Tips to Make PDF File SEO-friendly

Over the past two decades, PDF has been the most used document type. The main reason why it is so popular is that the documents with PDF file extension cannot be altered without leaving an electronic footprint. So PDF is a secure file type.

Like any other documents shared online, Google bots also crawls those PDF files. But here, a PDF creator or the one who shares the PDF online makes a mistake. He/she forgets to optimize it for SEO.

PDFs are used to create various types of documents that may include distinct information. Sometimes you want this information to reach more and more people through various online means. But for that, you need to optimize the PDF, so that Google can read it and index it higher in the searches making it visible to all.

You can easily optimize your PDF documents for SEO with the following simple tips:

Original Content: Whether it is website content, an article, a blog or the presentation content, having a duplicate content is always bad for the SEO. For PDF files too, you must avoid using copied content. Writing original content always leads to better ranking in the SERPS. So write a content that is all unique.

SEO-friendly Filename: Since you are optimizing the PDF for SEO and want it index better in the SERPs, you need to save the PDF with an SEO-friendly filename. This filename often adds up in the URL and is crawled by the Google spiders. So you need to create a filename that is based on the main keyword of the content or is relevant to the content.

Title and the Description: Similar to a blog or a web page content, you need to set up a few properties for the PDF, like the title and the description. To set those properties, while creating a PDF on Adobe, you will need to select Document Properties from File menu. In the dialogue box that will appear on your screen, you will see text boxes with title, Title, Author, Subject and Keywords.

In the Title, you will need to put an appropriate title, that can be the filename of the document. Author is optional, where you can simply put the name of your company. Subject is the meta description for the PDF, so you need to write a good description which should also include the keywords. This description will be visible under the Title of the PDF in the Google searches. Last but not least, write the focus keywords in the Keywords section. Also, if you are using images in the PDF, use the alt tag for the same.

Use of Headings: Headings not only separate the various sections of the text but also are considers as the head tag for text by the search engines. So try to write relevant headings for different sections of the content and also include keywords in those headings.

Text-based PDFs: Google will always read the text, so making a PDF image-based won’t help you make it visible in the searches. It will work if you don’t use images in a PDF, but it would never work if you won’t use text in it. So make it text-based and never save it as an image. Saving it as an image will make the text on the file unreadable for the Google crawlers.

Include Relevant Links: Like the webpages, the links in a PDF also pass link authority. So having related internal and external links in a PDF is always helpful. The links to the major and related webpages of your website will help to lead the traffic to those pages.

Integrate PDF Files in Your Website: For the promotion of the presentation, first of all, the pdf must be on your website. So make sure to include it on your website. You can also share it on your social media handles as well as on various document sharing websites.

Optimize PDF File Size: Make sure to optimize the size of the presentation such that it does not take long to open. To reduce the loading speed of a PDF, you must skip using images in it. Even if you require to use the images, you must compress the size of those images. The file size has to be 5MB or less.

So these are a few tips through which you can make your PDF files SEO-friendly and help them rank better in the searches.