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The Free Real Estate classifieds portal Khusan which is both for property sellers and property buyers has been voted ‘best property site of the year’ by Madeira island based full service digital marketing, development and web design agency Navega Bem – Web Design.

Navega Bem, which is the company that actually developed the Khusan project ran an in-depth analysis of the sites it has produced this year and took into consideration the  marketing effectiveness, clients comments, user comments, traffic and search engine visibility.

Chris Szabo, MD of Navega Bem explained “We simply wanted to understand how our websites have performed and what our clients have actually gained from their new web presence.”

“This has not been an analysis of any sites other than those we have produced ourselves. We have a very effective after sales service. We certainly do not abandon our clients once a project is completed and we know it is in our interest to make a site as successful as it can possibly be. If our clients have success – we will have success. To this end we run comprehensive Social Media campaigns after each site launch.”

“The Khusan Real Estate Classifieds portal was one of the most challenging projects we have developed in terms of the enormous number of competitive sites that already exist in this field. Our analysis results have been conclusive – Khusan is the best Real Estate site we have developed – not only of 2010, but of all time. We also feel that the private self-catering holiday portal ‘Easy Holiday Rentals‘ is certainly of equal stature in terms of design – but it was just a hairs width behind in terms of marketing effectiveness.”

Local internet guru Liam Gonçalves finds the whole thing very suspicious and states “Navega Bem are actually voting for a site that they have developed themselves and are only comparing it with their own sites! So whatever, the outcome they would have a website that was voted best Real Estate site of the year.”

It looks as though Liam has hit the nail on the head. Certainly ‘Khusan’ don’t seem to mind, as they have for sometime believed that they have one of best Real Estate Classifieds sites on the whole world wide web.

Khusan is the brainchild of a company in Amsterdam with a high level of know how in the realty market and is tipped to be the new google of property classifieds with an innovative and super fast real estate portal that offers free ad placement to anyone searching for or wanting to advertise their property online.

The Khusan portal is developed around the Drupal CMS framework. Visit Khusan – The International Real Estate Classifieds Portal here.

The easier it gets, the more difficult we find it! This amusing yet contradictory conclusion made by a frustrated house seller is not as far from the truth as it may appear.
Today we have an enormous choice of websites and portals that profess to be the perfect choice for property buyers and sellers. But as in any industry the claims often do not live up to the reality. So what is it that makes for a highly functional and user friendly property classifieds website?

We looked in detail at one of the new upstarts that claims to be the next best thing the on the digital Real Estate market. These are our findings about Khusan:

Khusan – This is the new international kid on the block and features a very user friendly interface. Focus is on ‘For Sale by Owner’ and is certainly simplistic in its approach but incorporates an advanced search that is quite ingenious. Khusan does not only have free classifieds for ‘offered’ Real Estate but also ‘wanted’ listings. So why doesn’t Khusan feature in the best portal compilations?

Everything is in a name. The name Khusan sounds like something you might say when someone sneezes. Khusan is actually the derivation of the word ‘house’. O.E. Hus “dwelling, shelter, house,” from P.Gmc. *khusan (cf. O.N., O.Fris. hus, Du. Huis, Ger. Haus), of unknown origin, perhaps connected to the root of hide (v.). (Source: http://www.etymonline.com/). Yes, very original!

The Khusan home page is simply too… simple. Yes, often a little means a lot – but this homepage doesn’t give you many choices at all. Create an Ad or Search for Property. I can’t help but feel that Khusan is just too similar to another site that also does not feature in the top Property Classified Portals… Google!

User friendliness is one of the major success factors of any website. Property buyers like to wade through different pages and get a feel for a classifieds website. They like to dig down into listings and then climb back out again. This is certainly where Khusan does not stick to convention. With Khusan you can get to any property listing in 2 clicks. This just takes the fun out of surfing. We do not believe this will motivate anyone to return to the portal nor will it create a new trend. Web surfing is not about jumping on a surfboard only to find that you are already on the beach.

The individual property listing page is probably where we have to draw a line and say ‘there is no such thing as a free dinner”. Property details are attractively displayed on one single page. They include the owner contact details, a generous description, property features, a photo gallery with up to 8 images and to conclude the page a Google map is incorporated showing the exact location (if required). All this and it’s allegedly FREE? The owners of Khusan maintain the listings are completely free and will remain so. In my experience, when you ‘pay’ to advertise a property and get this kind of professional service – it feels good and you know you are getting value for money. But when it’s free – it just kinda makes me feel something is not quite right.

In conclusion we have to agree that Khusan does not belong in the list of best Real Estate and Property Classifieds Portals. Why are they offering more and more classifieds each and every day? Why are people form all around the world deciding to advertise their properties with Khusan? Obviously, it’s because Khusan is new and going through that ‘curiosity’ phase. It seems too good to be true so people are using it. But let’s face it – we’ve seen all this happen before. Kind of reminds me of Google!

After a successful launch on June 14th 2010, Khusan has attained many positive comments from within both the Property Market and Web Development circles.

Khusan is a new and refreshing way to create free classified ads within the property market. The site offers a clean and inviting interface and allows fast user registration and advertisement placements.

The concept is based on the ‘For Sale by Owner’ premise where property owners can advertise at no cost and users interested in a property contact the owner directly. Khusan, as the portal owner has no intermediary role between buyers and sellers.

‘Navega Bem – Web Design‘ were commissioned to develop the project after they were found through a Google search for ‘Real Estate CMS Websites’. Having studied the Navega Bem website and the Portfolio, Jan Schouten – Khusan Project Director was confident he had found the perfect web developers for the job.

Jan explained “One of the most important assets of any website is its ability to be found in search engines. Whilst looking for a company to develop Khusan we were impressed at how well the Navega Bem website performed in the search engines. The proof is in the pudding as they say and Navega Bem showed their professionalism and know how through the performance of their own website”.

Chris Szabo, MD of Navega Bem was responsible for the corporate identity and layout of the web portal. “In a market saturated with websites trying to attract property advertisers, we were very aware that the portal needed to reflect a fresh, lively and highly user friendly concept. We chose modern colour compliments and designed the logo to gel with that feeling of simplicity. The complete interface is easy to use and is inspired in part by the Google search interface. Khusan wants to allow users to advertise Real Estate and search for Real Estate, with as little interference or distraction as possible.”

The launch of the Khusan -Property Trading Place Portal was targeted to specific geographical regions as part of the build-up phase. The Property markets in London, New York, Panama, Shanghai were amongst the main destinations specifically addressed. Further areas are now being introduced into the marketing strategy.
However, Khusan remains an ‘International’ Real Estate Classifieds Portal and initial indications show that properties from all corners of the globe are being introduced into the websites listings.

The website has been developed around the Drupal open source content management platform. Further post launch development will focus on additional user functionality. Visit the Portal at www.khusan.com

Khusan.com has gone live on the world wide web offering a completely new and intuitive classified ads experience.

Sporting the motto “Khusan? You can!”, the international property trading portal has excellent pre-launch reviews and introduces a speedy search function to help find properties fast and with precision.

Classified ads in Khusan are FREE of charge and users wishing to add their properties have a diverse array of tools available to fully feature their adverts and get optimal results.

Khusan.com is an international classifieds marketplace that exclusively offers real estate. The major difference between Khusan.com and other real estate classifieds sites is that it allows for both the merchant (house owner, Realtor, travel agent, etc.) and the consumer (all those wanting real estate) to place their advertisements.

Using current successful Internet marketing approaches and by gaining a strong social networking position, Khusan.com has the ambition to become the most popular international real estate classifieds site resulting in the highest conversion of property transactions.

Khusan.com’s primary target group is the property owners who sell their realty privately using the ‘For Sale By Owner’ method. However, it is definitely not limited to this target group. No one is excluded from advertising their property or their requirements on Khusan.com. Adverts include comprehensive info about properties and Google Map positioning

The property portal is at home in Amsterdam, Holland and has been painstakingly engineered around the open source CMS framework Drupal, which was also instrumental in the creation of the official website for the White House and President Barak Obama. Renowned web design and consulting agency ‘Navega Bem’ are responsible for the development of the Khusan web portal and have spent 6 months crafting the first phase of the site for launch. Further post launch development will focus on additional user functionality.

Khusan? You can! Only at www.khusan.com

Saturday the 29th of May was the 1st International khusan conference and was held in Wiesbaden ahead of the much anticipated JandBeyond conference.
The international property classified ads portal will launch mid june and this meeting was to cover the pre-final agenda and strategy.

Taking part in the conference was Jan Schouten, Roland Vanleusden, Eddie Elzer, Marco Teixeira and Chris Szabo.

The khusan portal is developed around the Drupal CMS framework and the meeting took place close by the friends and colleagues from the 1st International Joomla conference. As advocates of both the Joomla and Drupal CMS, Navega Bem is encouraging an uptake of both frameworks.

Hotel websites can get their prices into Google Maps: Google Maps is often one of the first sites travelers visit to find and compare hotels. Today Google started experimenting with a new feature, for the time being only visible to a small portion of users, to help make that process even easier by showing specific prices for selected hotel listings.

This is great news for consumers. With this feature, when you search for hotels on Google Maps you’ll be able to enter the dates you plan to stay and see real prices on selected listings. You can click on the price to see a list of advertisers who have provided pricing information for that hotel, indicated by the “Sponsored” text, and click through to reserve a room on the advertiser’s site. By showing you this relevant hotel rate information directly in the Google Maps results panel Google  hopes to make this aspect of your trip planning more speedy and efficient – so you can get where you’re going and enjoy your travel destination!

A potential visitor to Madeira island for example could quickly compare prices to all hotels with ’sponsored’ listings. Although the trend is more and more to visit independent hotel websites and evaluate services, location and ratings – this is certainly a tool full of promise for certain sectors of the hospitality market.

Here’s an example of the Google Maps results for someone who is searching for hotels in New York City:

This new feature will not change the way that hotels are ranked in Google Maps. Google Maps ranks business listings based on their relevance to the search terms entered, along with geographic distance (where indicated) and other factors, regardless of whether there is an associated price.

Whilst Google is experimenting with this feature, they are currently working with a limited number of advertisers and it will only be visible to a small portion of users . As always, they will evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of this new feature based on both data and feedback, and hope to make it available to more users and offer prices from more partners over time.

To learn more about smart hotel websites – visit Navega Bem Web Design.
To learn more about Google Maps and Hotel Prices follow this link.

khusan.com is nearing its launch date and is set to make a huge impact in the real estate classifieds market.

khusan is the brainchild of a company in Amsterdam with a high level of know how in the realty market and is tipped to be the new google of property classifieds with an innovative and super fast real estate portal that will offer free ad placement to anyone searching for or wanting to advertise their property online.

In an online market saturated with websites offering real estate it has become confusing and laborious to quickly find a property and get in touch with the owner. Enter ‘khusan’! The khusan property portal will find you your property in as little as 1 click. How do they do it? Well, you’ll have to see it for yourself.