Would a free PDF download diminish SEO benefits of HTML content?

[nyc-seo]

Hello,

I am doing SEO for a company that, as a sideline business, sells four books written by the principals; the content is directly relevant to the company's primary business focus. Book sales are a tiny fraction of our overall revenue, and we don't expect that to change, although we will continue to sell the books.

In addition to selling them, we have decided to convert the books to HTML and post them for free on our website (laid out by chapter and section). The hope is that this will result in goodwill, links, traffic, and ultimately improved search rankings.

My question:  Would offering free PDF downloads of the books (in addition to posting the HTML content) diminish the SEO benefits of the HTML content?

• If we don't offer the PDF option, people would have to visit our site to read the content (unless they bought a hard copy).
• If visitors were able to download a free PDF, they wouldn't need to return to our site to read it.
• If our corporate clients (nearly all of our clients are corporations) could download a PDF, they could then post it on an intranet instead of posting a link to our site.
• In general, do you think a visitor would be less likely to link to our site if he or she were able to download the PDF? Or would the appeal of the PDF option make it more likely that people would visit and link to the site?
• Also, if we offer the PDF option, are there any SEO issues related to duplicate content?
• Finally, if we did offer the free PDF download, would you recommend that we ask for an email address before giving the PDF?

Thank you very much!

[nyc-seo]

Okay, thanks.

[EGOL]

I make nice money from ads on html pages.  And, if you have ten chapters that each focus on a different keyword, then you have ten html pages in the SERPs with great optimization instead of one PDF with generalized optimization.  And when people land they look at many pages, often all ten.  Each of these earns ad impressions.  I am publishing for ad revenue.

[nyc-seo]

Thank you, Alex!

[nyc-seo]

Thank you, EGOL!

Do you think there is any reason to consider offering PDFs and not posting the HTML versions? Or do you prefer the approach of having the HTML and also offering PDFs?

[Alex-Harford]

You can add canonical HTTP headers to the PDFs to avoid any duplicate content problems: http://moz.com/blog/how-to-advanced-relcanonical-http-headers

If you think these PDFs are really valuable, and e-mail addresses will be useful to you, then yes - you should ask for an e-mail address to download them. If you don't take that route and they're indexed as part of your website, make sure you have a few links to your websites within the PDFs so you get some value if people rehost them.

Make sure your branding and website is obvious on the PDFs whatever you do.

[EGOL]

There are many ways to handle this.

I have sites with lots of free pdf documents.   Each of those documents contains content that is not on the website.  Lots of people visit and print them.  Lots of people link to them.  When they are printed our branding is prominently displayed so that people can return for our site to get other similar documents.  We also have one or more links in those pdf documents so any links into them pass value into our website.  If someone else posts them on their domain the links again point to our website.  In addition, the properties of the pdf documents are edited to give them a title tag that will be visible in the SERPs and help them rank better.

It is possible to monetize pdf documents.  You can rent/sell adspace within them that can be linked or not be linked.  Many shopping carts allow you to produce "add to cart" buttons.  These can be configured to work within pdf documents.

A friend of mine has a situation like yours.  He has a collection of webpages that are each chapters of a single topic document that he also has in a pdf document with many pages.  People can view the html pages on his site for free (they are monetized by ads).  Or, they can purchase the pdf.  The pdf  allows them to print the document, search the entire document, view it offline or conveniently page through it linearly.  He has many of these pdf documents and even though people can view the same content free on his website many of them purchase these pdfs for the print/search/scroll/use-offline abilities.  He makes nice money from selling these pdf documents.

• If we don't offer the PDF option, people would have to visit our site to read the content (unless they bought a hard copy).
  MAKE 'EM PAY FOR THE PDF

• if visitors were able to download a free PDF, they wouldn't need to return to our site to read it.

MAKE 'EM PAY FOR THE PDF

• If our corporate clients (nearly all of our clients are corporations) could download a PDF, they could then post it on an intranet instead of posting a link to our site.

MAKE 'EM PAY FOR THE PDF

• In general, do you think a visitor would be less likely to link to our site if he or she were able to download the PDF? Or would the appeal of the PDF option make it more likely that people would visit and link to the site?

MOST PEOPLE WILL NOT LINK.  ONLY PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SAY... "GET SOMETHING AWESOME HERE".  THE PROBLEM IS THAT THEY WILL LINK TO THE PDF BUT IF YOU HAVE LINKS IN THE PDF THEN YOUR WEBSITE WILL GET SOME BENEFIT. BUT I WOULD BE SELLING THIS PDF.

• Also, if we offer the PDF option, are there any SEO issues related to duplicate content?

IF YOU HAVE 500 WORDS ON AN HTML PAGE AND THE SAME 500 WORDS IN A PDF THEN YOU MIGHT HAVE A PROBLEM.  BUT IF YOU HAVE 50 PAGES EACH OF 500 WORDS ON THE WEBSITE AND 25000 WORDS IN ONE PDF DOCUMENT THEN THERE SHOULD BE NO PROBLEM.  BUT IF YOU SELL THE PDF THAT CONCERN IS ELIMINATED.

• Finally, if we did offer the free PDF download, would you recommend that we ask for an email address before giving the PDF?

IS GETTING THE EMAIL ADDRESSES A GOAL?  IF THAT IS WHY YOU ARE DOING THIS THEN, YES, ASK FOR IT,  AND REQUIRING THE EMAIL  IN ADVANCE SUGGESTS THAT THE PDF WILL NOT BE INDEXED WHERE IT CAN BE LINKED TO OR HAVE ANY CHANCE OF BEING A DUPE CONTENT PROBLEM.  I WOULD BE SELLING THE PDF.