Archive for the ‘Classified Ads’ Category

The Multi-faceted Craigslist

Sunday, October 18th, 2009

The internet has many, many ways of communicating with many people.  One can find any number of methods to do research or to simply drop someone a quick note.  One of the fastest growing ways, however, is CraigslistCraigslist is a great way of networking.  And you can use it to meet up with people, to locate long lost friends, to strike up a romantic relationship or to do almost anything else on the internet that you can imagine.  But we want to narrow down our information somewhat, so this particular article will deal with networking and searching a romantic relationship via Craigslist.

TO NETWORK

Craigslist provides a great spot on which to do some networking with others of similar interest.  There are numerous discussion forums available which enable you to read those in which you have an interest.  After doing so, you will most likely come across someone else who may match your interest and can serve as a discussion partner.  And the best part is that all posts to Craigslist include an email address of the person that posted the comment.  And these addresses can either be private or one supplied by Craigslist.  This enables you to contact the poster for further discussion.

FINDING ROMANCE

You can also make use of Craigslists to find a potential romantic relationship.  This section of Craigslist is much the same as the personals in a newspaper or any of the dating sites that are out there.  As with any other similar service, you can place an ad or read one that has been posted by someone else.  And they provide possibilities for both heterosexuals as well as homosexuals.  But keep in mind that there are additional restrictions on this portion of the site that are in addition to the general Craigslist restrictions.  First of all, you must be 18 years of age.  In addition they prevent anyone from impersonating anyone else for the purposes of this type of communication.

Take Precautions -  Any type of dating site or site which is geared to a romantic relationship, must be dealt with carefully.  Craigslist is no different.  Since the internet is a type of anonymous vehicle, it allows people to misrepresent themselves to others.  This may be intentional or quite by accident.  But either way, it requires care in the use of  Craigslist.

The most obvious precaution that must be taken is to protect yourself from those who could intend to cause you physical harm.  One of the best ways to protect yourself is to make sure that your first meeting with someone is in a very public place with many people around.  Avoid any type of secluded meeting until you have had a chance to check this person out face to face.  And even after the first meeting it is still wise to avoid giving anyone your phone number or address until you are quite comfortable with them.

Finally, try to keep a clear and open mind concerning the people you meet on Craigslist.  You will probably get numerous responses.  Most of them will not really fit what you are looking for.  It is possible, however, that you could find that special someone right away.

Will Craigslist Really Help Your Business?

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

That can be a very loaded question.  Because the answer is, yes it can.   But the answer may also be, no it won’t.  But on the other hand, the answer could be, perhaps it will.  Since there is no clear cut answer to that question, then it must depend on how the site is used and how much knowledge you have of how to use the site.  If you are able to put together some great copy for your ad and also be able to find your target customers, then you will probably do very well on Craigslist.  If, on the other hand, you don’t really know who your potential customers are and your ad copy is rather ho-hum, then you may not do so well on Craigslist.

The opportunity is certainly there for substantial financial gain.  After all, all of the advertising and posting is free so you don’t have any financial commitment going into the process.  You are not wasting a dime.  And the traffic is phenomenal.  There are about ten million visitors to Craigslist per month which translates into about four billion page views.  So you don’t have to worry about traffic; it is there. But to make all of this work for you, you must know what you are doing and how best to work with the site.  If you don’t you will be very disappointed.

DO SOME RESEARCH

Except for the volume of traffic on the site, advertising on Craigslist is not a whole lot different than anywhere else.  You have to have a clear picture of your purpose and what audience you are going after.  This requires doing quite a bit of research so that you are placing the ads in the right place on Craigslist.  You also need to make sure that the wording of your ads is such that you are going to grab the attention of those reading it.  This includes making sure that you have the right keywords present so that as people search they will come across your ad.

Now obtaining all of this knowledge can be daunting.  You can do some of it online but some can also be done other ways.  One very effective way is to provide some surveys to be filled out by members of that group you are trying to target.  Based upon their answers, you can begin building an effective campaign which you can translate to ads on Craigslist.

WHAT ABOUT COMPETITION ON THE SITE?

If you perform a search on Craigslist it can provide you with some very valuable information.  It will direct you to your competition on the site.  By looking at their ads and their approaches, you can learn much about the direction you may want to take.   You can see what is working for them and then use the same techniques yourself.  But in addition, you will also be able to see what the weak points are for your competitors thus helping you to avoid those traps.

Use some keywords for your product or service and you will be amazed at the number of ads that will come up for the competition.  You will then want to study these ads very carefully.  How can you improve on what they have already done?  How much more creative can you be than they were?  And how can you write better copy than they did?  Not everyone is good at all of these things.  That is why it may be wise to enlist someone with SEO expertiseSEO is Search Engine Optimization.  These people are skilled in analyzing this data and in writing effective copy which can more effectively achieve sales results for you.  Using someone with this knowledge is very often the best way to go rather than trying to do all of this yourself.

The Price Is Right on Craigslist

Friday, October 16th, 2009

Craigslist offers many, many benefits to those doing business and marketing.  It offers you the opportunity to not only buy but to also sell to a wide community of potential customers.  It will also offer you the opportunity to job hunt, if need be.  But the two benefits we will focus on in this article are the affordability of Craigslist and the fact that Craigslist can also help you to reach your targeted buyers.

A GREAT PRICE

You cannot beat the price of advertising on Craigslist.  It is FREE!!  At least for most types of advertising.  Certain ad types in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco are charged a fee, but even that is low.  So, if you compare advertising on Craigslist with almost any other sort of advertising, Craigslist wins hands down.  There is absolutely no competition.

Think about it.  You can post an ad on Craigslist for a product or service and there is no fee at all.  The only thing that comes even close is in affiliate marketing when the advertiser is only charged when there is traffic generated from the ad.  But that is not the same as FREE.    Craigslist beats anything out there when it comes to the cost effectiveness of advertising.

REACHING A HUGE AUDIENCE

With about four billion page visits per month on Craigslist, what other form of advertising will get you that kind of reach in that time period?  None!  And the effort that goes into reaching that many people is really very low.  So you are making out on both ends.

KNOW YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Now, this is all well and good to reach that many people on any website.  But the thing that you must keep in mind is this.  Not all of those people are in your targeted audience of customers.  This is a huge community that visits Craigslist each month.  But not all of them are the people that you are looking for.  You need to study Craigslist before you participate.  It is divided up into a number of different sections and categories.  It is designed this way to make it easier for both you, the advertiser, to find your customers and for the buyers to find you.  You need to decide how you want to place your ads on Craigslist and in what categories you will find your targeted customers.  But you must also be very careful.  If you place your ads in too many different categories, the “powers that be” at Craigslist may see these ads as spam and in turn may delete them.  So, it is a matter of being very knowledgeable about Craigslist and how it is organized and then picking and choosing the best place or places to insert your ads.

Craigslist is a very valuable resource but only if you, the advertiser, know how to use it to the best of your ability.  As you can see, there is more involved on this site than just simply throwing your ad, or ads, up there and seeing where they stick.  You must know your audience, or customers, and know where to find them on Craigslist.