The contents of a well-structured PDF document can get indexed and ranked by search engines just like regular Web pages can. And it’s simple to do!

One of my clients is a distributor of high-end test and measurement equipment and they have thousands of manufacturer-supplied PDF assets linked from their product detail pages. With just a little bit of optimization, I was able to get these PDF documents ranked right up there with the regular HTML pages in the search engine results pages (SERPS).

There are several advantages to optimizing your PDFs. First, if you can get BOTH your main page and the accompanying PDF ranked on the search engine results page (not hard to do), you will own 2 positions out of the possible 10 that are available. This means that one of your competitors has just been bumped to the next page. Second, if your PDF is focused on a particular item or product, you can put a hyperlink in the PDF that takes the user directly to the relevant HTML page on your Web site. You can even put a “Buy Now” or “Add To Cart” button graphic in the PDF that points the user directly to your shopping cart for immediate checkout. Thirdly, by optimizing the document properties, you can control what the title and description looks like on the SERP. Without META data, the search engine will take a best guess approach and decide on its own what the description snippet will look like (and they usually look terrible). If you are able to control your own marketing messages, your link will more likely to be clicked!

PDF Optimization tips:

1. Spend the money and purchase Adobe’s Professional version of Acrobat (you will easily recover the cost with increased revenue). The professional version allows users to add ‘metadata’ that includes the title, the description and the keywords that will describe the PDF document to the search engines. But more importantly, it will allow you to place graphics (‘buy now’ buttons) and to create hyperlinks that will redirect users to the appropriate locations on your Web site (e.g. your checkout page or lead generation contact page.).
2. First, the PDF needs to be saved in such a way that the text is readable. If you simply scan your document with a flatbed scanner, no indexable content is saved; it becomes merely an image of text and not real search engine readable text. Even though you can still optimize the META data for a PDF that contains a scanned image, it is better if you use Adobe’s distiller from the native application that the PDF was created in. This way all of the keywords contained in the document become accessible to the engines.
3. If the original document was created in Microsoft Word (or similar word processing program), use proper styles from the application’s “Styles Palette” rather than decorating your copy with the “Formatting Palette”. This “semantic” formatting will tell search engines which keywords are more important and allow them to learn more about your document. For example, make the headlines in your PDFs Headline 1, Headline 2, etc. and control the font size and colors (the decoration) by modifying the style itself.
4. Break up large ‘catalog’ type PDFs into smaller individual, tightly themed PDFs. Not only will this decrease the download time for the end user, but it will give you the opportunity to rank each document on it’s own for a particular set of keywords.
5. Optimize the copy just like you would optimize a regular web page, placing your coveted keyword in all the right places. (Headlines, Subheads, paragraph copy, bulleted lists, etc.)
6. Be careful of duplicate content issues. If your PDF contains exactly the same content as your HTML page, you are better off just using the HTML version and creating a printer-friendly CSS file for printing hard copies. If there is a business reason for having both versions available (e.g. a product page with an accompanying manufacturer-supplied PDF), then use your robots.txt file to keep the PDF out of the search engine’s index. Alternatively, you can make the content in both versions different enough as to not be flagged as duplicate content or worse, spam.
7. Add a footer to the PDF document that contains your company name and address. Many people use search queries that contain city names or state names if they are looking for local goods or services. Adding a footer to your PDF document is an easy way to ensure that these keywords are indexed.
8. Save it down a version. The latest greatest version of Acrobat Professional may ship with tons of new bells and whistles, but maybe the search engines haven’t caught up to that version yet, or maybe users don’t have the latest plugin or latest version of Acrobat Reader. This probably isn’t too much of an issue, but I like to save my PDFs so they can be opened in Adobe Reader 5.0 and later just to be on the safe side.
9. Make sure that the anchor text on your HTML page that points to the PDF contains relevant keywords so the search engine knows what the PDF is about. For example, don’t link to the PDF with anchor text that says, “Click here” or “Download the PDF”.
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1. Become your customer. Figure out what you have that they want and then put yourself in their shoes. What words will they use while using a search engine to find what you have to offer? What are the exact words? That’s what you need to figure out. Get inside the head of your audience and do exactly what they would do. And then create compelling ad copy (that speaks directly to these people) so that they click on your ad. Simple, right?
2. Check out the competition. Do a search on one of your keywords and look at who is competing for those keywords. Are there 10 competitors? Or 100? This will give you an approximate indication of how hard you have to work and how much you will have to pay. Take a look at their ad copy and check out their landing pages (do they even have landing pages?). What are they doing right? Which ones clearly don’t get it and are just throwing money away? Is someone obviously executing a branding campaign and doesn’t care what they pay? Who is on top this week? What about next week? Study the way ad positions move around and you’ll figure out how relevant the search engines think the ad is, whether the competitor is actively editing their ad copy to make it more relevant, or if the dumbass is just throwing more money at a bad campaign. Learn from their mistakes, and profit from what they have already spent time learning. No need to reinvent the wheel.
3. Create lots of AdGroups. Don’t make the mistake of creating one single ad that attempts to cover all 400+ of your keywords. Each cluster of closely related keywords should have it’s own ad with it’s own unique ad copy. Generally, the closer your ad copy matches your keywords, the higher your click-through rate will be and the better your quality score will be. You want targeted customers, right? Well then, target each ad group to a particular customer.
4. Put your keywords in the title of your ad. Google will bold the keywords in an ad and that will draw more attention to them. It makes the ad look more relevant to the user and they will be more likely to click on it (since those are the keywords they just typed and that is exactly what they are looking for!). The closer the ad looks to the exact phrase the user just typed in the better (which explains why you need to have many ad groups, right?).
5. Develop a negative keyword list. I’ve seen click-through (and sometimes conversion rates) double when the appropriate negative keyword list was added. For example, if you are selling content management software and you are bidding on the keyword, ‘content management software’, you want to add the word “-free” as a negative keyword for obvious reasons. People looking for free stuff generally aren’t very good leads (unless you are a web 2.0 company >>grin<< ).
6. Make your display URL look relevant. Using the example above, I would make the display URL look like this: www.mysite.com/CRM_software/. This could give a user the impression that your ad might me more relevant than your competitors. As a result, you may enjoy a higher click-through rate and better conversions.
7. Talk about the benefits in your ad copy, not just the features. How are you going to solve their problem? Tell them! Many products and services solve exactly the same problem and have exactly the same feature set. Why tell them about the features when your competitors are doing exactly the same thing? What makes you different? Tell them how you are going to solve their problem and they will be more likely to identify and click through to learn more (and more likely to become customers).
8. Pre-qualify Clicks. You don’t want people clicking on your ad who have absolutely no intention of making a purchase or that will ultimately have no real interest in your offer. In other words, write your ad copy with the intention of converting these users to actual customers (and not just so he/she clicks the ad). Make that your goal. Every time a user clicks, it costs you money. You need to make sure that those clicks count. For example, if your services start at $1800, mention it in your ad copy. That way, the cheapskates who aren’t willing to spend that kind of money will skip your ad altogether. If you sell an expensive widget, say, “Blue Widgets starting at $79.99”. With any luck, someone who is not willing to spend $79.99 won’t click your ad (you hope).
9. Measure. Measure. Measure. Don’t just set it and forget it. Track your impressions and track the keywords that get a high click-through rate (but are not converting into customers). And then figure out why they are not converting. Use the conversion tracking code that the major PPC engines provide to determine what your ROI is. For example: I have a client that I started a PPC campaign for 30 days ago…today he told me that one (1) customer just paid for the whole program (music to my ears!). You simply cannot measure the success of a campaign until you understand your ROI and determine what a customer or lead is actually worth. Get creative with measuring results. How many people may have clicked on an ad but chose to pick up the phone to place an order instead of through your website? Have you considered a unique 1-800 number just for your website to track these types of conversions? Perhaps your sales are complex (e.g. are expensive or take many people to approve the purchase) and take longer than the normal 30-day PPC cookie that is stored on their computer. Do you have a plan for accounting for those sales? You need to. Now!
10. Test, and then test again. With A/B split testing (among other types (Google Optimizer, for example.)), you can test ad copy (and layouts) to figure out which ads are performing the best. Delete the loser ad and try to create even better and even more compelling ad. Test it again, delete the loser again, then start the process all over. The idea here is to refine your message until you get the highest possible return on your advertising investment. Rinse, repeat, until you get it right.
11. Use unique landing pages for each of your ads. Each ad will have a slightly different message (targeted to slightly different customers, using slightly different keywords), so why drop them to your generic homepage? There are very few instances where taking a prospective customer to the homepage makes any sense. Take the user to exactly where they want to go (as dictated by your ad copy). You already know what they are looking for…give them what they want! BTW: Split test your landing pages as well (See #10…same idea).
12. Take a cold, hard, critical look at your own website. The tips above can drive low cost, highly targeted traffic to your site, but if your site doesn’t do a good job at converting that traffic into customers, you lose. Is your site well designed? Does it instill trust and confidence? Can users find what they are looking for and easily make a purchase or an inquiry? What’s the sales process like? Look at your weblogs and figure out what people are doing once they get to your site. Discover what is broken, and then fix it. Think about usability, think about the confidence the user need to feel when making a credit card purchase, and think about the sales funnel. Would you trust your own site with your personal information? Do you have a VeriSign logo? A privacy policy? A no-hassle money back guarantee statement? Why not?
    

I recently opened an account with Lynda.com, an online training service offering on-demand video tutorials covering a wide variety of software applications. It’s a great service with super-high-quality content and I have learned a lot…it would have been a bargain at twice the price, seriously.

Anyway, I had an issue with my account that was completely my own fault. I won’t get into the goofy-stupid details, but basically, I screwed up. I sent a note to Lynda.com’s customer service department…not really expecting them to have pity on me or even to respond, but I thought, “oh, what the hell”. In my opinion, only about 1 in 1000 companies really ‘get’ good customer service, but I had nothing to lose. I took a shot.

Not only did Lynda.com bend over backwards to take care of my request immediately…I also received a personal follow-up note from one of their customer service reps. She wanted to make sure that I was, indeed, a happy Lynda.com customer and that the issue was handled to my satisfaction (thanks, Julie!).

What does this story have to do with Internet Marketing?

A lot!

I love Lynda.com. I cannot stop telling people what a great product this company offers and I have re-told this story to at least 20 of my friends (and they will tell at least 20 of their own friends). As a result of this word-of-mouth marketing, many of my friends (and my friends’ friends) are now lynda.com customers.

The bottom line: A company is nothing without its customers, and happy customers are your company’s greatest assets. Do you have great customer service? Are you building your brand with great customer service?

Customer service is the new Internet Marketing. Let your customers sell for you.