Ever hear the saying, “Punters are People Too”? Well PDFs are kind of like punters, they aren’t flashy or anyone’s first pick, but they can still help you win the game. Just hear me out on this one. I think we can all agree that content is an essential component of any well-rounded SEO strategy, but when I say content, what comes to mind? Pages and blogs obviously, probably some videos, maybe those fancy infographics everyone is talking about these days, but what about PDFs?

No, they’re not going to be your MVP piece of content. And PDFs probably aren’t going to rack up the social shares or even go viral, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less effective at ranking in organic search. In fact, PDFs can appear in both Google web and image search results. From an SEO standpoint, that’s a solid play.

If that wasn’t reason enough to include PDFs in your content creation plan, just think about how simple it is to make a PDF, especially in comparison to videos and infographics. Chances are your business already has marketing or customer materials in PDF form, so why not leverage them? Just to be clear, I’m not recommending that you upload every PDF you have to your site or that you replace written content on your site with PDFs, after all Google still can’t read the actual content within a PDF – so use them wisely.

pdfs - content

Four Times You Should Bring Out the Punter PDF

Printables

Forms, checklists, and any other kind of content that a user or customer may want to print out would be most useful in a PDF format. PDFs are easy to download and maintain their layout even when printed or viewed offline.

Guides

Diagrams, owner’s manuals, recipes, instructions, and maps (e.g. theme parks, fairgrounds, campgrounds, hiking trails) are all useful pieces of content that people like to reference and actually search for in Google. The PDF format makes them easy to navigate and inspect, plus you can still easily print them if necessary.

Menus / Brochures

Use PDFs for pre-existing documents that your business relies on in the real world. Share them online. Chances are if customers find these materials useful at your location, they’ll be looking for them online too.

Whitepapers

If you’re feeling extra ambitious, try to pin your competitors down by the goal line… or create a whitepaper. Not familiar with the term? Whitepapers are in-depth reports on a specific topic that include research and typically present a problem and solution. It’s not uncommon for them to have a twinge of marketing to them, but steer clear of product-pitch territory. To learn more, check out these whitepaper FAQs.

Before you run off and devise a whole new game plan, let me leave you with one final piece of advice. Like all other forms of content, PDFs work best they’re when optimized and can be found. Give the PDF a relevant file name, include click-to-download calls-to-action on applicable pages, and if possible, within the text of said page, provide a brief description of the PDF. This will help users and search engines to better understand what your PDF is all about and in turn make the content all that more useful to your target audience.