No matter the fluctuations of the real estate market, Zillow’s SEO dominance holds steady.

Founded by the same creators behind Expedia, the real estate marketplace launched in 2006 as a way to make home prices and values accessible to both buyers and sellers—not just real estate agents. To that end, the platform provides comprehensive information and services related to selling, buying, renting, and financing homes in the U.S., as well as some Canadian cities.

Since its arrival, Zillow has upended the real estate industry. Interestingly, its competitor Realtor.com began more than a decade earlier and offers similar information, yet pales in comparison in terms of search traffic. In fact, according to Ahrefs, Zillow far and away dominates organic traffic in the real estate space with more than 33 million visits per month.

What gives Zillow its edge? The answer is programmatic SEO (pSEO). In fact:

• Zillow’s website has nearly 5.2 million pages, the majority of which are programmatically created. Its blog, careers, and other non-programmatic pages make up less than 1,000—a tiny fraction of the total site.

• Zillow’s programmatic pages can be broken down into three high-intent templates: real estate listings, service providers, and mortgage information.

• Each template is designed and optimized to help users achieve their end goal, whether that’s finding their dream property, connecting with a professional real estate service, or getting the latest mortgage rate information.  

It’s no doubt thanks to Zillow’s robust pSEO engine that about 80% of users land on the site organically.

How Zillow collects real estate data for public use

Before we dive into the nitty gritty of Zillow’s content strategy, it’s worth breaking down the company’s business model and how it aggregates real estate data. 

In a nutshell, the platform connects prospective home buyers and renters with the real estate agents, mortgage lenders, and advertisers who want to reach them. While users search and view property information for free, real estate agents, property management companies, and mortgage lenders pay Zillow to list their services. 

In order to make its business model work then, Zillow needs content to attract its target audience: users interested in buying or renting a home. This is where the power of pSEO comes in.

But how does Zillow get its data in the first place?

Early on, securing property data was a challenge, as assessment companies were wary of Zillow’s founders. “As you might imagine, if you're licensing data, you don't want somebody to license it from you and then provide it free to consumers—which is what our intent was,” co-founder Rich Barton recalls on the How I Built This podcast.  

Despite initial resistance, Zillow secured enough partnerships with data companies to launch its beta. Today, it gathers information from a myriad of sources, including public records and assessment data as well as multiple listing services (MLS), the databases used by real estate brokers to share information about properties. 

Zillow is automatically synced with the MLS in every state, so that when a new listing becomes active, the information is immediately populated into Zillow’s platform. This real-time data synchronization, combined with pSEO, is why Zillow ranks highly for almost any location-based real estate search. 

Zillow’s pSEO strategy 

Zillow’s content strategy revolves around pSEO, which has allowed the company to create thousands of highly targeted pages that match users’ exact searches. Specifically, it relies on three distinct programmatic templates: 

1. Real estate templates: The lion’s share of Zillow’s site—more than 3 million pages—is made up of pages dedicated to property listings, organized based on location and property type. For an example, here’s a page showing duplexes in Philadelphia.

   
   

   

2. Services templates: These pages, the second largest template category, list real estate professionals, from realtors to property managers to inspectors and more. Zillow’s Home Inspector Reviews in Houston page is one example of thousands.

3. Mortgage templates: Finally, these pages provide comparison information about mortgage rates and lenders. Check out Zillow’s VA Mortgage Rates page for an example.

Let’s explore each type in more depth.

Real estate templates

Of Zillow’s nearly 5.2 million pages, the vast majority are real estate listing pages, either for a high-level list of properties or individual properties themselves. These pages are organized according to a simple two-level taxonomy: 

1. Location: Where a property is located

2. Property type/feature: The type of property or a specific property feature of interest

This taxonomy is reflected in the real estate listing pages’ URL structure, which generally appears as follows: 

• zillow.com/[location]/

• zillow.com/[location]/[property-type]

• zillow.com/[location]/[property-feature]

In this way, location is a key part of Zillow’s site architecture, acting as the main subfolder and category for property searches. It’s worth noting here that Zillow offers incredible granularity, with hundreds of programmatic real estate listing pages created not only at the state level but also for counties, cities, and even zip codes. Take a look: 

• State: zillow.com/ny/

• County: zillow.com/lancaster-county-pa/

• City: zillow.com/san-antonio-tx/

• Zip code: zillow.com/elk-grove-ca-95757/

However, location only scratches the surface of Zillow’s pSEO content, as it uses data points from these high-level location pages to create thousands more programmatic pages. This makes up the second level of the taxonomy—property type or feature. 

In other words, users can find Zillow through more targeted keywords like “duplex for sale atlanta,” “townhomes in charlotte nc,” or any other hyper-specific property term. The location/property type permutations are endless, and yet Zillow seems to have a page for each unique combination.

For instance, according to Ahrefs, Zillows has more than 2,100 templated pages for properties in New York using the “/ny/” URL structure. Below is a small handful:

• zillow.com/ny/apartments/

• zillow.com/ny/foreclosures/

• zillow.com/ny/new-homes/

• zillow.com/ny/single-story/

• zillow.com/ny/pet-friendly/

That’s not all for New York-based properties, though. Because of Zillow’s approach to location, even more pages exist for other geographically targeted searches related to New York, including:

• zillow.com/new-york-ny/studio-apartments/

• zillow.com/brooklyn-new-york-ny/duplex/

• zillow.com/new-york-ny-10011/waterfront/

• zillow.com/jefferson-county-ny/studio-apartments/

The granularity of these pages is all thanks to pSEO, which makes it possible to create distinct pages for the nearly infinite permutations of real estate searches.

Services templates

Beyond showcasing property listings, Zillow also connects home buyers and renters with professional services like realtors, property managers, and inspectors. 

Though these templates make up a smaller fraction of the site (around 16,500 pages), they’re essential for capturing high-intent users actively shopping around for specific services.

Just like the real estate listing pages, the services templates have their own organizational hierarchy. However, location no longer acts as the high-level category. Instead, these pages fall within a broader /professionals/ subfolder, and are first organized based on the type of service offered, e.g., real estate agents, home improvement professionals, property managers, builders, inspectors.

Here’s what the URL structure looks like for these pages:

• zillow.com/professionals/[service]/

• zillow.com/professionals/[service]/[location]

Location comes last in this template’s hierarchy, unlike the earlier real estate listing pages. However, Zillow still offers the same level of geographic granularity for its services pages, letting users narrow their searches by state, county, city, or zip code.

• State: zillow.com/professionals/real-estate-agent-reviews/nh/

• County: zillow.com/professionals/real-estate-agent-reviews/hillsborough-county-nh/

• City: zillow.com/professionals/real-estate-agent-reviews/manchester-nh/

• Zip code: zillow.com/professionals/real-estate-agent-reviews/03086/

Mortgage templates

Besides professional services listings, Zillow also offers mortgage rate and lender comparisons, similarly powered by pSEO. Making up less than 250 pages, these templates are grouped under the /mortgage-rates/ subfolder. 

Users can compare rates by either location or the type of loan, as reflected in its simple URL structure. 

• zillow.com/mortgage-rates/[location]/

• zillow.com/mortgage-rates/[loan-type]/

Here are some examples:

• zillow.com/mortgage-rates/nj/

• zillow.com/mortgage-rates/3-year-arm/

• zillow.com/mortgage-rates/15-year-fixed/

This time, unlike the real estate and services templates, Zillow doesn’t allow for very narrow location targeting. Mortgage rates by location are only available at the state level. All of these options, along with different mortgage types, appear toward the bottom of the main /mortgage-rates/ page. 

Zillow’s pSEO templates are designed to drive conversions

Zillow’s content strategy is meticulously designed to meet users’ search intent and drive forward action. Its real estate pages help users browse available listings; its services templates connect users with service providers; and its mortgage pages help users understand and compare different financing options.

Given each template’s specific purpose, page design varies accordingly. 

For starters, each of Zillow’s real estate templates includes:

• A clear headline: The H1 at the top of the page describes the location and type of property featured.

• An interactive map: Visitors can explore an interactive map that provides a high-level view of the geographic area where listings are available.

• Individual listings: Each page features a list of properties or services that match the user’s search criteria.

• Search bar and filters: Users can further refine their results using filters like price and number of bedrooms and bathrooms, which generates additional search parameters at the end of each page’s URL.

For an example, check out Zillow’s page for new homes in Maryland (/md/new-homes/) below.

The services and mortgage templates are similarly designed to create an intuitive user experience. But because users landing on these pages don’t need to visualize where a service provider or lender is based, neither of these templates features an interactive map. Instead, the search bar and filters appear most prominently.

As a collection of service providers, Zillow’s services pages more closely resemble a directory like the review site G2. Since users landing on them are likely shopping around, these pages are optimized to convert visitors into customers. Apart from listing providers’ names and pictures, they also showcase their ratings and price range.

The mortgage templates are the least visual—but for good reason. Since users turn to these pages to learn about and compare mortgage rates, these templates are largely informational. Their format varies slightly based on whether you’re looking at mortgage rates by location or loan type, but overall follows a similar template with robust automated sections.

Location-based Mortgage Rates

• What are today’s [location] mortgage rates?

• [Location] mortgage rate trends

• Compare [location] mortgage rates by loan type

• Mortgage options in [location]

• [Location-specific] mortgage resources

Type-based Mortgage Rates

• What are today’s mortgage rates?

• [Type of mortgage rate] chart

• Learn more about [type of mortgage rate]

• Is a [type of mortgage rate] right for you?

• Compare current mortgage rates by loan type

See for yourself with Zillow’s NY mortgage and 15-year mortgage rates pages.

Kick off your pSEO engine with daydream

Zillow's strategic use of pSEO ensures that it consistently ranks at the top of search engine results pages for both general and specific real estate queries. This approach not only drives immense traffic to Zillow’s site but also captures high-intent users from across the entire home-buying funnel, from people just beginning to browse properties to those ready to apply for a mortgage.

A comprehensive site architecture like Zillow’s requires strong infrastructure to automate the creation of programmatic pages at scale—something that daydream’s platform provides. At daydream, we help fast-growing startups build a robust pSEO engine by providing all the groundwork necessary without the expensive overhead. 

If you’re interested in leveraging pSEO to drive growth, email us at hello@withdaydream.com.