Hello, my website is: http://www.onlineassistant2go.com I was wondering if anyone can give me advice or suggestions or opinions on my website to make it better? Thank you for taking the time to check my website out.

~ Rhonda

Rhonda,

I think you are off to a good start.

Have you thought about making your logo and tagline bigger? It seems a little lopsided with the intro, services, etc. on the left and your business information smaller on the right - also I would make titles more prominent.

Secondly, I would change the background to something more professional. I like the picture of you, but I wouldn't necessarily put it on your VA website. Are they scanned docs your resume? You can't see them very well. Also, you might consider adding headlines to your information so that the information can be easily read.

Developing your website is a heavy undertaking (I just finished mine) - kudos to you!

Hi Rhonda,

Cosmetically your website looks nice. I'm sure you spent many hours getting it just right. The problem is that the whole thing is done in flash. Search engines can't read flash. (not now anyway) Search engines operate by reading content (ie words) on pages. The more content you have, the better they can read it and index it. Also, you need new content on a regular basis so a blog would be good to have. Study the SEO section of this site. It's time well spent.

Honestly, I'm sorry to say this, but I suggest you redo your site and get it out of flash. From a business perspective you want your customers to find you and they won't be able to find you online if you use a flash based website. Each page of your source code shows no content on View Source. If it's not there, the search engines can't find it and index it. In the search engines results pages you risk ranking very low. Although using the right keywords in your title will help you I don't believe its enough to earn you a high ranking.

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Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Hi Rhonda,

I think it looks great but I agree with Shari that you want a search engine friendly site otherwise you are not going to generate business through SEO.

Otherwise it is fantastic! I love the design and the colors.

Deb

Hi Rhonda-

You've already gotten very good advise and I would also strongly suggest that you take they on board. I found all the flash to be distracting. I know that having to redo your site would be tough but it's very important to rectify the issues, especially if you want to use your website as a marketing tool.

All the best.

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Creative & Strategic Web Design Services
www.aivirtualsolutions.com

Does anyone know how to make a flash website SEO compatible, without changing the whole entire site??

Thanks for all the advice-I really appreciate that! I prefer not to switch my whole website, but I am hoping to somehow incorporate the flash and the SEO world into one.

Thank you!

~ Rhonda

Originally Posted by njusr

Does anyone know how to make a flash website SEO compatible, without changing the whole entire site?? Thanks for all the advice-I really appreciate that! I prefer not to switch my whole website, but I am hoping to somehow incorporate the flash and the SEO world into one. Thank you! ~ Rhonda

Hi Rhonda,

Unfortunately at this time, flash cannot be search engine friendly because the search engines can't read flash. If they can't read flash they can't index your site properly because they don't know what it's about.

I don't blame you for not wanting to redo your site. You don't have to. You can leave it as is. There are thousands of websites that are done in flash for various reasons. It's just "better" to have a text based website rather than a flash based website. It just means you might need to work harder at marketing your business over someone who doesn't have a flash based website. This is because websites not done in flash can easily be optimized for search engines. When a prospective client searches for, let's say, "virtual assistant" in the search engine the websites that will be shown to that person will be the websites that have been indexed by the search engines. Therefore, since search engines can't read flash, they cannot return your website high enough in the search results pages based on keyword search. In this way, a flash site is a hinderance to the owner.

However, you can optimize your flash website with title tags and that may help you get found. But, you'll still be at the bottom of the heap when it comes to ranking high in Google. (and since Google is the most used search engine it's the one we should pay particular attention to ranking for)

If you aren't able to redo your website right now, then leave it as it is. The truth is that we all redo our websites eventually and when the time comes for you to redo yours you might want to consider doing it without flash.

At any rate, do your best to get your name out there and spend a lot of time driving traffic to your website through other means besides keyword search. You can drive traffic to your site by writing articles, blogging, commenting on other blogs, PPC ads, social networking etc.

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Shari Sultana
Online Business Manager (marketing for retail ecommerce)

Actually, to a degree, this issue with Flash and SEO has been remedied quite a while ago - check out this thread for more info

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Tess,

Thanks for bringing this PR article to our attention. This will put a lot of minds at rest in regards to using Flash.

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Creative & Strategic Web Design Services
www.aivirtualsolutions.com

I have a flash site as well because I like the look of it.

What I would change on your website is the black font on dark background as I first had trouble even finding your buttons.

And the buttons on the menu don't line up. Make sure they line up and look tidy.

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Heike Miller
www.heikemiller.com