Embed property fliers and other PDFs in WordPress

One of the points made by just about every real estate website lead generation “guru” is that you will get more site visitors and convert more of those “suspects” to “prospects” with content that positions you as an expert in your area.  Being the go-to real estate and community expert provides a lot of opportunity.  How many sites do you visit seeking information and view or download documents?  You can position yourself as an expert with your own documents or by sharing those of others:

• Your individual property brochures in full color.
• Floor plans of your listings.
• Local government building codes and regulations documents.
• Community flyers and builder announcements and model home brochures.
• Neighborhood & HOA newsletters and documents.

That last item is a way to make some great friends with connections for business.  Many HOA and neighborhood associations produce email newsletters.  However, few of them post them on a website.  You can offer to do so and they’ll be thrilled.  You’ll find that they’ll even begin to send people with questions to your site for answers.

You’ll be surprised at the searches people are doing once you begin to offer this type of information.  One real estate broker in a rural area reports that he gets at least a visitor or two every week from Google searches on codes, especially the very strict area septic regulations.  He writes a short post summarizing some important points, then he would link to the government site and the .pdf document there like this:

Proper Septic Tank Maintenance Document

That worked, but it just left him with a short post and sent the visitor away to another site to view or download the PDF.  Since almost every site uses the .pdf format for files like these, it’s a great resource, but isn’t there a better way to do it?  You bet!  Using the Dirty Suds Embed PDF plugin, now he types in a short line of embed code, really easy, and still uses the link to the original document at the other site, but here’s what ends up in the post instead of that link:

At the top right of the embedded document, the viewer can page through it, zoom in, and even better, open it full size, download or print it, or use the slider on the right to scroll down through the pages. Opening it full size happens in another tab or window, so the visitor is still on the broker’s website.  Start to keep the links around the Web to documents and information that you use and that you have provided to your clients that help them to understand the market, laws and codes.  This is how to become the go-to online market expert.

Even if the documents aren’t online, you can take an attachment emailed to you from a local HOA and upload it to your site, then embed the link for a very visitor-friendly display.