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Zillow Adds A Real Estate Professional Directory - Add Your Name For Free

By Sara Bonert

Services for Real Estate Pros with Zillow

October 03, 2008 06:36 AM

Zillow has always let you post listings for free. And when you created a free profile on the site, your photo shows up on all of your listings and on any contributions you might make on the site (ie Discussions area). However, until today there really wasn't a way to just search for Agents, Lenders, or Real Estate Professionals. But not anymore!

Today we launched the Zillow Professional Directory!! All you need to do is create a free profile on the site to be included. If you have already created one in the past, it will automatically be included in the directory. If your broker or a listing syndicater is sending your listings to Zillow, then it is still necessary to create this profile. Please make sure to register with the same email address that is used in the feed. This will ensure we match your profile to your listings.

Make

When you create your profile, include your specialities and the areas that you serve. This will help ensure that you come up in all appropiate searches.

Another tip- in your profile there is an area to write "about me". Here you can obviously write marketing text, but you can also include relevant links to your website. So you could say "I specialize in Wicker Park..." and Wicker Park could be a hot link to the area on your website that might have Wicker Park neighborhood information. This will help with your SEO efforts!

You can read the full announcement about the launch of the Zillow Professional Directory on our blog.

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Stephen D White, E-Pro, ABR Cape Cod Real Estate

SDW Realty of Cape Cod - Falmouth, MA

Thanks Sara Zillow seems to updating their web services and evolving to serve their clients which is excellent. Of course you have to to compete with so many other web portals nowadays!

Oct 06, 2008 04:17 AM

Karen Rice Keller Williams Real Est

Keller Williams Real Estate - Hawley, PA

Northeast PA & Lake Wallenpaupack Home Sales

I would love to see Zillow.com give Realtor.com a true knock off their pedestal, but hopefully if that does happen their success won't get to their heads and make ZIllow forget what made them useful to consumers - REAL ESTATE AGENTS giving them the content for their site.

Realtor.com took the thing that made it great - the listings of its members, and use the leverage that members gave it against the members...now charging ridiculous fees for putting things like PICTURES and DESCRIPTIONS on the listings...

I guess I'm afraid of being bitten in the future by the machine I'm helping to power...even if it's with just a few listings for now.

Oct 06, 2008 04:50 AM

Sara Bonert

Zillow - Atlanta, GA

Real Estate Internet Marketing

Karen- I think there are a lot of people that would like someone to do that... we are working on it! If nothing else, new entrants in the online real estate space have at least made them pay more attention to what is going on and do things like give all listing 4 free photos now (on zillow you get 50).

With regards to your fear, I think it is warranted for site that just has listings as content. Zillow was getting about 4 million people the site each month before we had a single for sale listing on the site. Listings definitely enhance the site today however, but we hope that you are getting something out of too by way of leads and marketing exposure.

Charging people to add functionality is not the way to build a site in today's online world. If you charge people for these types of extras, obviously not everyone is going to do it, so your site is less compelling for people to visit (because there are much more complete sites on the web, like any site that has idx). And charging for leads is model that doesn't work (I don't think anyone has been able to successfully do this). So I wouldn't worry about this too much, although I understand where you are coming from.

Oct 06, 2008 02:39 PM

Brian Ryan

Century 21 Absolute Realty - Ridley Township, PA

Thanks. I did this the other day.

Oct 06, 2008 02:51 PM

Scott Cowan

RE/MAX Professionals - Olympia, WA

Thanks for posting the information. I have signed up on Zillow as well. I think that the tools they provide are valuable to both professionals and consumers.

Best,

Scott

Oct 06, 2008 02:54 PM

Scott Hoen

Carson City, NV

Carson City Clerk Recorder / Public Administrator

Good idea -- adding yourself will also help with search engine optimization -- a win for both zillow and yourself

Oct 06, 2008 03:18 PM

Marlene Pellegrini

Norwich, CT

Thanks, I signed up. We will see if good things happen!

Oct 07, 2008 01:25 AM

Aloysius Donohue

Keller Williams Realty - Ridgewood, NJ

Ridgewood Real Estate

Sara - This is a bit off topic but I have 2 profiles on Zillow and half my contributions are in each one. Can I consolidate them? If not, how do I delete one? I couldn't even figure that out. I know, I am lame.

Oct 08, 2008 03:59 PM

Tony Sena

Shelter Realty, Inc - Henderson, NV

Broker/Property Manager

I just added my self to the directory :) Thanks for the information!

Oct 08, 2008 05:26 PM

Georgie Hunter R(S) 58089

Hawai'i Life Real Estate Brokers - Haiku, HI

Maui Real Estate sales and lifestyle info

Thanks for the news. Now I need to make sure the email address is correct, as I think that explains a lot.

Oct 09, 2008 03:19 PM

Zane Fikany Connie Hettinga

Steinborn GMAC - Las Cruces, NM

Thanks for the news. I just did my profile. I appreciate all the good tips!

Oct 10, 2008 07:53 AM

Georgie Hunter R(S) 58089

Hawai'i Life Real Estate Brokers - Haiku, HI

Maui Real Estate sales and lifestyle info

Sara - when I tried to change my email address in my Zillow profile, it said that it was already in use. Any suggestions?

Oct 10, 2008 09:44 AM

Sara Bonert

Zillow - Atlanta, GA

Real Estate Internet Marketing

Georgina - First try this- log on to the site using the email address you are trying to change it to and click the 'forgot password'. See if this emails you the password, if it does you are good to go. If it doesn't, please email me the specifics of what you are trying to do at repros@zillow.com.

Oct 12, 2008 12:47 PM

Eileen Begley

Coldwell Banker, DelMonte - Carmel, CA

Monterey Real Estate

I already signed up also and it is a great opportunity!

Oct 13, 2008 04:39 AM

Deb Jobin

RE / MAX River's Edge - Bristol, RI

Award-Winning Realtor

I will have to check it out. It will be interesting to see how many other agents in my area have joined.

Oct 13, 2008 08:28 AM

Brenda Harmon

Century 21 Beal, Inc College Station, Texas - College Station, TX

Sara,

Thanks for the post. I am going to the site and try to register.

I'll be back if I have problems. Thanks. :)

Oct 14, 2008 10:42 AM

Kurt Duffeck

ANEW Real Estate Crew at Keller Williams Realty - Austin, TX

Anew Real Estate Crew - Start Right. Start ANEW.

Sara,

You Rock! I'll jump over to Zillow right away and sign up! I'm sure you'll put in a good word for me so that, I'll get massive amounts of business from adding my name.

Kurtcares of Tucson, AZ

Oct 25, 2008 10:33 AM

Gregory Storm

www.LAHomePhotography.com - Los Angeles, CA

Real Estate Photographer

Thanks for this information! Between listing your business on Zillow for free and listing your business on Google Maps for free (List your Business on Google Maps for FREE!) we have a lot of free marketing. I've received a lot of calls from my Google Maps listing so hopefully Zillow will do the same.

Thanks again!

Gregory

Agent Headshots | Real Estate Photography
www.lahomephotography.com