On-page food menu vs. PDF menu?

[whiz]

If you were to run a diner, would you put your menu up in PDF form or as basic text on a page?

I did some quick research and it appears that Google crawls PDFs, so I would assume it's pretty much the same to Google. As long as the PDF isn't an unreadable image.

Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[whiteogreguy]

on page.
structured, with pictures.

 

[whiz]

on page.
structured, with pictures.

Why?

 

[malina1]

Of course SEO on-page menu with structured data
Images/ tables/ videos
This will make your site more attractive for Google.

 

[whiteogreguy]

Of course SEO on-page menu with structured data
Images/ tables/ videos
This will make your site more attractive for Google.

What he said

 

[Donbuffy]

On page with well structured SEO headers

 

[GoldenGlovez]

I would offfer both, but if you have to pick one go with on-page.

 

[deedee1whoa]

I also vote for onpage, I have a feeling it would be better for search engines.
Not that PDF's don't rank, I see them all the time in the results. Talking about Google.

 

[whiz]

Thanks for the comments. So it appears on-page for structured data gets 100% of the votes.

So I'm probably going to do that.

But just one question - sorry for being a noob - can you markup PDFs as well?

I'm trying to fully understand why on-page is the dominant choice here.

 

[whiz]

I would offfer both, but if you have to pick one go with on-page.

Do you think this would confuse Google or a potential customer?

Or do you just have the on-page menu with a link "Open as PDF"

I'm starting to think on-page only is best - it's the least confusing to Google and/or humans.

The less options the better?

 

[mzonas]

On-page, no PDF. Easier to edit. What if someone downloaded your menu PDF and a few months later, found that PDF and thought you were still selling the same menu when in fact, your entire menu changed?

I know this scenario is unlikely but if there's one thing that I learned about business - assume that everybody is stupid.

 

[Stavro]

As a customer, which would you prefer? For the sake of argument, let's assume you're using a mobile device (in my experience it seems a lot of people look up menus while on the road).

PDF: Go to website, go to the menu page, tap "download", get a new notification icon, open the notification list, find the PDF, tap the PDF, finally start reading the menu. (I won't even go into the many steps necessary for deleting that PDF.)

Onpage: Go to website, go to the menu page, see the menu immediately.

A PDF is fine as an option if you want an expanded/specialty menu for catering, events, etc, but for everyday customers you want it to be very simple and easy to use.

 

[ThopHayt]

If you were to run a diner, would you put your menu up in PDF form or as basic text on a page?

I did some quick research and it appears that Google crawls PDFs, so I would assume it's pretty much the same to Google. As long as the PDF isn't an unreadable image.

Anyone have any experience with this?

You want both. An on-site menu, and then have a "download menu" button for a PDF.

-ThopHayt

 

[GoldenGlovez]

Do you think this would confuse Google or a potential customer?

Or do you just have the on-page menu with a link "Open as PDF"

I'm starting to think on-page only is best - it's the least confusing to Google and/or humans.

The less options the better?

If you're able to generate the PDF to keep it up to date with your on page menu it shouldn't be an issue offering it as a 'Download Menu' button. This is how I did it for a client's website in the past. To be fair, I think most traffic only used the on page info, so mileage may vary.

 

[theRevolt]

If you were to run a diner, would you put your menu up in PDF form or as basic text on a page?

I did some quick research and it appears that Google crawls PDFs, so I would assume it's pretty much the same to Google. As long as the PDF isn't an unreadable image.

Anyone have any experience with this?

On page, responsive. With PDF you won't have a good user experience.

You can of course also offer PDF for download besides the on-site menu