eAction

I recall when I first came online in 1999, I was astonished to find so many sites where I could place free classified ads. After trying out a great many of them, I discovered that some of them were not any great help. Mostly they were tricks to get my email address so that the owner of the classifieds site could swamp me with his or her ads. I’ve learned to despise those sites.

For quite a while I’ve avoided placing classifieds because of that experience, and I think to some degree they lost their reputation for some years. However, there are a few outstanding sites, that seem to be above board, and effective in reaching real people with your ad, and drawing some positive results. I don’t think I’ve found all the good sites yet in this regard. (My campaign to try them out is disrupted quite often). But I’ve been reading very good things about at least two or three classifieds sites, and I can recommend them to you for now.

If you have not been placing ads yourself, you might like a short primer on how to go about it for the most effective results.

The one with the best reputation is Craigslist.org, so let’s go through the steps for that one You can become familiar with that one first, and as you have time, add other sites to spread your ads further.

Explore Craigslist.
1. I suggest you go to the site and just explore it, read their directions, and frequently asked questions (FAQs) and look over ads in various categories so that you see how others are using it. Keep in mind that not everyone is doing it right. You’ll come across some bad ads, so look at a good cross-section for a better chance to see good classifieds that bring results. You want to learn what kind of ads go into each category too. It doesn’t hurt to visit some of the discussion forums too.

Sign up for an Account.
2. If you have enough time that first day, you could also sign up for an account. There is no charge. You’ll notice that posting an ad is free, except if you are advertising a job. There is a charge for those. You don’t even have to sign up but having an account will make things easier and faster for you in the end.

Prepare Your Classifieds.
3. Prepare a plain text file in your Promo folder with the ads you want to post. Make sure all your ads are within the guidelines. Fortunately, on Craigslist, you are not limited to a word count, and experienced users say that your ad will go over better if you know to use some html coding. That is, at least control which words are bold (dark) print, and the size of the fonts. (Don’t go totally crazy). You can also upload a number of photos to show off the item you have for sale. Take time to prepare good photos and have them ready in another folder to upload when you start posting. If this takes a few days, so be it. Why waste time on something you don’t do to the best of your ability?

Start Posting Ads.
4. This will probably happen on another day. At least I am not able to get it all done in just the one hour block of time a day I give to this. But if you have done the previous steps, you should find it fairly easy to place a number of ads in a single hour. Just remember that you can get into trouble if you place the same ad in various categories. So go slow when you are deciding on the best category for each ad. The secret to success in not in swamping Craiglist with a single ad, but getting it into the right place, and going back to edit or re-post it within the required number of days before it expires.

Set a Routine to Return.
5. Prepare a schedule or mark a special little calendar to help you routinely go back to repost your ads when they are about to expire - assuming your ad is for a service or something that is not sold out. And of course, to place new fresh ads as you get more ready.

As you find other classifieds sites that are above board and effective, you can add posting to them as part of your routine. Another one you might try is AdlandPro. If you become an affiliate and place a link to AdlandPro on your website, you are allowed unlimited free ads.