Flash and heavy image websites may look good, they often do. But how effective are they? Not as effective as you may think. Most people think once a website is created it is going to found by everyone on the internet. They couldn’t be more wrong. This article will talk about why HTML is a key to a website and its success.

HTML is the only language search engines can understand, anything else is like a foreign language. Search engines cannot read flash. They cannot read JavaScript. They cannot read images. That is why you are going to want to find a web designer who is going to be able to create a strong based HTML website.

Now I am not saying that if your website is heavy in flash, JavaScript and images it’s not going to be found. You still have you Meta tags, you did remember those right? Search engines work on keywords, word that people are going to use when finding your website. If you have read my article on Better Goggle Rakings you will be familiar on this, if not, I would suggest reading that next. If your website was developed in flash, you will still have the Meta tags working for you, but those can only take you so far. Websites that are heavy or well balanced in content are better. When a website is made in flash the text is imbedded in the flash file, the swf or it is loaded externally. It is not directly in/on the page for the search engines to find. Same goes with JavaScript and images. With images you have a little lead way, the alt tag. For those of you who are unfamiliar with HTML code, the alt tag is what you code into an image. So when you hover over an image, you will see the popup with the title written in it. But if you content is on the image, forget about getting a good ranking. A general rule of thumb, websites should have about 200 words of content, rich with keywords and unique content.

HTML is great and all, but there are a few things it cannot do for you. Animations, sometimes good, but are often used wrong. Floating menus, animated menus and drop down menus. Again, these can look very good if done well, but they are invisible to search engines. Links are a big thing to them too, search engines love to see a lot of links, incoming and outgoing to websites. If you are linked with websites of a higher page rank thank you is can be better for you and help your page rank. Now with that said here are some things that HTML will give you that other languages cannot. Keyword related navigation, again, back to the links. The links on your website should relate into what they are taking you too. Sounds obvious huh? You wouldn’t believe the amount of links I have seen taking me somewhere else other than what the menu said. Real text; keyword rich, unique content that will bring your customers to your page along with good page rank from Google. Lastly, with HTML, the page is your canvas, free to do anything you want and still have it be effective enough for your customers to be able to navigate you site.

So what’s a website with out any images? Not a whole lot in my opinion. But you just said websites shouldn’t have images on them. Wrong. I said that a website with heavy imagery is not always good. Take my website for instance, images all around you, but the pages are balance with my content, content that is keyword rich. So read some tutorials on Photoshop, slice it up and put some quality content in it and you should have a pretty effective website. Just keep in mind all of the above. Websites that look stunning are not always a good thing. Your website should look good, but it should be effective and smooth for the user to navigate through.

Having your website created by me will not only guarantee you a strong design and strong functionality. It will rank well in Google, keep your customers coming back and they will not be getting them lost in the navigation.

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