Ken Horst's Blog

How Has The Recent Takeover of Yahoo Search by Bing Affected Your Traffic?

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 23:18:25 -0700

With the recent take over of Yahoo search by Bing many changes have been occurring in the Yahoo search engine results pages. If you were someone who was doing better on Yahoo's search results than Bing's, this recent change has probably cost you traffic. If on the other hand, you had been doing better on Bing than Yahoo, you may be seeing a nice bump in your traffic as the Yahoo SERPs are starting to look and function a lot like Bing.

For MLS Maps, a national directory of local mls listings and real estate marketing company, this recent change has given us a nice lift in our traffic as we were already more favored by Bing's algorithm than Yahoo's. This is really showing up in the search phrase MLS listings, for which we have recently moved up on both Yahoo and Bing providing our site with considerably more visitors looking for real estate and homes for sale nationwide.

As a result of all this, "MLS Listings" is now the #1 organic search term driving visitors to our site and ultimately clicking through to local real estate agents and brokers who are providing the MLS listings data on their sites. In addition to "mls listings", MLS Maps is also seeing steady traffic from over 1,200 different keyword combinations that include "mls", "listings", "maps" and local city names like phoenix mls map search , or winston salem mls . We're thrilled about this traffic mix as it's always safer to have your traffic coming from a wide variety of search phrases and sources versus just one or two big ones.

All that said, fact of the matter is that Google is still the biggest search engine out there with roughly 75% of all search traffic. If you are trying to drive more traffic to your local real estate website, this is where you are going to focus most if not all your SEO efforts. The good news is that every so often you will get lucky and stumble upon a tactical combination that also yields high rankings on Bing and now Yahoo too.

I don't know about the rest of you but I'll happily take traffic from any search engine that will send it to me!

Top Ranked Agents in Florida Based on "likes"

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 13:11:37 -0700

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, Agentopolis recently released our social media updates for Realtors and their families, friends and past clients. We've seen a lot of new traffic with this release and the "Top 100" agents by state are starting to fill out.

Here is a link to the current standing for the Top 100 Florida Realtors base on "likes". If you don't like where you rank, send an email to your past clients asking for their support, that is what many of the top ranked agents have already done.

Member agents can also add links to their Facebook, Twitter and blog sites and visitors can easily follow these links to learn more about you or to "like", follow or comment on your social media sites.

I'm happy to report that we have had only positive feedback with our new ranking system and very few technical problems which just makes life easier on everybody.

Enjoy!

MNONLINEMLS Back Online and now includes VOWs Info

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 00:42:01 -0700

Please excuse our recent hickup at www.mnonlinemls.com as we switched hosting companies and the switch did not go as planned, imagine that!

We are back up and now you can search for Minnesota mls listings fast and free. Also note that we have now included VOWs data so serious home shoppers can find out information about Minnesota real estate and Minneapolis homes for sale like;

Days on market
Original list price, and
Price history

Enjoy and please share our site with anyone you know who is looking for a home in the Minneapolis - St. Paul metro area of Minnesota.

Visitors Can Now Find and “Like” Their Favorite Realtors on Agentopolis

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:54:46 -0700

After years of toiling with different ideas about how to rank agents by consumer opinion and experience, Agentopolis has finally launched a new way for a Realtor’s family, friends and past clients to quickly and easily become a fan by simply click on our new “like” button next to the agent’s name.

Simply clicking the “like” button will increase the total number of fans for that agent by 1. No email confirmation is required for the person “liking” you. They simply click “like” and they are done. Once they refresh the page, they will see that their vote for you has been counted.

The last time we rolled out a Realtor recommendation system on Agentopolis, there were a number of agents who expressed concerns about how other agents might game the system. We tried to consider all the ways that a real estate agent might try to game our new “like” rating system and we believe, for the most part, it will be difficult for them to cheat our Agent ranking system.

The obvious concern would be if dishonest agents simply went to their listing on Agentopolis and clicked the “like” button next to their name 100+ times. Ya, we kind of thought that might happen so we put some technology in place to make it very difficult to accomplish that dishonest goal.

We hope you like our new Agent Rating process and stay tuned for news about the new Social Media Follow tags we are rolling out.

Finding Easy Access to Minnesota MLS Listings May Soon Get Complicated Again

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 19:52:26 -0700

Minnesota MLS listings have been available to local home buyers for quite a long time now. In spite of that fact, many Minnesota home buyers still have trouble finding a site with easy access to the Minnesota Multiple Listing Service data. Part of the problem is how people search for homes for sale in Google.

Minnesota real estate gets searched 4-1 versus Minnesota MLS yet the SERP for Minnesota MLS yields far more direct hits to sites offering easy access to the mls listings. It seems that more people are now including the term "mls" in their search when looking for real estate and homes for sale and I expect to see this continue to grow.

The next thing to happen to real estate search in Google will be when the RPR or Realtors Property Resource launches. Originally slated as a Realtor tool, I've heard that they are busy signing up local real estate boards and aggregating mls listings. If this should come to pass, it will add one more confusing layer to the home buyers search for easy access to MLS listings in Minnesota and all over the country.

Stay tuned!

The Only Three Things You Can Do When Facing Problems

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:18:47 -0700

When I first heard this about 15 years ago, I felt as if a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders. For the first time in my life I realized that I had a simple process for dealing with any problem, challenge, situation or obstacle. I have lived a more peaceful life ever since. Here are the only three things we can do when faced with something we don’t like;

We can try to change it. (notice I didn’t say “them” because I have learned the hard way that I can’t make people change)
If we can’t change it, we can decide to accept it. (this is actually the first of two options when dealing with people problems)
If we can’t change it and we won’t accept it, our only remaining option is to walk away.

Need I say more?

Minnesota Real Estate Experiencing Post-Tax-Credit Adjustment

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:55:50 -0700

Everyone knew that Minnesota real estate sales would dip or adjust after the $8,000 home buyer tax credit ended, we just didn't know by how much. The May housing stats are out for Minneapolis real estate sales and it appears to have been a healthy dip for the same period last year. As a matter of fact, it looks like Twin Cities home sales reached a record low with the fewest pending sales in May since the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors started been keeping records in 1997.

That said, three homes have sold within 30 days of the sign going up in my neighborhood recently. I live in a nice middle class neighborhood in an OK school disctrict. The homes, which were once valued in the low 400's, sold in the low 300's. I beleive that one seller was the original owner so odds are they weren't upside down on their mortgage like so many Minnesota home buyers who purchasd real estate in Minneapolis between 2004-2007.

I think the first-time-home-buyer party is over, at least for a while and from what I can see in my neighborhood, the market is slowly coming back in that moderate second home category, $250,000 - $350,000. I also have to believe that we will be seeing a much higher quality of home buyer in the near future and also much better educated home buyers.

As usual the Minneapolis real estate business is down but not out.

Follow this link for the full article; http://ow.ly/1XkDJ

Click on these links if you would like to see Minnesota MLS listings or would like information on a Minnesota mortgage.

MLS Maps Sees Google Rankings Rise

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 21:21:31 -0700

MLS Maps has recently seen it's Google rankings rise for a number of cities and terms including;

Organic traffic at MLSMaps.com continues to grow with Google being the biggest search engine referrer followed by Bing and then Yahoo. The terms "mls" and "map" occured in 111 different phrases in the month of March and the word "map" appeared in 285 different keyword phrases that drove real estate buyer traffic to MLSMaps.com. The three search phrases that were the biggest drivers of traffic for March were;

Our MLS Maps Blog is also starting to rank high in Google for searches related to map based property search. Clearly map based real estate search is a growing segment of the real estate industry and it's good to see a number of new map based IDX options available to real estate agents who want to market on the Internet.

Map Based MLS Search Terms in January

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:44:19 -0800

As you might expect, the occurance of the word "map" in search phrases that include "mls" is on the rise. As we start 2010 there are more IDX providers that offer map based mls search and we are finding more and more agent sites that offer their local visitors a map based view of available listings in their area.

As I mentioned before, I still think that Map Tracks from Wolfnet Technologies is still the best user interface for home shoppers. It allows home buyers to quickly and easily zero in on a specific neighborhood where they would like to live. This is important to people who are concerned with being close to a good school, close to their place of work or who want to move near friends because they live in a great neighborhood with lots of good people and families.

Here is the list of mls search terms that include the word "map" from our web logs at MLSmaps.com. We've higlighted a few of them to show you the actual Google SERP;

mls map

mls map search

mls maps

mls listings map

mlsmaps

mls listings by map

mls maper

mls area map

mls listings map search

mls search by map

mls listing map

search mls by map

map mls

mls by map

mls search map

mls map listings

mlsmaps.com

search mls listings by map

map mls listing

minneapolis mls map

mls listings canada map

mls.com map

seattle mls map

austin mls maps

los angeles mls map

mls listing maps

mls listings on map

mls map listing

mls mapping

mls maps search

new orleans mls map

sacramento mls map

site:www.mlsmaps.com

charlotte mls map

charlotte mls maps

el paso mls map

free mls maps

free mls online map search

la mls map

map for mls

map mls listings

map search mls

maps mls

miami mls map

mls 29116879 wa map

mls area maps

mls finder map

mls listing by map

mls listing map search

mls listings on a map

mls map view

mls miami map

mls.com map search

mlsmap

msl listings mapped

omaha mls map

pensacola mls map

search mls map

mls map""

austin mls map

bareis mls coverage map

benicia mls view by map

bozeman real estate mls map

canton ohio mls map

charlotte mls map areas

charlotte nc mls map

chattanooga mls areas map

chattanooga mls by map

cincinnati mls map

dallas mls map search

dc mls map

europe map for mls free

fargo mls map

finding mls listing by map

florida mls map

florida mls map search

free mls map search

free mls map with addresses

free mls search map

free mls search with maps

guam mls listing with maps

hmls map listings

home > listing map search

home listing map search

home listings by map

home search mls map

houstin mls map search

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jacksonville mls map

los angeles mls areas map

madison mls by map

map area mls miami florida

map listings

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map mls search

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map of mls zones

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milwaukee mls by map

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minneapolis mls map search

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minneapolis mls with map

minnesota mls map

mlls map

mls # 2255573 map view

mls # maps

mls + map

mls and map search

mls area map for chattanooga

mls area map iami

mls area map link

mls area map new orleans

mls county maps

mls id # 200941947 map

mls id map

mls id# 2915071map

mls listing #: 70901322 map

mls listing map overview

mls listing rr1572150 map

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mls listings online by map

mls listings with map

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mls map jackson

mls map las vegas

mls map los angeles

mls map miami

mls map mn

mls map mobile

mls map modsto ca

mls map of amarillo, tx

mls map realtor search

mls map seach

mls map site

mls map.ca

mls maps memphis

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mls maps.gr

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mls number for map 095440

mls on a map

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mls search by map los angeles

mls search map miami

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mls search minnesota by map

mls search on maps

mls search with map

mls sub maps

mls updates maps

mls with maps

mls# map

mls-maps

mls.by map

mls.com/map

mls.maps

mls/map.com

mlsfinder map search

mlsmaps,ca

mlsmaps.aspx

mlssearch by map

mn mls map

mpls realtor mls maps

multiple listings map

ny mls listing by map

oklahoma city mls map

oklahoma mls map search

old new orleans mls maps

olympia mls map

or mls map search

orlando mls map

phoenix mls map search

phoenix, arizona mls map search

portland mls map

portland or mls map

real estate mls listings maps

realestate mlsmap

reno mls map

rmls search by map

san francisco mls map search

search by map miami mls

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search mls listing by map

search mls listing map

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themls with map

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tuscaloosa mls map search

tuscaloosa real estate mls map search

upgrade maps for mls

virginia mls maps

washington dc ""mls map search""

washington mls maps

what does mls stand for on a map?

create map by mls number

mls search by map fl

mls.maps.ca

Three Things Tiger Woods Should Have Known About Social Media

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:24:33 -0800

The recent PR debacle from Tiger Woods camp makes me wonder if some of these "PR pros" have ever been on the Internet. The guy supposedly crashes his car on his own street and his wife has to smash his windows out with a golf club to help him get out of the car, at least this is the story I remember, and his trusted PR advisers tell him to say nothing. I guess that's good advice, I mean of course everyone will simply quit wondering what happened when the worlds most famous sports celebrity, who has lead a fairly inconspicuous life until now, accidentally crashes his car into a fire hydrant and tree and his wife has to smash the windows to help him get out, that's makes sense. Maybe to someone who hasn't heard of the Internet.

Tiger is a golfer and quite frankly I don't expect him to pay a lot of attention to the Internet and how it works but what about the PR and marketing pros that manage his brand and endorsements, didn't they have a say in how Tiger should respond to the incident, after all, they are collectively paying him around $100 million a year. So which one of these high dollar lame brains imagined this was all going to just go away if Tiger just kept his mouth shut and declined to respond. Which brings me to the first thing Tiger"s people should have known about Social Media and viral marketing ;

1. The more you say nothing or "no comment" about an incident that makes Internet headlines, the more people will talk about you and the incident.

Needless to say I know a lot of people who have absolutely no interest in golf but have gotten caught up in the news and are speculating about what really happened and discussing it with their family, friends and co-workers. So then he brilliantly comes out and apologizes, “I have let my family down and I regret those transgressions with all of my heart.” OK is it just me or are you dying to know what he means by "transgressions"? Questions like how many, of what type, with who, etc come flooding into my head. I'm thinking that Tigers PR pro who wrote up that one clearly isn't aware of the second thing Tiger should have known about social media and viral marketing;

2. Making vague, nebulous statements only fuels the desire for more information. Responding with vague and nebulous statements never, I mean never puts a stop to speculation, curiosity and interest in a headline about a celebrity or politician.

So the bottom line is that it appears as though Tiger Woods, arguably the worlds greatest golfer, has been having affairs with a number of different women. Now I get why his sponsors would want to avoid a statement like this coming out, but the fact is that this information is coming out anyway and sadly for Tiger and company, it's being dragged out into the limelight little by little making it especially difficult for Tiger to put it behind him, try to make peace with his wife (what ever that costs ;) ) and get on with his golf game. Which brings me to the third thing that Tiger and company should have known about social media and viral marketing;

3. The quickest way to stifle rumors, speculation, curiosity and interest is to come out early and tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth as painful and expensive as it may be.

By violating these three principles you aren't hiding anything from anyone you are simply making it even more expensive, painful and time consuming to put it behind you and get on with your life. What happened happened, you can't change the past. Damage control means minimizing the financial and emotional expense to the target and to all the people with investments in the target/individual so they can also get back to their lives and to a return on their investment. I'm surprised that Tigers PR pros didn't know this!

Minnesota Mortgage Company Launches New Web Site

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:25:38 -0700

Metropolitan Financial Mortgage Company, a Minnesota mortgage company, launched it's new web site today which is a real upgrade from what they had. The previous site lacked good content for Minnesota home buyers or people looking to refinance. The new site offers free reports including;

20 Ways to Sell Your Home Faster and for More Money

Adding Up the Impact of Your Credit Score

Credit Basics

Glossary of mortgage terms

The companies new domain name is Minnesota mortgage company which should bode well for some of the keywords they are trying to get ranked for.

Congratulations to Ron Wellbaum and the crew at Metropolitan Financial Mortgage!!

The Ultimate Source of Inspiration for Blog Posts and Tweets

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:27:34 -0700

How many of us have ever sat down at our keyword wanting to put out some good content for our readers and been struck with writers block? I'd be surprised if everyone didn't suffer from at least one occurrence. It's a tough challenge we bloggers face, how to blog frequently enough with quality content in order to build and maintain a relevant readership.

Like many of you I too struggle with this challenge but recently I was re-introduced to a site that is starting to help me get past writers block and really enjoy blogging and tweeting again. I'm guessing that many of you may already be familiar with it but if your like me, the last time you discovered it, you were to busy to really pay attention to the goldmine that lay before you.

The site I'm talking about is Guy Kowasaki's www.alltop.com and this is about the third time I came across it but this time was more timely and relevant because it happened at a time when I was suffering from Tweeters block and looking for some good sources of content. This site now boasts 700 categories of content and you can setup your own page which tracks those categories/topics that are important to you and your readers.

I hope you find this site as benficial as I have and you can use it to help stimulate some great blog posts and tweets in the days ahead.

Great SEO Blogging tips from Matt Cutts of Google

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:23:08 -0700

Matt Cutts recorded this video at Wordcamp 2009. It's a great lesson in white hat seo strategies for real estate bloggers. I've been blogging for over 4 years and I found a lot of benefit in this presentation.

I thought this would be very relevant for AR members as many of us hope to generate new business through our real estate blogging activities. Enjoy!

Tweet Me Homes Launches 6 New Cities

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:40:15 -0700

Tweet Me Homes has launched 6 new cities in the past week;

It generally takes a few days to start seeing any volume of homes for sale so if you don't see what you want right away, simply sign up to follow the city where you are looking for a home and let Tweet Me Homes do the work of looking for you.

As Tweet Me Homes does not tweet every home for sale in each area, it is still critical to be using a real estate agent and a local mls listings web site as well. The volume of homes on Tweet Me Homes contiues to rise as we are adding more local and national brokers and their listings.

If you are a Realtor and would like your clients listings to be tweeted through Tweet Me Homes and your broker is not participating, you can take care of it yourself through www.Agentopolis.com

Agentopolis Extends It's Reach

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:48:44 -0700

Agentopolis recently launched a large number of web pages designed to get Agentopolis real estate agents in front of more people who are looking for a Realtor online. According to Google, "real estate agent" is included in a search roughly 4,090,000 times each month. The challenge for agents is how to get in front of the people looking for a real estate agent in their local area, especially considering that there are only 10 organic spots on the first page of Google search results.

As a result of these findings and other keyword research we have done at Agentopolis, we have launched pages to help people find a real estate agent, find a real estate broker and/or find a Realtor. We have made it even easier now for people to find a real estate agent in over 15,000 cities in the US covering close to 97% of the population.

In an effort to make internet marketing a little easier for real estate agents, Agentopolis allows up to 25 featured agents per city and also gives home buyers and home sellers a number of other ways to search for agents, giving each agent more chances to get found. Of course family, friends and past clinets are always the best source for new business so Agentopolis also makes it easy for those groups to give their favorite Realtor a recommendation. Having a number of sincere recommendation attached to your profile makes new clients feel a little more safe and secure about you, even though they don't already know you.

To find out if you are already listed on Agentopolis or to add your name to our directory for free, click on this link Agentopolis real estate agent directory listing

A Template Website that is Actually Decent?

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:27:10 -0700

Ever since my first day in the real estate and mortgage business 8 years ago I have struggled with my web presence. I'm not a designer and don't know HTML so I can't build my own website. Like many of you, I have checked out most of the template sites available for mortgage and real estate professionals but I've never been perfectly happy with what I'm getting for my money.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago when I met the principles at www.itsmyweb.com. They currently only build mortgage websites but I'm trying to convince them to develop a line of agent real estate websites as well. There are a number of reasons why I like these guys;

Great content
Multiple ways to capture leads
Easy integration of 1003 into popular LOS
Easy access to meta tags for SEO tweeking
Google analytics is already hooked up to your site
You can add personal Team Member pages if you own an office.

In all my searching and looking at template sites, I found this option to be the best value for the money and what also impressed me about these guys is that when I met with them, they showed me their list of all the improvements they will be making going forward, as if there mortgage marketing websites weren't already good enough.

If you are a mortgage pro and you've been looking for mortgage web sites that will work with your mortgage software and generate mortgage leads, you should at least take a look at what their doing at Its My Web.

Tweet Me Homes Delivers Real Estate Listings through Twitter

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:47:14 -0700

TweetMeHomes is a new service that instantly delivers homes for sale and real estate to home shoppers using Twitter. We've currently set up 40 major metro areas and made it super easy to subscribe. You will get instant notification of any new homes for sale on your twitter account or as a text message on your cell phone. Each Tweet Me Homes city page also links to a corresponding page which provides access to MLS listings in the same area.

For the Home Buyer

It couldn't be easier! Create an account on Twitter, visit TweetMeHomes, find and subscribe to the desired city or metro area, and have new homes for sale automatically sent to your Twitter account or cell phone as a text message via Twitter.

For the Real Estate Agent & Realtor

While Tweet Me Homes is in beta, we are currently tweeting thousands of real estate listings and homes for sale across the top 40 metro areas and we are adding new cities and metro areas every day. Real estate agents will soon be able to submit their individual listings through Agentopolis and local, regional and national brokers can mass submit listings through RSS or XML feeds.

The initial feedback we are getting is that this is a great new real estate marketing tool that makes it easy for Realtors to connect with home buyers where they live on the Internet. A recent article show the tremendous growth in social media use and surprisingly, it's not just the younger generation.

Contact Ken Horst for more info at 612-251-8237.

How to Follow Local Real Estate Listings on Twitter

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:10:42 -0700

I recently created a short video to show how to use Twitter to follow real estate listings in your local area. Tweet Me Homes, a new real estate marketing site, is currently in beta and has home tweets available in the top 40 metro areas in the US. Follow this link to watch video http://www.screencast.com/t/gfZpwteJ

Agents and brokers can submit RSS or XML feeds by location and their real estate listings will be tweeted to home shopping followers in their metro area. By mid August, individual agents will be able to submit their listings to www.TweetMeHomes.com through the home listing feature on Agentopolis so their listings will be marketed both on Agentopolis and Tweet Me Homes at the same time.

Stay tuned for videos on how to get local real estate listings sent to your mobile device and how to use RSS feeds to send local listings to your IGoogle or My Yahoo page.

Follow Tweet Me Homes on Twitter

Don't Buy Beach Property In Honduras Just Yet!

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:50:10 -0700

My wife is Honduran and I have been traveling to Honduras for the past 25 years. It is an amazingly beautiful country with a great culture and people. Unfortunately it is one of the poorest countries in the third world with roughly 70% of Hondurans living in poverty.

I've always wondered why real estate prices in Honduras have never really seen risen like in Coast Rica and I guess the answer comes down to a number of reasons including; foreigners cannot own beach property in Honduras and a concern about how stable the government is. The first reason has never been a concern for me as my wife and her family are Honduran citizens. I never really put much concern into the second reason as it always appeared as though Hondurans and their government were pro democracy and liked Americans. Maybe I was wrong about that one.

Recently, the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya's, who is being backed and supported by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's retired dictator Fidel Castro, is pushing to rewrite the constitution so that he can remain in power indefinitely. See "Honduras Lurches Toward Crisis Over Election" http://tinyurl.com/ns2h9n

I'm not sure how this is going to play out in the next few weeks but if I were a foreign land owner in Honduras today, I'd be a little concerned. I hope it all works out because Honduras has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world!

I'll keep you posted!

Video Tutorial - How To Add Your Free Listing on Agentopolis

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:46:36 -0700

Recently Agentopolis started a Twitter page which has become very popular and given us a strong second wind in this age of social media. Agentopolis has added roughly 7500 followers in the past 60 days, a combination of Realtors and home buyers and sellers. As a result, we have seen a nice lift in traffic and have been getting many emails asking how to get listed and take advantage of this free real estate agent marketing and real estate listings marketing.

To answer this question and help you get your free listing on Agentopolis, I have created this short (under 5 minute) video showing you step by step exactly how to add your agent profile to Agentopolis for free!

Add your free listing to Agentopolis

Feel free to share this with other real estate agents and Realtors who are looking for new ways to get in front of home buyers and sellers.

Eden Prairie Agent Uses MLS Maps for Lead Generation

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:26:29 -0700

Wade Ryan of Remax Results in Eden Prairie, Minnesota has been providing local home buyers with mls listings information as way to generate home buyers leads for quite awhile. Using a couple of different real estate sites that focus on both map based search and simply mls listings search, Wade has been able to stay ahead of the competition. Using terms like mls minnesota and minnesota mls, Ryan has managed to get in front of a small set of home buyers and first time home buyers who are familiar with the term mls.

Ryan and his team of ReMax Realtors plan to start using a lot more of the social media tools including FaceBook, Twitter, outside blogs and through sites like Agentopolis, MLS Maps, and more.

Agentopolis Passes Trulia on Twitter

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:55:50 -0700

Real estate agent directory Agentopolis hit two milestones last night on Twitter. We reached 4,000 followers and we passed Trulia on www.wefollow.com. Twitter is fast becoming one of the top sources of traffic for the Agentopolis directory with more and more of our visitors also spending time on the Home Search area where Realtors can list their properties for free.

Agentopolis has also seen significant traffic gains from Twitter on a number of our other real estate sites including www.mlsmaps.com, our MLS listings site using map based property search, and www.mnonlinemls.com, a consumer facing Minnesota MLS site.

Stay tuned as Agentopolis will be presenting a free webinar in May on the topic of "Using Twitter to Find Home Buyers and Sell Homes". We are also in the final stages of deployment for our killer Twitter app that will allow Realtors who post their listings on Agentopolis to automatically have those listings fed to home buyers through Twitter in the market where the home is listed. We are running in beta and have already started to build a list of home buying followers in the top 40 metro markets. We will be live in May!

February Google Searches that include "MLS" & "Map"

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:10:57 -0700

Smart consumers are discovering that they can find an real estate agent site that provides free access to the local MLS listings by state. A growing trend in broker reciprocity MLS sites, as indicated by our Google analytics report, is people looking for map based MLS Search, and as you night have guessed, people search for the same thing in many different ways. In February 2009 mlsmaps.com saw 167 different search terms that included "MLS" and "Map" Here are the top ten keyword search phrases, in rank order, typed into Google by people looking for MLS listings on a map base solution. Each term links to the Google SERP so you can see the competition for the term and who is on the first page

I'm still surprised at the number of real estate agents sites I see without a link to the local mls listings. While we have seen an increase in Realtors using map based search solutions for their visitors, this is still a great opportunity for agents to develop a competitive advantage in their local market place.

Real Estate Downfall Video Parody

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:56:12 -0800

Not that there is anything funny about the state of real estate today BUT, this video parody could not be any funnier. This is a must see for anyone who has had anything to do with real estate in the past few years. Enjoy and be sure to share this with any of your real estate buddies!

Real Estate Video Parody

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