Craigslist Traffic Drivers

Creating a powerful classified ad that is succinct and attention-grabbing is essential to your promotional campaign. With the increased competition in nearly every business segment on the Internet, you need to ensure that your ads get noticed. That means creating compelling, targeted ads that get to the people you really want to attract.

But creating that powerful ad is just the beginning. You have to find a way to identify the right market to begin with, and then go after them. That’s what we want to tell you today – the secrets to identifying your market and taking full advantage of the opportunity to exploit your products and drive traffic.

When it comes to classified advertising sites, none is more well-known or reputable than Craigslist.org. This is phenomenal site when it comes to growth and users. Over the past 10+ years, Craigslist has grown from a small community minded site to an international site offering opportunities for selling and buying everything conceivable.

If you’re considering promoting your products and business on Craigslist, you’ve made a great business decision. Exactly what considerations must be evaluated before you post your classified on Craigslist?

Since Craigslist only allows you to post an ad in one city at a time, it’s important to choose your city carefully. If you want to post in more than one city, which we recommend, then you need to have a plan for doing this and timeline for posting.

Deciding on a city is easy if you have the type of business that provides a service in a particular geographic area. You choose the city closest to your geography and you’re ready to go.

But what if you offer a product or service that is available anywhere in the U.S. or even in other countries. Then your strategy should be a little different. You still need to decide the best services to promote your products. For example, if you’re in a business that sells products related to snow skiing, you will want to avoid posting in Tampa and focus on Chicago where snow is likely to fall. You can also set your sites on Denver, Minneapolis, and other cold-weather states.

Now that you’ve got your cities identified, it’s time to think about your ads. Since you can only post the same ad in one city at a time, and you cannot repost the same ad in other cities, you have some work to do. You’ll need to develop specific and different ads for each city. Include major benefits of your products or services with each ad and only focus on one particular product from your portfolio. Keep in mind that you are not allowed to post the exact same ad within 48 hours or you will be flagged as spamming.

As you create your ads, you can optimize your website exposure by including keywords that are relevant to your products. People will search on these terms and they’re likely to find your ad. Once they find your ad, they’ll also find your links to your website and email address where they submit replies or inquiries. Using these keywords is also a good way to ensure search engine optimization (SEO) too. It’s possible to find your site at the top of search engines for Craigslist results. Google might just send you a lot of traffic as a result of your well-prepared, keyword rich ad content.

Using Craigslist to drive traffic and increase your website exposure is a good business decision. Adhere to the rules and policies and you’ll be able to gain website visitors from your efforts and remain in good standing with Craigslist.