As with almost any document on the web these days, pdf’s are “readable” by search engines. No you’re not going to gain top results from a pdf only site but you are probably losing out on traffic if you’ve not optimized your pdf’s. So how does this work?

As with any document you should properly use header tags, H1, H2, H3 and optimize the body text as you would an html file. Once you’ve distilled the document, bring it into a full version of Adobe Acrobat (6 and above) for editing. In Adobe Acrobat there are two places you can utilize to optimize the pdf.

1. File/Document Properties - There are several menus here but we’re looking for the Description menu. Under this menu are fields for Title, Author, Subject and Keywords. Fill each one out using keywords approprietly.
2. Advanced/Document Metadata - Again, several choices but we are going to focus on Description. Under the Description menu are the fields for Title, Author, Description, Description Writer, Keywords, Copyright State, Copyright Notice and Copyright Info URL

As with any optimization don’t keyword stuff use them effectively and place them in a manner that makes sense. Also make sure you place active links back to your homepage or the section of your website the pdf was referenced from. This will help the viewer should they find the pdf in a search result reach your website with a click. Finally don’t forget to brand the pdf, include your logo or at a minimum company name and contact information.

PDF’s are a popular means of distributing information online and through email so by optimizing and branding your document you take one more step in fully implementing a complete online marketing strategy.

An effective search engine optimization campaign never ends and the road to great results is littered with get to the top quick schemes so just as anything in life that’s too good to be true the ability to say no could be your best trait.

Take for example the task of link building. It’s well documented that acquiring links from trusted sources is a must to help your SEO campaign achieve wonderful results and every SEO expert knows it is a time consuming, sometimes frustrating task to accomplish but it is possible to do, we do it with every campaign we work. That being said, when the going gets tough and you’ve worked countless hours trying to get quality links and you get that email or see that banner ad that says “thousands of links for just $29.95” it’s easy to sit back and visualize the site you’re working on at the top of the serps and all you had to do was pay $29.95. But once you open your eyes and the experience that only having done this hundreds of times can bring washes that glazed look off your face you realize those tricks may work for a little bit but they won’t help you in the long run.

So take the time to optimize your site correctly and understand you are in for the long haul and above all resist the temptation of the fast fix.