Tips for optimizing PDF files for Search Engines

Mar 17, 2008 | 6,056 views | by Navneet Kaushal
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In a recent development, Yahoo has finally released its ads for Adobe PDF service. PDF is an amazing way to publish content. But in order for search engines to find them, you would need to optimize them. So here are a set of basic tips offered by Marketing Sherpa that will make sure that your PDFs can be indexed by Google. However, before you get started make sure that you have the recent version of Acrobat, add meta-data, divide large files etc.

Optimization Tips for PDF:

Text Identification

In order to identify the text in an image in Acrobat, you would need to run OCR(character recognition) after opening your image-based PDF. Then go to the document menu, where it will scan the document and translate the image-text into text. You can then even edit the text according to your search engine optimization requirements.

Dividing the larger files

Dividing a large PDF file, into many smaller files would make it easier for the search engines to easily find your web page. By specifying your files, you can reduce the PDF download time, while you have the choice of opting for broader range of search keywords.

Optimize your PDF copy

After you have indexed the text PDF for search engines, you should also optimize the text with SEO techniques. Use specific keywords for the PDF and use them in the PDF text headlines, subheads and copy.

Discard duplicate content

You should be aware that the search engines simply hate duplicate content. So why bring the wrath of the search engines on you. Therefore, you should either alter one of same content that you have on the site, or delete it all together. Also, another option would be using proper meta tags. As it can prevent the search engines from indexing one of the pages.

Adding metadata

Another PDF technique would be adding text related Metadata. It would describe your file to the search engines and the search engines would use these information to index your page.

Adding links

In Acrobat PDFs you can add links, so that the customers can have a look at the product and can even add it to their shopping cart if they are interested.

Add your company footer

A company footer would include your company’s name, address, contact information and website link. You can add these information to every PDF to facilitate searches for your business.

Optimizing links to the PDF

In order to convince, the search engines that your content is relevant, your website should have a display text containing the text specific keywords.

Also, read another article about, Higher Ranking with SEO for PDF.

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Navneet Kaushal

About the author:

Navneet Kaushal, CEO PageTraffic is a trusted authority in the search engine marketing industry. He is a featured author at Web Pro News, Search Newz, Promotionworld, Website Notes, DevWebPro, SEO Article and Web Help Now among many others. Follow Navneet Kaushal on Google +.

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

Bob Weaver March 17, 2008 at 17:46

Navneeet,

You mention metadata in your article. Is google abel to search the XMP?

Reply

SEO Consultant March 19, 2008 at 05:31

It would have been better if you could have managed to provide some screen shots of how to go about it. It would have been a great help for visitors trying to learn the tricks.

Reply

Austin Lawyer March 31, 2008 at 22:18

Including ads in pdf’s will open up a lot of options in the legal marketing field for 2 reasons: 1) We use a lot of pdf files and 2) we might be more willing to put an ad in a downloaded file while we are more hesitant to put ads on our main site. I just hope someone will come out with a good wordpress plugin to make this semi-automatic for posts, notwithstanding the duplicate post issues.

Reply

SEO Consultant April 1, 2008 at 07:43

I think Google has already opened up this point of ads on PDF.

Reply

Yiwu April 9, 2008 at 08:20

I think its a good case for PDF Seo,bookmarked.

Reply

yiwu-agent October 28, 2008 at 00:46

it is not good idear!

Reply

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