Forum Moderators: not2easy
Now to let my potential market know I am out here I am depending very heavily on my web strategy. I write a lot of content for two reasons...
1. To give value to my users and show them I know what I am doing and a source of good info in my field.
2. To boost my rankings in search engines by having good content.
I am trying to figure out if it is better to post this content (articles, position papers, tip sheets, etc.) in PDF format or on HTML pages. One the one hand I assume people will want to download this content, keep it, pass it along, etc. to do that it would be easier in PDF format and would allow me to keep my logos, contact info, etc on the material which is important to me since I am trying to generate leads with it.
However on the other hand if I develop this content, but nobody knows it is there it doesn't do me any good. Therefore, in an attempt to get great rankings for certain key words I need to make this content as search engine friendly as possible. I was thinking maybe I should be posting all of it on HTML pages within my site to make it easy for the spiders to crawl and index. I don't know if they can crawl or index PDF material as easily. If I do that and someone copies it or one of my competitors steals it and publishes it without my contact or logo on it, which I have heard from others can be a problem with good content, then it might actually hurt my efforts. Again my main purpose is to develop warm leads of people that are interested in my services, but having good SE rankings is important so these potential prospects can even find the material in the first place is also a factor.
The question is does matter to the spiders and SEs if the content is in PDF vs. HTML? Is one clearly better than the other for SEO? If HTML is better how would you solve the problems I am citing above as to why I use PDFs in the first place?
FH
The results have been positive from a couple of standpoints. First, we did see a benefit in terms of traffic from the various SE's, but perhaps more importantly we have recieved a number of compliments from users for this feature, which I think attests to it's relevance.
That being said, the website provides information relating to investments, and mining companies, so many of the people who use the site, like to download information and then read it at their leisure, and not from a LCD screen.
Do you worry that others will steal the content on the HTML pages? I think it is much easier to cut and paste that content or parts of it than it is to re-type all of the stuff from a PDF.
Second, do you put all of your logos and contact information on the HTML docs?
FH
I prefer to offer content in HTML format if I was choosing, but we also built in a feature into our CMS that whenever we add a new HTML page, it also generates a PDF version. We link off the HTML page to PDF version as a print /download friendly format.
I've never been in the same dilemma but if I were, I would probably choose to use both PDF and HTML - to have both user and download friendly formats on my site.
