo]

Thanks for the advice, I actually meant IBP4(internet business promoter 4) what it does is actually takes the top ten sites for the keywords that I put in and tells you the keyword densitiy for those sites and how many links they have going to them.

I'm using a program called ARELIS to find link partners. I'm not letting the program automatically link me to other sites I'm reviewing each site and only asking certain ones that have relevance to me for links.

[jackit_chick]

You should worry about your google rankings WAY before you worry about your yahoo rankings. Are you ranking well on google? 54% of people use Google tp search as of July 2004 and only 41% use Yahoo. So Yahoo is important, but Google also seems to be more fair with their page ranking from what I've seen.
Jennifer
www.jackit.com

[DrTandem1]

Travel sites are having a devil of a time getting listed in Google. A Flash header probably doesn't hurt your ranking, but it certainly doesn't help it. I have found that the less animation, of any type, the better your site will do.

Besides, why are you taking up valuable screen real estate with a pointless animation? Those three statements could have been better used as actual static text with bullets.

Your site is only four monts old. You'll need about two more months before a PR will be displayed on Google. There are about a gazillion sites with the same theme as yours. Breaking through with the keywords you have selected will take a lot of time and a lot of links pointing to your site.

Hoping that your site will be found by paying visitors using search engines is about as fruitful as finding a winning lottery ticket anywhere. Well, the odds aren't that bad, but you get the idea.

Good job on not just linking willy-nilly. However, rather than use a program to do the dirty work, you need to roll-up your sleeves and get busy. Get some articles published about your business and what it offers with the links built into the article. Don't neglect traditional advertising. Even if you were #1 in Google and Yahoo, it isn't a guarantee that your site will make you any money.

I'm not quite sure what the "EJ" means. Is that for Ellen and Jim? Not to be picky, but if that is the case, I would have called it something different and shorter. I count 21 letters in your second level domain name. I mention this not in regards to search engines, but humans. I strongly recommend you find a short, easy to remember name staying in the .com top domain. Do this now, before changing it becomes a real nightmare after your site becomes established.

Good luck.

[flashfast]

I have a flash header too http://www.flashfast.com and I am 1st on Yahoo for my main keyword phrase, 1st on MSN and 8th on Google.

[GreatFamilyRentals]

Hi Brandon:

You have a nice site, but as is the challenge with many individual property owners that have their own sites, it's time consuming and expensive to get noticed.

And that is where --no self-promotion please - url removed -- can help you...

(self-promotion edited by moderator)

The other posters are right about incoming links.

(url removed)

Best of luck,

Dave

[jstarkweather]

Hi Brandon:

You have a nice site, but as is the challenge with many individual property owners that have their own sites, it's time consuming and expensive to get noticed.

The other posters are right about incoming links.
Best of luck,

Dave


LOL....sometimes I get the idea that everyone is posting here for marketing and link popularity expousure.

The flash is hurting you. Why? Because the 4 or 5 thinngs you have running in the flash would benefit you more as bulleted items in the header. Better yet you could link them to something and then get postitive link association for terms like "Disney".

Sure the Flashie's will say that Google is now scanning flash files for text content (and I am in no way anti-flash as I use it myself), but the long and short of it is that your site needs every click-thru it can get (vs a site that MUST impress via a flash design, like a web designers site, in order to make sales).

Cheers,
Jim

[urknighterrent]

I kinda wish the search engines weren't trying to read flash. I like having a space at the top of the page I can work with without worrying about keywords and density and all. Oh well.

I disagree big time with Jackit Chik. Optimize to yahoo first. The optimization is much more content oriented and therefore easier, cheaper, quicker, and more in the designers control than optimizing to Google. Ok, you only get half the quality traffic google sends you. So what? You're up on page 1 in 8 weeks. At least you're getting some traffic while you're optimizing for google, which is a MUCH more expensive and time consuming process. All that pesky content won't hurt you with google.

[Manpasand]

IMO flash header doesn't hurt the ranking but flash intro does.

[urknighterrent]

Ouch. OK, your page title bites. Try:

Orlando, FL: Florida Villa Rental: Pool, Gated Comunity

For keywords try:
florida villa rental, sunset lakes, orlando, florida, pool villa, gated community, gated, pool, villa, disneyworld, FL

Your page is nice, but not well optimized. Your keywords don't appear often, and not at all in headers or text links. There's no keyword rich opening and closing paragraph. Alt tags good, but the engines only check the first three so concentrate the primary keywords (the ones in the page title) in your first three alt image tags.

DO NOT REMOVE YOUR LOCATION FROM YOUR PAGE TITLE. If you try to compete on these terms without also optimizing to your location you're going to get creamed.

You only have 25 words to wow the algo on your opening paragraph. Don't waste them on "Click image for more photos." Thats 5 words gone and not a single keyword. Integrate that text into the graphic.

Good luck.

[divicohen]

I agree about the flash intro, I used to have it on http://divinemoving.com my ranking were lost.. you couldn't find me even if you want to...
after removing the intro and a few small changes I was indexed quite good... Thanks to my SEO,,,

I do miss the intro but I prefer the visitors...

[nomayo]

Ouch. OK, your page title bites. Try:

Orlando, FL: Florida Villa Rental: Pool, Gated Comunity

For keywords try:
florida villa rental, sunset lakes, orlando, florida, pool villa, gated community, gated, pool, villa, disneyworld, FL

Your page is nice, but not well optimized. Your keywords don't appear often, and not at all in headers or text links. There's no keyword rich opening and closing paragraph. Alt tags good, but the engines only check the first three so concentrate the primary keywords (the ones in the page title) in your first three alt image tags.

DO NOT REMOVE YOUR LOCATION FROM YOUR PAGE TITLE. If you try to compete on these terms without also optimizing to your location you're going to get creamed.

You only have 25 words to wow the algo on your opening paragraph. Don't waste them on "Click image for more photos." Thats 5 words gone and not a single keyword. Integrate that text into the graphic.

Good luck.

Thanks, I'm going to try out your suggestions with the page title and the key words and I agree with you on the "Click image for more photos" text. I've been thinkging about getting rid of that for awhile. Thanks for all of the valuable info.

[ivr]

My site has a flash header as well as lots of small flash inclusions in the html pages and I am fortunate in being number one on most of the main search engines, under warragul
http://www.warragul.au.bz
Isnt flash great.....lol ( I use swish to make the flash file)
I guess its just because there are so many florida businesses?
Ivr

[Gary Allman]

I know your question was about Flash, and to answer that first, I don't think it'll make any difference. However, I guess your query was prompted by not achieving high enough rankings.

It's a nice clean looking site, here's some more suggestions on the Search Engine Optimisation:

Use h1 tags on your headings, and use your keywords /phrases more. What about 'Florida Villa Reservations' instead of just 'Reservations'for example? There's a lot more you could do to increase your chances, just by adding more text, Add links to local attractions with a keyword laced description of each?

The whole photo section is an opportunity to insert keywords in the alt text, heading text and page title text, and add a little bit of decriptive text too. Also re-name the images with more descriptive names so that they come up in image searches.

Finally, I'd drop the tables from the code - but that's just me.

Gary,
Portsmouth UK

[moyondizvo]

Can someone give me a hint on how I can make my site avalaible on different search engines. Preferably using html. Just a small syntax for example search for "peanuts" and are searches case sensitive.

[DrTandem1]

moyondizvo, I will answer your questions, but first, let me talk about SEO for Google vs. Yahoo. No one outside of those respective companies knows what actually drives their search results. Trying to optimize for either is missing the point. Your web site is for your visitors, not the search engines.

There are things you can do to make it more search engine friendly, but those things should be secondary to your visitor. Getting visitors to your site from either of these search engines does not guarantee you anything. If they don't find your site useful, they will leave.

SEO is unnecessary. Let me say that again, SEO is unnecessary. I will use my favorite real-world example to prove my point. Go to either Google or Yahoo a search for "diamond ring" minus the quotews. The site that will be number one or close to it on both engines is:

http://www.adiamondisforever.com/

Look at the source code. Not only has this site not been "optimized", but the code is a mess as well. How is it so high in the results? Links from other sites. Link building should not be confused with SEO. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to swap links with appropriate sites. That's another subject. So, stop worrying about keyword placement, saturation, prominence, etc. Focus on your visitors.

Now, onto your questions. Your site, if it is on the internet, is already available to the search engines. As long as you haven't blocked the robots with a meta tag telling them not to index/follow, they will come. To speed things along you can submit to Google here:

http://www.google.com/addurl.html

And Yahoo here:

http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request

Now that's not too difficult, is it? Before submitting, be sure your site is functioning properly with regards to links and such.

Using your example, "peanuts", you must focus on what visitors will find on your site with regards to peanuts. If it's peanut butter, say so in the title of the home page. If you have images of peanuts, be sure to use the alternative text attribute for the image tag, in case visitors have slow connections or images disabled. So, an image of peanut butter would say "Peanut butter" when they cursor over it with IE. You can do the same with a title attribute for Mozilla browsers.

Regarding meta tags, most agree that the keyword meta tag is not used by search engines to the extent it once was. However, I would still use a brief list of keywords relating to peanuts. Your description meta tag is used by some search engines as a synopsis of your site for the searcher. Therefore, make sure that this is written as a brief description about peanuts on your site, not another list of keywords.

Your navigation (links) to internal pages of your site and/or external sites should be related to peanuts. After all, your visitors came for "peanuts", they should find all they want about peanuts at your site. You should then visit other related sites and find a way to get them to link to your site. The most popular way is by trading links. Another very good way is to write content relating to peanuts and make it available to other sites in exchange for a link to your site.

Don't get bogged down in the technicalities. Just make sure your site is designed for who?...That's right, the visitor.

[aperey]

I think the site is very attractive and easy to navigate. I do have some questions.

1. Probably the most urgent questions is whether the photos are attractive enough. To me, your photographs of the villa seem very dark and lightless. Florida has beautiful sunlight and beautiful moonlight, and your photos should be, in my opinion, brighter and warmer in tone. The tone is gray and cool. My screen is one that displays color very brightly. In my opinion you should really check the color.

2. The flash display moves very slowly as it changes from one phrase to the next three times. I would prefer something faster and more arresting visually.

3. On first impression, your text is awkward and hard to read. You don't hypenate quite a number of compound adjectives that are usually hyphenated. For example "four bedroom" and not "four-bedroom" -- "screened in" and not "screened-in" -- "a large open plan great room" instead of "a large open-plan, great room" I'm not saying your should start hypenating right and left, but consider how best to say what you want to say. Hypenation can be a matter of taste, I suppose, but check with the Chicago Style Book. And most of all, think about what would be most readable to people who visit your site--especially your very first sentences.

Best regards,
Aperey