We all know the expression don’t put the cart before the horse. Frankly there are more times we should think about that than we actually do. Most of us humans tend to get excited and shot out of a cannon when we decide to start a new idea and therefore try and swallow it whole or put the proverbial cart before the proverbial horse. The irony is both the cart and the horse are valuable and useful tools.

The same principles apply to those of us tackling the Internet arena. For those of us starting or maintaining a web business we need to be careful we don’t get ahead of ourselves. Sometimes less is more. And there will be other times that it is time for more. We are going to apply this mindset to web design and the fancy shmancy flash web graphics.

Flash first appeared as Macro media in 1996. It is now more commonly known as Adobe Flash. It is a multimedia platform. It is very diverse in its applications. Due to its capability it is a favorite with web designers into animation and interactivity uses. Advertisers tend to prefer this kind of media because of all the bells and whistles. In fact its uses go beyond the computer. It has application in cell phones, games, movies and any other embedded doohickeys.

Basically it allows the simultaneous application of images, audio/video streams, and all kinds of graphics going on to “blow up” your design. It truly is eye pleasing and stunning, which is another reason why web designers love it. It is satisfying to put a site together and see the results of the Flash software.

If you have built your web business to a high level, then by all means it is time to consider a web design using the Adobe Flash. But don’t forget the horse always comes first.

Yes, flash is great but flash is also cash. As in it can be costly to have a professional web design put together with it. And there is no guarantee that the web designer knows as much about search engine marketing and optimization as he does design. That can be trouble right here in River City. “Oh boy I have breathtaking web page and no one knows about it” is what you will be saying. That is because sometimes there is a lot of cart and no horse.

Never forget every web site needs to have SEO friendly components. Starting with the old star of the show: content. If you go ahead and build a masterpiece of a web page and leave out the SEO components it may cost you some mucho dinero to fix the “over flashed” showpiece. Sometimes it can be deceiving too. There may appear to be adequate content in the form of text only to find out later that the “state of the art” flash font is unreadable by search engine keyword finders.

A common mistake is text is buried in images which even Google has warned web masters and designers of in the past. This is also the spot in the article where I remind you that many people still use dial up or DSL connections. An over flashed web page is going to get “lost in translation” meaning it isn’t going to load up in a large percentage of homes and businesses. The rule of thumb is if 5 seconds go by without a site appearing, “the feces have hit the oscillating blades”.

“Okay, I’ll forget the flash! Are you happy now?” some of you are thinking. No, flash is mega cool and there will likely come a time when it can be productive and beneficial. Just never forget the horse always should be in the front of the cart.

The general consensus among the web “hierarchy” is appropriate splash of flash and an abundance of good ole textual SEO friendly content.

We all square here? The horse’s name is SEO friendly content and the cart is called Flash. The floor is now yours.

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