Posting content from our books to our website
-
Hello,
I am the newly appointed in-house seo person for a small business.
The founders of our company have written several books, which we sell. But book sales are a small part of our business. We are considering posting to our website some or all of the content of the books. This content is directly relevant to the existing content of our website and would be available for free to all visitors.
1. Is it likely that the traffic and links to the new book pages would improve the search engine rankings of our existing pages?
2. We already have pdf versions of each book we could post, which are formatted nicely. Should we convert these to html to make them more friendly to search engines?
3. Of course, we would have to split each book into multiple web pages, perhaps one chapter per page. How much content could each new page optimally accommodate?
4. Would it be more valuable from an SEO perspective to post pieces of the books over time in a blog format?
Thank you very much for your thoughts!
-
Haha!
-
I wish I had a big stack of books to publish on my site.
-
Wow, thanks for your enthusiasm, EGOL!
I appreciate the feedback.
-
Yes, it is content that is not available anywhere else.
Thank you, Takeshi.
-
salivatin'
1. Is it likely that the traffic and links to the new book pages would improve the search engine rankings of our existing pages?
This is going to be kickass. KickAss.
In addition to traffic and links this will make you look like a very generous, experienced and credible company.
2. We already have pdf versions of each book we could post, which are formatted nicely. Should we convert these to html to make them more friendly to search engines?
You can use them as .pdf documents. If you do be sure to optimize them by modifying the properties of the document to add a title tag. Also, add links within the documents that allows any linkjuice that flows into them to travel back to your site.
I would probably post these as nicely-formatted html documents, optimizing chapters for specific search terms. You can then monetize with ads, use them to guide people to conversion opportunities on your website.
3. Of course, we would have to split each book into multiple web pages, perhaps one chapter per page. How much content could each new page optimally accommodate?
I don't hesitate to place a few thousand words and several images on a page. If you do that to a page that has a free-standing subject then it could attract a nice number of links.
4. Would it be more valuable from an SEO perspective to post pieces of the books over time in a blog format?
I would build a library of html documents (maybe offering downloadable file formats that can be read on mobile devices) and get them up ASAP.
This is going to be KICKASS.
-
As long as the content from the books isn't available anywhere else, then you can definitely get more search traffic to your site by posting that unique content.
Whether you want to convert your books to HTML format depends on how much resources you have. My feeling is that having snippets or summaries of the books online in a blog format would work best, since most web searchers aren't looking to read an entire book when they search for content online. A snippet of the chapters along with a link to purchase the book could both increase search traffic and drive book sales.
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
-
Many have stolen our content. Rewrite vs. DMCA content removal?
Hello, We own a medical tourism website and many other sites have stolen (copied and pasted) our content. Our content is more than 2 years old, so we thought we could rewrite the content - but Which is a more wiser decision from you guys' experience? Archive our current content at a different URL and upload a fresh content in the current URL Claim our originality to Google and ask the stolen sites to remove our content. Thank you and appreciate your time.
On-Page Optimization | | joony0 -
Show or hide content in responsive design
Hi everybody! I'm trying to design the mobile version of an ecommerce with lots of filters in the menu (size, colours, material, etc.) I'd like to know if it's better for this kind of sites to use an m.version or a complete responsive design. I have analyzed my keywords and it's true that my website is founded in a really similiar way in both cases (desktop and mobile) so I wanted to design the whole site in responsive at first, but I'm afraid of being penalized if I hide content in the mobile version. This is why I'm thinking about making the responsive for desktop and tablets and the m. option as well, so as to hide menus and images. What's your advice? Thanks in advance!
On-Page Optimization | | esthergvent0 -
Duplicate Content Issue in Magento
Hi I need help in resolving the duplicate content issue on my magento site I got a product My main product url is https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/shop-by-product/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest and it got variation of url see below that are causing duplicate content issue , I have inserted the canonical tag on the below url and my main url is https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/shop-by-product/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest but still moz is showing it as duplicate content. Help Please <colgroup><col width="1003"></colgroup>
On-Page Optimization | | Adnan.Hassan.Khan
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/product/oak-bedroom-furniture/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/6/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/17/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/shop-by-range/boston/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/42/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/63/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/67/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/46/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/79/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/88/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/75/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/90/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/92/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/33/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/27/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/shop-by-range/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/50/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/22/ |
| https://www.oakfurnitureking.co.uk/catalog/product/view/id/45/s/boston-solid-oak-4-drawer-chest/category/74/ |0 -
Content Optimization - Multiple Keywords or One?
I have three web pages I'm trying to increase traffic to (and thus conversions). I've carefully researched and selected 15 keywords. There's about 3-5 keyword groupings that are similar enough so I can optimize each page with all of them (for example - autobody, dent repair, scratch repair). I see a couple ways to approach optimizing the pages: select one main keyword to put in the header and support it with the other 2-4 keywords in the content body select 3-5 keywords and evenly optimize the page for each (several headers and sections about each) pick one keyword per page I'm constrained to three web pages since it's a clients website. Otherwise I'm guessing the best method would be to create content for each keyword in something like a blog. I basically see the pros and cons as this: including multiple closely related keywords on a page will bring more traffic and thus overal conversions; however it will take longer to rank for those keywords. Focusing the content on one keyword will increase conversion rate and take a shorter time to rank that page since it's more focused, but less overall traffic and conversions. With the page number constraint and increasing conversions being the goal of optimization, what are your thoughts on the pros and cons of each choice?
On-Page Optimization | | reidsteven750 -
Issue: Duplicate Page Content
For duplicate page content, how different should pages be? For example, I have seven locations and on each location page, we offer a discount. The discounts are the same currently and open into a pop-up window. So it looks something like this: mysite.com/locationA/dicount mysite.com/locationB/discount mysite.com/locationX/discount The pages are identical. Should I change the verbiage on each page or let it be? I noticed that our organic search rankings have dropped since our site upgrade and this is one item that SEOMOZ has noted. Thanks! DHO
On-Page Optimization | | DougHoltOnline0 -
Is this duplicate content okay?
We have a client who wants to rank locally, nationally and internationally for their products. I wrote a line that goes, "We can ship our products to you whether you’re here in Illinois, nationwide, or international." I added that line after a paragraph or two of unique product description on each of their 30-odd product pages. Will this damage their ranking? I tried researching this but only found full page duplicate content topics. Any advice would be great.
On-Page Optimization | | optimalwebinc0 -
Is content aggregation good SEO?
I didn't see this topic specifically addressed here: what's the current thinking on using content aggregation for SEO purposes? I'll use flavors.me as an example. Flavors.me lets you set up a domain that pulls in content from a variety of services (Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, RSS, etc.). There's also a limited ability to publish unique content as well. So let's say that we've got MyDomain.com set up, and most of the content is being drawn in from other services. So there's blog posts from WordPress.com, videos from YouTube, a photo gallery from Flickr, etc. How would Google look at this scenario? Is MyDomain.com simply scraped content from the other (more authoritative) sources? Is the aggregated content perceived to "belong" to MyDomain.com or not? And most importantly, if you're aggregating a lot of content related to Topic X, will this content aggregation help MyDomain.com rank for Topic X? Looking forward to the community's thoughts. Thanks!
On-Page Optimization | | GOODSIR0 -
Can Other Websites You Own Affect Your Rankings?
Let's say you own three websites. One is low quality and Google frowns upon it, another is moderate and a third has stellar unique content. Would Google penalize the third website because you own the first website? On a related note - If you were banned from Google AdWords, would registering a site in your name potentially harm your rankings?
On-Page Optimization | | DerekP0