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A WebmasterWorld thread has some SEOs discussing that for some of their query niches, Google tends to be ranking a lot of PDF documents at the top of the page.
Personally, I have not seen this but I can believe it. Google wants to return the most relevant information for the query, be it a web page, video, local listing or a PDF white paper.
So ranking for PDFs is not a new topic, but how do you monetize them after you rank for them?
GoodROI shared in the thread his thoughts:
- Add affiliate links to your PDF.
- In the content of the PDF you can talk about and promote your company's products/services/ebooks/whatever.<.li>
- Link juice flows through PDFs so you can sell links.
- You can also sell ad placement or banner placement.
But managing these types of things in a PDF is a harder than in a web page. It is hard to serve dynamic ads in a PDF document. Plus some PDF viewers warn users of clicking on external links from a PDF, which can drastically drop click through rates.
In any event, if you are looking for tips on monetizing your good ranking PDF documents, join the thread.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Bruce Canales
11/29/2011 05:55 pm
You could always use an HTML page with full color ads and links then scrape the entire page and save it into a PDF. Use iWeb2Print. I've been using for awhile now. I turn articles to PDF docs and read them later when I have time. http://www.hula-hub.com/2011/11/25/want-to-save-a-web-page-as-a-pdf-toolbox-series/
Petersonneo
11/30/2011 08:51 am
Didn't know PDF file can pass link juice. Do pdf file on a website has PR ranking?
Nuno Hipolito
11/30/2011 09:27 am
PDFs are converted to html by the crawler, so they basically get valued like a basic html page.
Jonecir de Souza
11/30/2011 01:17 pm
Yes, PDF's file are appearing on top of Google. Here in Brazil you can easily see them. Here's an example when you search for "Gestão do Conhecimento": http://www.google.com.br/#hl=pt-BR&cp=9&gs_id=1l&xhr=t&q=gest%C3%A3o+do+conhecimento&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&site=&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=gest%C3%A3o+do&aq=0&aqi=g4&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=6e3224bf59a5e4f&biw=1252&bih=564
maque
11/30/2011 02:15 pm
That is a pretty nice idea to make a buck there :)
Michal Schofield
04/29/2012 10:01 pm
pretty good idea