Zillow.com today launched its Zillow Professional Directory, a new resource for real estate professionals to market their services to Zillow's millions of visitors. The directory, which is free to use, helps consumers interested in buying, selling or conducting home renovations to find and connect with a local professional to fit their needs.

At launch, the Zillow Professional Directory includes information on more than 150,000 real estate professionals who currently have an active profile on Zillow. The directory is open to any professional who caters to local homeowners, buyers or sellers, including real estate agents, stagers, lenders, contractors, landscapers or architects. Consumers can then search for professionals by specialty, business name, city, ZIP code or neighborhood.

"This is a free opportunity for local professionals to market their services to Zillow's millions of visitors - 90 percent of whom own a home, and two-thirds who are buying or selling now or in the near future," said Jorrit Van der Meulen, Zillow's vice president of partner relations. "In today's challenging market, it's a no-brainer."

Zillow opened the site up for community contributions in late 2006, and since then has continued to add new features to help enhance the interaction on the site between professionals and consumers seeking home-related information. The directory follows suit as it provides a direct way for professionals to get in front of local consumers seeking help. By listing in the directory, professionals market themselves to one of the largest consumer real estate audiences on the Web - Zillow logged more than 5.4 million unique visitors in September 2008, a 42 percent year-over-year increase in traffic.

To participate in the directory, professionals simply need to register on Zillow.com, which will automatically prompt them to create a free profile page, and identify their focus areas and expertise.