Ensuring Assets (PDFs, PowerPoint Files, Word Docs, etc.) are Indexable on Site

[MedThinkCommunications]

Hi there - I'm working on an educational site in which users will be able to search our repository of PDF articles, PowerPoint files, and so on through an on-site search engine.  What is the best way to ensure each of these documents/assets are indexable by Google since they technically don't reside on an HTML page....they are just pulled up if the user searches for them?   The site itself is just a few pages, but the files, articles, and videos in the repository are in the hundreds.  Should I just name and tag them properly and make sure they're all included in an XML site map?  Anything else suggested?

Thanks very much!

[ChrisDyson]

I would build 2  sitemaps for these files, 1 XML sitemap and 1 HTML sitemap, separate from the main sitemap  and add these to Google WMT. The HTML Sitemap could also be used as a directory for visitors too.

Where possible link to the documents from the site too, this will increase the chances that the assets are indexed by Google.

[MedThinkCommunications]

Thanks for your response Chris!  Good suggestion on the HTML sitemap.  Any concerns if there are a couple of hundred links on this HTML site map page?

[ChrisDyson]

The more links a sitemap the it harder it is for people to follow but should be ok for search spiders.