Driving Traffic with Craigslist

Driving traffic to your website is your number one concern when it comes to advertising and promoting your site. Why else would you spend the time, money, and effort to advertise? When people find it easy to locate your site and access it, then you are more likely to convert them to paying customers.

As you consider your classified advertising options for 2011, take a look at the Craigslist website to see what people are talking about. You’ll find that they’re talking about everything and they’re searching for everything! You need to get in on that action.

Craigslist offers services for local classified advertising, forums, and bulletin boards. They are created around a community-minded basis so advertising is done in each of the 500 or more cities where they offer their services. It is an international website that offers an incredible opportunity to reach a huge audience of people who are already in the buying mode!

So how do you actually drive traffic from a Craigslist classified ad? It’s actually very simple.

First, you post your classified ad on the Craigslist website where buyers are searching for what you have to sell. The website offers a search feature that helps people locate your ad and they can learn more about you. It also offers the option of browsing advertisements based on categories – making it easier to find what they are searching for.

When you post your ad, you include keyword rich content that also includes hyperlinks to your website along with other information such as your URL address, an email for contact, and other important contact information that can drive them to your website. When someone reads your add and clicks on your hyperlink, you’ve got a potential customer!

According to the Craigslist website, they boast of having more than 50 million visitors per month! If your ad is well-written and clearly describes what you have to offer they’ll want to click on the hyperlink to learn more.

With over 50 millions visitors monthly, that is a lot of opportunity to have your business discovered by buying customers! But if you don’t include your classified ads on Craigslist, that’s a massive ‘lost opportunity’ to your business.

Now, this is not the only way to drive traffic to your website, although it is an excellent way. You can also drive traffic through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques too. When you create your classified ads for Craigslist, be sure to include your most relevant keywords and make the content exciting and attention-grabbing. Always keep in mind that your content should be something the search engines can crawl and quickly spot your keywords.

When people search for particular products using keywords, they will be directed to your listing on Craigslist. Once they reach your ad, they can click on your hyperlink and they’ll be whisked off to your website where you’ll offer them valuable, rich, unique, and engaging content. Then it’s your job to make your site ‘sticky’ so they’ll stick around to learn more about what you have to offer.

Craigslist is a great way to drive traffic to your site. Check it out for yourself and be ready for the traffic to flow.