How to SEO your PDF files?

PDF stands for Portable Document Format and is an internationally accepted format for managing documents online. The chances are that if you have a website and distribute Word format documents or Power Point presentation they are in a PDF format. If it’s not the case, I strongly recommend converting these docs into PDF. One of the main reasons is that PDF SEO will give you advantage in improving traffic from search engines.

Why optimize (SEO) your PDF files?

A *.pdf file is considered a piece of content that Google indexes in its database. PDF file is like a webpage that you can find in Google SERPs. Here’s an example of a PDF search snippet:

If Google treats PDFs as pages, then these pages get a chance in rankings, and as a result, play an important role in getting more traffic to your website.

Another reason to optimized you PDF files is that it’s a piece of content that you can benefit from. Why leave it sitting there un-optimized? Some of the clients I’m working with don’t have much page content, but they do have a lot of PDF files (press releases, product documentation, white papers, etc.). Optimizing PDF files gives them additional volume of page content, and a new search engine traffic opportunity.

Let’s look at things to keep in mind when optimizing your PDF file for SEO performance. Please note that you will notice a lot of references to “keywords”. Yes, keyword research has to be done prior to optimizing your files. This will allow you to better target the elements and content of your PDF files.

PDF SEO: filename

As with page’s file names (i.e. seo-guide.html), PDF file names are important. Make sure your PDF filename is descriptive and contains keywords. For example, if you’ve written an ebook “A simple guide to internet marketing”, a good filename will be: simple-guide-internet-marketing.pdf.

PDF SEO: file location

In order for Google to grab the information about the file the search bot will need to access the PDF file on your server. If your PDF file is located in a deeper folder (i.e. /marketing/presentations/ebooks/internet/F7H643/file.pdf) it will take longer for Google search bot to access the file, and check back on file changes in the future. So, make sure your file is located in a 2-3 directory deep structure (i.e. /files/simple-guide-internet-marketing.pdf OR /files/guides/simple-guide-internet-marketing.pdf).

Also, keep in mind that in order for Google bot to discover your PDF file, you need to create a link to this file on an already indexed page. This way the bot will find the file by following the link to it.

PDF SEO: meta properties

Just as a regular document a PDF file has meta information that is used by Google to 1) check the relevancy, 2) build your search snippet. If the meta information is clear and concise, you will end up with traffic and beautifully looking search snippet. Here’s an example of filed you need to complete in the meta of your PDF files:

The same rules for meta development apply here: Short but descriptive title, 2-3 key phrases just in case and use the Subject field to write an alternative version of your document. Make sure all of those fields have your target keywords in them.

PDF SEO: on-page recommendations

Again, as with regular web page, make sure you follow the key rules of on-page optimization of your PDF. When preparing the PDF, make sure you use Headings (Heading 1, 2, 3) for important information. Also, ensure your images have all the appropriate meta information. I’d recommend using MS Word 2010 to work on your docs. You can add a lot of (read as various) meta data to your files, then save it as a PDF file.

Your document will also benefit by in-text links. Links should be both document-internal (anchoring to certain pages in the document) and document-external (pointing to other pages on your website). Make sure your PDF files include your contact information, if applicable. This way your readers will have an easier time connecting with you as a result of reading your document.

In conclusion, whatever you have, case study, ebook, white paper, press release, it will likely be in a PDF format. PDFs are indexed by Google just like pages. And having your PDFs SEO optimized will increase search engine traffic and an additional opportunity to connect with your audience online.

Can I provide you with specific recommendation on your PDFs?

Website SEO: Maintenance, step 7

Once your site has a solid base: clear understanding of your product and the audience, strong keywords, proper SEO implementation, etc. it’s much easier to build on it. This article is about being consistent when we talk about online marketing and SEO.

Content development

Content development is about creating original and fresh content. This is exactly what shows search engines that your site is growing, contributing to the universe. This should be the key element of your SEO maintenance strategy. A few things to note:

• Articles frequencies: frequency of new content is important. Often it does not matter how what the time interval between updates is, as long as it’s regular (i.e. weekly articles is usually a good way to start). Once you’re comfortable with this frequency (and you start getting returning visitors for new portions of knowledge), you can start increasing the frequency to twice a week, three times a week and daily articles.
• Article length: there are many different perspectives on it. The average number of words in a good article varies from 400 to 700. Make sure it’s not too long (people have different reading behaviours online as opposed to reading books, magazines and newspapers). Make sure it’s long enough to convey your points with an intro, body and conclusion sections.

Content distribution

Once your article is written, it’s time to get it distributed. Yes, Google will eventually pick up on new content. However, distributing your articles once they are written make your content index even faster (usually within a matter of minutes / hours). There’s a few things that will help you:

• Ping services: ping is kind of like a “poke” on Facebook. It’s about letting search engines know that you’ve got new content. There are many services (paid and free) that will ping search engines for you. Here’s a list of ping sites I use in my WordPress. This ensures that every time there’s a post, a ping is sent to all those 40+ services. To learn more about pinging Google: ping services.
• Share + bookmark: If you’re using Wordress to produce and manage your articles like I do, you should have a AddToAny plugin installed. This plugin adds sharing / bookmarking button to the end of your articles. This way readers can save / bookmark or share the article for later review or to share with friends. Other blogging platforms should also have similar plugins. If you don’t have a blog platform like Wordress, Joomla, etc. you can use their non-plugin service at AddToAny. I use this sharing button to manually bookmark and share my new articles with the network of my social profiles.
• Online press releases: There is a few different services aimed at distributing your press releases online (PRWeb, Marketwire, Google: online pr distribution for more options). Your PR release is your new article. Before sending it in, make sure you follow all the guidelines (usually on a vendor website) as well as keep an eye on proper anchor formats to get the most out of those releases. This way of distribution will not only get you indexed fast but also will generate a number of links to your site. And, as a bonus, if your article gets published in a quality publication, you get the bragging rights.
• Guest posts are a good practice to have. Pick a few sites / blogs in your area of expertise, ask if you can send them your weekly articles. They’re usually looking for content and will be happy to feature yours. Then, start sending your articles to them on weekly basis. Not all of them will get published but the ones that do will be worth it. IMPORTANT: make sure each of your articles includes properly anchored link to your site.

Link building

Link building has to be periodic. It’s not enough to bulk-link-build in the beginning. It’s about gaining authority with search engines and the process is continuous. Search engines need to see that there’s consistent increase in the number and quality of sites linking back to you over a period of time. That is why gradual link building is much more important than one time. There’s a few things you can do here:

• Engage in link bait: Link bait is about creating quality content on your sites in hopes that the community finds it useful and starts linking back to it. In other words link bait is creating link-worthy content. There are a few things that characterize a good link bait article.
• Read and participate: As you read industry periodicals make sure you share your opinion (if you have one of course, don’t just leave a comment for the sake of link building, they will get deleted) and engage in conversation on blogs. Ensure that every time you leave a quality comment you get a quality credit in a form of a good anchor.
• Hire a link builder: I know, this is controversial. And many SEOs will disagree with this. Although I’m a firm believer in quality link building through articles and community participation, I still think that the number growth in links matters. At the end of each month I’m tracking both links I generated as a result of my community engagement as well as links that were generated for me by a lower cost provider. Time and experimentation will tell, but for now let’s leave it at that.

Website analytics

Analytics is super important, especially in the age of it being so affordable through Google Analytics. Establish goals (usually done at step 5 of my process. Use Google Analytics to check how you did this month. Make adjustments to your efforts as needed. Sometimes it’s better to leave things as they are for another reporting period. Some results may take time to show.

A few other things:

• Avoid drastic changes to your site structure (category / directory changes, page name changes)
• Read SEO resources to stay up to date on the industry of search engine marketing

This concludes my 7-step SEO process. I hope it was helpful in defining the key stages of SEO for your new website. One thing to remember: it’s all about creating quality content consistently. I encourage you to comment and add your observations to each of the articles in this series.