PDFs do rank well in search. Optimize them!

• We have a lot of PDF files that I'm noticing are getting increased traffic to our site. We have several more PDFs we could upload. Is this something we should take advantage of and are there any specific optimization recommendations you can provide us to best leverage them in search?

Answer: Both Bing and Google have been able to fully crawl, index and rank .PDF files for years. If you currently have a lot of white papers, fact sheets, FAQs or case studies... then making those accessible online as PDFs can open up a whole new avenue of traffic from organic search.

In fact, PDF files have been an under-publicized resource of top Webmasters for years. Google does not discriminate in what they determine to be top-notch content. When optimized correctly PDF files can rocket to the top of the search results.

To make sure your PDF files become lead generation machines that rank well competitively we recommend you implement the following five optimization tips:

• 1. Use a Text-Based Creation Program: We recommend either Word or Adobe Acrobat. Both allow you the ability to convert text and links into clickable PDF content. Take a look at this sample indexed PDF. Notice how you can select text and click-on embedded links. If you can, so can Google and Bing.
  
  
• 2. SEO-optimize the PDF: Just as you would a regular web page, a PDF document...