Creating Ebooks to attract new subscribers to your blog or newsletter is a practice that has been recommended by quite a few people and there are enough that do it.

However, there is another possible use for those pdf files full of tips, and that’s link building. For those that don’t know, PDF files get PR like any other page, and they’re able to pass link juice to websites linked from the document. Let me be clear, I’m not telling you to start making ebooks just to get links from PDF files and ebook directories. I’m saying that if you do make an ebook, consider these two options as well to get some extra links.

As you can see in the pic below, this particular file has a PR 7, so they do get link juice.

pdf-link-building

When it comes to link building there are two ways you can profit from these pdf files. You can register on ebook directories and get links to your site and (or) you can give away the ebook for free, uploading them to sites that host free ebooks.

Ebook Directories

Registering your ebook on these sites will get you links to the ebook page, so make the most of it. If you create an ebook named “How to make soap”, optimize that download page for that keyword, and start getting links to it. Now, you might or not get your keywords in the title of the url, depending on the site, but if you can place a description of the ebook and use your keywords in there, the link is still good, because Google sees it as a link from a page that quotes you on that particular subject. So it should still pass some authority when it comes to making soap.

Websites where you can leave a link to your download page (source - cleaned up those that weren’t working, modified with their current PR for others, added new directories and how old they are for most of them):

Looking for “ebook directory” in Google gives you 62,000 results, so there should be enough of them to promote your ebook and gather some links.

Uploading Ebooks

The second route, that you may or not want to pursue, is uploading your ebook to other websites, to get link juice from pdf files, which get it from sites where they’re uploaded. I have a small problem with this, as I don’t know what effect duplicate content has for pdf files. How much authority do you really get from ebooks that are going to be marked as duplicates since you upload them to many other sites. This one isn’t any different from links you get from article directories when you submit articles, with one important difference. Instead of links from spam sites that use free articles, you get them from legitimate websites that keep ebooks. So it should be better then link building with articles.

A few websites where you can upload your ebook (I’m sure there are many more if you look around):

I can’t seem to find these too easy, as they’re mixed with websites that don’t offer uploading, just a collection they already have. Anyone knows some more?

Other methods: upload them in torrents wherever you can (might get you extra visitors to the blog), give them away for free on webmaster forums (with the right to redistribute the ebook but without removing the links and credits from it).

Other resources:

I’ve mentioned PDF files in this article because most people release their ebooks in this format, but Google can also read doc, rtf, xls, ppt and other files, so if you can put links in them, you’d probably get link juice to your website. If Google can read its contents, it can get PR. I’ve seen doc, rtf and other types of files with PR.

This is new territory for me, so I’d appreciate any input if anyone has read more about link building with documents or maybe even tried it.

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