Beacon Technologies Proves You Can Have It All
GREENSBORO, NC - So, you've done it-you've launched your spanking-new Website and it's sharp. Eye-catching graphics and animations splash across the screen and product videos roll seamlessly in small windows making visitors stop and pay attention. Thanks to "flash" technology, your visually rich Web site has turned out to be everything you wanted it to be. So why isn't your content showing up in the search results? Why does visitor activity look strange? And why do content changes cost so much?
It's an oft-repeated realization, due to built-in limitations with "flash." Embedded content simply cannot be "seen" by the search engines and instead, goes overlooked. This flash faux-pas leaves businesses with a difficult decision - use flash animation to better attract and engage users, or build a more traditional site that maximizes search engine visibility and simplifies content management?
Beacon Technologies, a technology firm based in Greensboro, NC, has made significant progress in solving this challenge - a proprietary method which allows the content contained in flash-heavy Web sites to be dynamic and independent of the flash program that runs it. In addition, it's hooked into a third-party Content Management System (CMS) product configured in Google Analytics to track user actions effectively and get this-it even facilitates search engine optimization efforts. (Talk about the perfect combo of beautiful and smart.)
The 10-year-old company has proven the technique in the redevelopment of its own Web site, www.beacontechnologies.com. Beacon's flash-heavy site consistently ranks in Google's top five for a variety of very competitive terms including "website development," "ecommerce development" and "website analytics consultants."
"We've faced this challenge again and again - our clients want engaging movement and animation without sacrificing visibility, trackability and maintainability. We finally realized that if this problem was going to be addressed, we wanted to be the ones to do it," said Mark Dirks, Beacon President and CEO. "Our programmers and designers put their heads together, had a lot of a-ha moments and were able to develop an elegant solution that we believe is rare in the world of Web development."
Others in the know have noted Beacon's innovation including Chris Armistead, Product Coordinator at Hannon Hill and the makers of Beacon's preferred content management system, Cascade Server. Armistead posted the following comment on Beacon's blog about a related topic, "Beacon's all-flash site is a great example of some of the more innovative and cutting-edge things that people are doing with Cascade's capabilities."
Justin Klingman, Beacon Senior Web Designer and CMS guru, says, "We are using our engineering expertise to push the limits, to be pioneers in what is quickly becoming a Flash Frontier on the Web." Beacon's development team stresses the importance of good up-front planning with flash to keep cost down. "Allowing our customers to update their own content within their flash presentations saves them a ton of money. The alternative is to have a flash developer change it every time," says Klingman.
Beacon realizes this is just the tip of the iceberg. The first step was developing flash-heavy websites without damaging analytics and search engine rankings. Now, dynamic content makes flash presentations more flexible, easier and less costly for users to update. It also gives the search engine spiders some "food" to chew on. "Up until now, we have focused on injecting user-managed static content into flash," says Dirks. "Obviously, our next challenge is to give our customers control over more animated content." Want to see another example of an all-flash site controlled entirely by CMS? Check out the Cogent Research site at www.cogentresearch.com, which is an all-flash site controlled entirely by CMS.
About Beacon Technologies
Greensboro-based, Beacon Technologies is a firm that specializes in helping clients automate, showcase and grow their business through the Internet. Beacon showcases clients' Web sites through creative design and makes them simple-to-use with content management solutions. Beacon's dual roles as a licensed Google Analytics Authorized Consultant and Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant and having a variety of Internet marketing services helps customers see their businesses grow. Beacon also develops web applications to automate businesses. Learn more at www.beacontechnologies.com.
