Have an eBook. What is best practice for SEO?
-
Hello
We have a free eBook - its a great resource and great piece of content.
It is available to download on our website here - http://re-timer.com/the-product/how-to-sleep-better/
The book is available as a whole or as individual chapters (i.e. http://re-timer.com/app/uploads/2015/07/Chapter8.pdf?b0df38). The PDF chapters appear to be doing well in Google search for certain keywords. I can't measure this in GA though. I would like the eBook to assist the SEO of my website overall. If I create a web page and 'embedded' the PDF into it will Google still crawl this page?
At the moment we are also using this to collect email addresses, this is a nice to have and it is OK if people get the eBook without doing this (if they find a chapter in Google they currently don't have to enter their email address).
I'm sure lots of people have eBooks now. What is best practice and the best way to use this as a tool to maximise SEO for the whole website (http://re-timer.com)?
Thank you! Laura
-
Thank you so much Kristina
I thought there would be more benefits having it like a standard webpage, HTML.
Given we already have the eBook in PDF format (72 pages done by a graphic designer), I was wondering if there was a happy medium like creating new web pages and 'embedding' the PDF? This was suggested by the web developer however we weren't sure if/how it would benefit SEO.
I'm just trying to weigh up the cost vs benefit of creating many more html pages. Ideally, I don't think we would have gone with a PDF in the first place. I guess we had seen a lot of eBooks which are in PDF format.
Thank you!
Laura
-
Hi Laura,
It sounds like your ebook is assisting in the SEO of your website, since individual chapters are ranking. You can see how much of a page (or PDF) Google can read by searching for cache:[URL]. Here's Google's cache of chapter 8, which you shared.
But, you're on the right track, turning these pages into HTML pages will make them easier for Google to crawl, and you'll probably get more traffic out of it. Here's one way you could handle this:
- Keep http://re-timer.com/the-product/how-to-sleep-better/ as it is to encourage sign up
- Create a page for each chapter of the book, with the same content. Make sure to canonical the PDF chapters to the HTML counterparts.
- Link to those chapters somewhere else on the site, so it doesn't discourage people who land on the PDF download page.
That way, you get the benefits of the content individually, but keep the landing page.
Hope this helps!
Kristina
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is this CSS solution to faceted navigation a problem for SEO?
Hi guys. Take a look at the navigation on this page from our DEV site: http://wwwdev.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/handheld-microphones While the CSS "trick" implemented by our IT Director does allow a visitor to sort products based on more than one criteria, my gut instinct says this is very bad for SEO. Here are the immediate issues I see: The URL doesn't change as the filter criteria changes. At the very least this is a lost opportunity for ranking on longer tail terms. I also think it could make us vulnerable to a Panda penalty because many of the combinations produce zero results, so returning a page without content, under the original URL. This could not only create hundreds of pages with no content, there would be duplicates of those zero content pages as well. Usability - The "Sort by" option in the drop down (upper right of the page) doesn't work in conjunction with the left Nav filters. In other words if you filter down to 5 items and then try to arrange them by price high to low, the "Sort" will take precedence, remove the filter and serve up a result that is all products in that category sorted high to low (and the filter options completely disapper), AND the URL changes to this: http://wwwdev.ccisolutions.com/StoreFront/category/IAFDispatcher regardless of what sort was chosen...(this is a whole separate problem, I realize and not specifically what I'm trying to address here). Aside from these two big problems, are there any other issues you see that arise out of trying to use CSS to create product filters in this way? I am trying to build a case for why I believe it should not be implemented this way. Conversely, if you see this as a possible implementation that could work if tweaked a bit, and advice you are willing to share would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! Thank you to Travis for pointing out the the link wasn't accessible. For anyone willing to take a closer look we can unblock the URL based on your IP address. If you'd be kind enough to send me your IP via private message I can have my IT director unblock it so you can view the page. Thanks!
Web Design | | danatanseo0 -
Too Many Outbound Links on the Home Page - Bad for SEO?
Hello Again Moz community, This is my last Q of the day: I have a LOT of outbound links on the home page of www.web3.ca Some are to clients projects, most are to other pages on the website. Can reducing this to the core pages have a positive impact on SEO? Thanks, Anton
Web Design | | Web3Marketing870 -
SEO page length 4500+ words
I have read varying discussions on this... some say it is good or rather it does not really matter (as long as not stuffed with keywords) and some say more than 1000+ words is bad! I have a travel site and I want to add an historical page about the zone. It is very interesting (very organic, not written for SEO purposes as such). It adds flavor and details to a site that is really all about sales. Does anyone have an opinion whether this is detrimental to SEO or not?
Web Design | | Llanero0 -
Will a .com and .co.uk site (with exact same content) hurt seo
hello, i am sure this question has been asked before, but while i tried to search i could not find the right answer. my question is i have a .com and .co.uk site. both sites have exact same product, exact same product descriptions, and everything is the same. the reason for 2 sites is that .com site shows all the details for US customers and in $, and .co.uk site shows all the details to UK customers and with Pound signs. the only difference in the 2 sites might be the privacy policy (different for US and UK) and different membership groups the site belongs to (US site belong to a list of US trade groups, UK belongs to a list of UK trade groups). my question is other than the minor difference above, all the content of the site is exactly the same, so will this hurt seo for either one or both the site. Our US site much more popular and indexed already in google for 4 years, while our UK site was just started 1 month ago. (also both the sites are hosted by same hosting company, with one site as main domain and the other site as domain addon (i thought i include this information also, if it makes sense to readers)) i would appreciate a reply to the question above thanks
Web Design | | kannu10 -
To many scripts in my homepage. This is a problem in SEO?
I adding a lot of new features to my website: JS animated, menus, google translate, alexa counter, google analytics, salesforce, and so on. My website is full of scripts and im worry about the SEO. Is that an issue?
Web Design | | Naghirniac0 -
Infinite scrolling - is it SEO friendly ?
If i am trying to implement infinite scrolling and remove pagination completely, will it effect my SEO ? Why or why should not infinite scrolling be implemented ?
Web Design | | Myntra0 -
Mozcon London 2010: Top 10 tips - Design for SEO PPT Not Available for Download!
Hi - title says it all really! Just watched the video and throughout it they refer to the wireframes/site examples being available via the ppt download. However, even as a PRO member having purchased the DVD bundle I cannot find a link to download the presentation. Can anyone help please? Thanks in advance!
Web Design | | BlakMajik0 -
Best way to set up a site with multiple brick and mortor locations across Canada
I have a client who is expanding his business locations from 2 cities to 3, and working towards having 10+ locations across Canada. Right now we're building location based landing pages for each city, as well as keyword targeted landing pages for each city. For example, landing pages for "Vancouver whatever clinic" and "Calgary whatever clinic" as well as for "Vancouver specific service", and "Calgary specific service". This means a lot of landing pages will need to be created to target each of 10 or so desirable "service" keywords for each city's location. I've no issue with this, however I was wondering how other companies go about this? What's the best way to be relevant for certain "service" based keyword searches in each city? Many of the "service" keywords are 'localized' meaning they will show Google Places results for local brick and mortar businesses for each location. I'm quite good at optimizing locally for this type of thing. However, many of the "service" keywords are not yet 'localized' by Google, I'd want to have my client webpages show well in the SERP's. for these 'non-localized' "service keywords" as well. the new site will be built in WordPress
Web Design | | AndyKuiper0