Applying SEO techniques to documents and files

Google has been indexing Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, and PDF files for a while now, and it is worth taking a few minutes optimising any of these files if you are going to be posting them to the web in order for them to be indexed correctly, and possibly rank well in the SERPs.

To optimise your document you need to edit your document’s properties to include relevant keywords and a description, much like you would do with a HTML Meta set. The image below gives an example of a Word document’s properties and what the properties should look like. As you can see, the field options availble in Word are simular to HTML Meta data so you should already be familiar with filling these out. Putting the publish date is useful if you are planning on future updates of your document.

It is important when saving your document to give it a relevant name which includes the keywords of the document. When the document is viewed online, the title is likely to show as part of the URL so it key for SEO and usability.

If you frequently publish files to the web, you should always be spending time optimising your document in order for it to be indexed correctly, and to allow for the document to be found well. If your document has some worthy content which others may find useful, it could improve your overall traffic and possibly generate some links to your site.

These SEO techniques apply to all files such as Word, PDF, Excell, Powerpoint, etc.

William Gardner - SEO programmer

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1 Comment

1. [...] Just Search SEO blog has an excellent point that I didn’t think of, namely that Word and Powerpoint files will also show up in the SERPs, pretty much all of the same tips above will apply to these files. [...]

   Pingback by Optimizing PDF Documents for Search Engines — Chicago Style SEO September 29, 2008 @ 10:15 pm

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