AJAX rich site? Good or Bad for marketing?

I'm currently developing a site similar to Google Docs. The site itself relies on javascript to do most everything. I'm just worried that I may loose a lot of visitors because of this.

Obviously developing a non-ajax version is out of the question, so how should I go about this?

What are the statistics of Javascript enabled browsers these days?

Should I make a browser specific tutorial on how to enable JS for people who have it turned off?

Thanks in advance!

 

Hey!

AJAX is great for marketing when it creates a user-friendly interface. However, when you code your site, you need to keep search engines in mind so that it will be able to serve the same content without JavaScript on. More info on SEO for AJAX.

 

i dont think that will hurt your seo . google and the other sites are also using ajax in their web sites. gmail is also full made with ajax too

 

Now how about the people with out javascript enabled?
Should I keep them in mind, or tell them to get up-to-date?

Rep to both of you, great insight.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about people without Javascript enabled. W3Schools.com gets a ton of traffic, and only 6% of their visitors didn't have Javascript enabled: http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

If you want to include a quick "How to enable javascript" to popup for those with it disabled, then I think you'd have all your bases covered.

 

Most users have JS enabled nowadays. You should plan for SEO instead.