Is Craigslist or Kijiji a viable place to do business on the net or are their other sources that will give me better results?
If you post on Craiglist you want to post in the services section under small biz ads - or you will get flagged. I don't know much about Kijiji but someone else might come around and give you some advice on that.
What about sites like backpage. Someone told me it works as not many people market products heavy there.
I found that on CL that Business for sale is the best place to get quality leads but it also is the best place to get your ads flagged. I have been trying small biz ads section and it seems to be very low amount of hits on my ads. Very few leads. And if you post in a major city, your ad will be buried within 6-8 hours by new posts. But nothing beats free leads, so I think it is worth the effort sometimes.
I'm trying to understand the Craiglist rules. So if i post in cleveland, i cant post in any other geographical city? Is that right? Or can I wait 24 hrs and post somewhere else?
You can post in several cities in one day - just mix up the wording of your ad a little and make sure you post in the 'services' section and then under 'small biz ads'... I posted, like, seven ads one day - different ads in different cities but that day they got flagged so now I only place about 2 - 3 a day - a couple times a week - but then that may have only been a freak day!
The thing with Craigslist is that they've made a very strong push to eliminate the SPAMMING that was going on. They have bots that search through posts and look for keywords. They also have the ability to track you IP address and block anything posted from a particular IP address. There are of course ways around this which can help you get great leads. I post in pretty much any section I want for the most part and rarely get flagged. "Ghosting" (where your ad says it posts but never shows up) is also a huge problem because you think all your efforts are paying off, but no one see's your site. Some quick tips. 1. NEVER USE A LINK.(or only use it very rarely) ??“ This will help reduce the amount of post that get flagged. 2. A picture is worth a thousand words ??“ create picture with text in them. The "bots" that read ads can't read text in pictures. 3. Multiple email addresses ??“ I would stick to using something like live.com where you can forward as many accounts as you'd like. Every 3 days or so delete old ads and accounts. 4. DON'T SPAM- this is a big one. I would stick to around 3 post a day in 3 cities and no more. 5. Track your results ??“ over time you can start to see what cities you can and can't post in. There are ways to get CL to work for you. Backpage is also awesome and a little more lenient...for how long though I don't know.
OK... I think I have it figured out... Used seperate IP locations....lots of free WiFI spots... and all new email addresses... erase your web history and use different wording and this should fool the bots. Any other suggestions?
I just noticed this conversation and I thought I would add my 2 cents. Using classified ads online could be a great tool to get the exposure on the first page of Google. For example CraigsList has a Google Page Rank of 8, which is very high. BackPage is right behind the CraigsList in popularity. Naturally, a back link from BackPage is going to add a lot of value to your website as far as the quality of the back links (unfortunately, CraigsList is "no follow" any more). Based on the Google Page Rank your ad in either one of those locations will get indexed in a matter of minutes and will pop up on the first (hopefully) page of Google organically in a matter of hours. Remember: it's not about getting traffic from the visitors of the CraigsList or BackPage, but about getting to the first page of Google and getting visitors from Google. I repeat: it's not about getting traffic from the visitors of the CraigsList or BackPage, but about getting to the first page of Google and getting visitors from Google. Obviously, both of those guys have pretty strict rules, but it's just a matter of phrasing your ads accordingly in order not to get flagged right away. It's all about the keywords you use. You can change the copy any way you want in order to comply with the requirements of either site, just make sure you use your keywords correctly. So, in order for your ad to get to the first page of Google you need to follow this concept: 1. Place your keyword in the title of the post 2. Make sure you have your keywords in the body of the post 3. Insert your URL in the ad and make sure it's clickable: http://www.URL.com, not just URL.com 4. Use long tail keywords to insure first page of Google placement of your post. General criteria is that the niche has to have about 300000 search results or less, but according to my tests you should be able to get to the first page even within niches of up to a few millions search results. That's how much Google loves the classified ads. 5. That's it, you are done. From the automation stand point BackPage is much more convenient to use, because it allows you to schedule re-submitting your adds for you automatically. With both of those sites you need to make sure that you do not spam and therefore you shouldn't repeat the same submission more than twice a week, I would even recommend to do it only once a week in order not to irritate anybody. When your post gets to the first page of Google it will stay there for a few days, possibly weeks, so once a week re-submission should be just as good. A way to go even further is to, as it was mentioned here already, make a picture post. The simplest way to do so is to create a slide about your business in the PowerPoint, save it as a JPEG image, upload it to the PhotoBucket.com. Then take a HTML code for this picture from the PhotoBucket, replace the address in the beginning that goes to your picture in the PhotoBucket into your website URL ( your picture ad will be clickable and will go to your website) and use it as a body of your ad to place in all the classified ads publishers that you are using. Most of them allow HTML, even the CraigsList. In order to make it unrecognizable for the robots, before the end of the HTML code type in there a random set of digits or letters. Type a couple of keyword-rich sentences after the code for the robots as well. The websites I use are CraigsList, BackPage, Hoobly, Olx, Oodle (most of them allow HTML). If I didn't mention before, it's not about getting traffic from the visitors of the CraigsList or BackPage, but about getting to the first page of Google and getting visitors from Google. It means that you can post your ads in ANY SECTION AND IN ANY CITY IN THE WORLD! I originally tested this approach for my real estate business and my ads would get to the first page of Google literally over night and would stay there for quite a while.
