We’ve been talking a lot about blogging lately but now it’s time to shift gears for a bit. Today Cal Coast Web Design would like to talk to you about PDF’s and how they fit into the scheme of things, optimization wise. Most of us have had experiences either reading/opening a PDF file while others may have actually created their own at some point. For those of you who may be unaware of what a PDF file is, essentially its a document, much like one you could create in Word, or any other text editor but PDF’s differ from other types of text files in that they are for the most part uneditable.
There are a number of websites live today that utilize the PDF format for purposes of delivering information to you, the visitor or customer. Typically these files contain forms, graphics, links, and other important information related to the business and/or website they are found on. PDF files are generally accessed by standard text links from various parts of a website.
However when it comes to search engine optimization and the PDF format there is a few things you as a website, owner need to be aware of, as to avoid possible pitfalls down the line. First and foremost, search engines do read PDF files and so these eventually get indexed as part of your website. Using PDF’s instead of a standard html based page can cause a problem however because the majority of the time PDF’s don’t contain the navigation menu that your website does you lose the opportunity to give your visitors a way back to your website. Though PDF’s can be created to house graphics and the like they generally contain just basic text and may therefore become tedious to read. A lack of Calls To Action can turn a visitor off, no matter how important the information in your file may be.
If you do opt to utilize PDF’s you’ll want to remember to do two very important things. The first being, provide your users with a page that has a downloadable printable PDF document and secondly, use a no follow tag when linking to your PDF’s so that the search engines don’t see your site as having duplicate content. Following these tips can keep you from slipping in search engine results.
Should you have any questions about this please contact us so that we can assist you further.
