We’ve all heard there’s “no such thing as a national weather forecast” when trying to explain that real estate is local. Most real estate websites only post their national traffic numbers. While there is some value to seeing this number, it is also important to know how much of that traffic is happening in your area so you can spend your time and resources accordingly.
From a top line perspective, Zillow had its second highest traffic month ever in August, attracting over 8.8 million unique users to the site (64% YOY increase). These people looked at 129,616,597 pages of information!
But what does this huge traffic number mean to you? Here are statistics for the top metro areas in the country:
Now that we've established there are a lot of people coming to the site, the next question is how to leverage this audience and make sure they are seeing your name and your listings. Here are the most basic things you need to make sure you are doing on Zillow.
We are smacking ourselves for not paying more attention to zillow - but now we are :). Working on all the things you mentioned :) Thanks. I need to go look at all your tutorials and links too to get most out of it. BTW - just got a prospect through Zillow :) ~Rita
Sara, thank you for this. I've had a profile on Zillow for a while but haven't updated it recently, as well as checked out the Advice section. Much appreciated.
I would be interested to know what your consumers are looking at? Are there any trends, are they looking for values, listings or is it a broad make-up?
I have had two short sale clients tell me that lenders are asking homeowners that are behind in their payments to use Zillow as a benchmark for what their home is worth. I have a short sale listing I will be taking in Sparks, Nevada next week and the Zestimate shows the house is worth about $35,000 more than the most recent comparables which are the last 90 days sales. For a home with a potential selling price of $220,000, a $35,000 swing is over 12%.
Zillow is still a great tool and I enjoy using the forums to answer questions for potential buyers. I am just keeping a close eye on your values until they are much tighter. A double digit error rate is still too high for me.
thanks Sara, I checked out zillow and to my suprise my listings are there??? I'll have to find out how they got there! I will follow your advice and improve my profile and check out the blog Zillow A to Z
Corinne (#7) - Good question, and it varies. On many pages you can actually see counters. For example, on all listing pages, on the Home Info page (left hand column) you'll see the view details there. And on any Advice question, you'll find a view counter. 5.8 million of our visitors plan to buy or sell in the next 2 yrs, so I imagine a lot of them are looking at listing content. The rest are probably more curious about the zestimates. And about 1 million a month are actively seeking a loan in the next 6 months, so they would be interested in our mortgage center. Here is a detailed look at the demo and psycho graphics of our audience.
Christianne (#9) - Well, glad they are just using it as a benchmark and not an official number! In case you didn't know, we actually publish our accuracy numbers for all counties in the US. Here is a link to our Accuracy Chart.
Martin (#11) - If you look in the contact info box on the listing, where ever the link for your listing is going is usually a good clue as to who is supplying the data. In your case, KW sends us everything in the KWLS, so that should your listing source.
Nice and informative post. This kind of info would be nice when we participate on Zillow. Any chance that Zillow will iniciate a change so that we can access this type of info for our spcific areas?
Thor (#13) - When you buy advertising on the site, we defiintely display this information because you only pay for the traffic in your zip code. With regards to general traffic, local traffic numbers like this - either Spencer Rascoff or I post the number on our Active Rain blogs each month. Spencer has a number of the previous month's on his blog.
I am happy to say that I am my own Zillow now. My website generates over 100 good leads per month with conversion rate of 16%. Everything is in SEO - video, articles, blogs, press releases etc.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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Hi Sara: Wow zillow's numbers are growing fast - I will have to give them a look.
:)