Chadrack
Ever considered using free classified ads for promoting your blogs and business websites? Ever tried it? If you have, how did it work for you?
Over the years, classified ads have proven to be effective ways of promoting products and services whether online or offline. This is what accounts for the increase of classified ads sites like Yahoo! Gumtree, eBay, Craigslist and many others that abound on the internet today.
From my personal experience, using free classified ads is a powerful way to increase your business's online visibility and income because they are cheap, easy and flexible.
In this post I want to share with you some thoughts on how to use free classified ads to promote your business, website or blog. But first,
What Is Classified Ads?
According to Wikipedia.org,
“Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals which may be sold or distributed free of charge. Advertisements in a newspaper are typically short, as they are charged for by the line, and one newspaper column wide.
The advertisements are grouped into categories or classes such as “for sale—telephones”, “wanted—kitchen appliances”, and “services—plumbing”, hence the term “classified“.
Classified advertisements are much cheaper than larger display advertisements used by businesses, and are mostly placed by private individuals with single items they wish to sell or buy.
Internet classified ads do not typically use per-line pricing models, so tend to be longer. They are also searchable, unlike printed material, tend to be local, and may foster a greater sense of urgency as a result of their daily structure and wider scope for audiences. Because of their self-policing nature and low cost structures, some companies offer free classifieds internationally.”
From the above definition, online classified ads are great for promoting products and services on the internet. For one, your ad is searchable by the search engines and you could achieve much for a real low price! With the growing number of classified ads sites out there, you could choose any one that suits your plan. If you are looking for the free ones and those that favor internet marketing promotions, I’ll suggest you check out Adlandpro.
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5 Super Tips on How to Succeed With Classified Ads
1. Choose with Care – If you are going for paid classified ad sites you should be wary of spending money on sites you haven’t heard of. A simple search on Google will give you enough details about a site before spending your money on it. This is also important even if you are using a free classified advertising site.
Apart from classified ad sites you can also find niche sites or blogs that will accept adverts directly and advertise directly on such sites. These sites are always looking for adverts and can provide direct access to your target market.
2. Know Your Purpose and Capitalize on It – One thing you must understand is that classified ads are not for making the sale. The focus of a classified ad is to get the target to click through your website. It is only when they have clicked through that you attempt to make the sale. Your ad must therefore be crafted with this in mind. Whether the sales is signing up to your list or actually buying a product, your website (or landing page) should be focused mainly on a single purpose in order for you to achieve maximum results.
3. Promise A Definite Benefit – Make the first line in your classified ad a quantifiable benefit. For example, “How you can lose 36lbs in 2 Months,” or “How to earn $2,359.58 Every Week Working Just 2 Hours a Week”.
It has to have figures in it so people can see exactly what they are getting. State something unique about the product. Why should they listen to you and not to the many other classified ads they are seeing? What is so special about you and your advert? Demonstrate it to them.
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4. Be Economical with Words – It is true that online classified ads are not charged by the lines just as newspaper classified ads but they are not different in many ways. For more effectiveness therefore, it is advisable to use less few words as possible. Be as succinct as you can in your advert as it will make your advert much more powerful than the one that waffles on for pages and pages.
5. Remember to Track Your Traffic – Whether you are paying for your classified ads or you’re using free classified ads sites, you mustn’t forget to track your results in order to know which sites are sending you traffic and giving you results. Of course, if you are paying for your ads then this is doubly important. This is the only way to ensure your advertising budget is getting you the best results.
A simple tracking code in the format: http://www.yourwebsites.com/?=CODE (where CODE is anything you choose) will do the trick. However, whatever you use as your code, make sure you keep a track of them somewhere so that you know which code relates to which classified ads. Doing this, will help you determine from your webstats which of the classified ads is working for you. If you can integrate it with something like Google Analytics for more advanced tracking, you will be able to track exactly which adverts are making you the sales.
Tracking your classified promotions helps you to know which adverts are making you the most money. Besides, the data you get from this tracking will be invaluable in improving your profitability. This way you will not need to waste your time on what is not working thereby maximizing your earnings.
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Conclusion
Free classified advertising is tested and proven for promoting businesses over the years. In these days of the internet using classified ads for your promotional needs can greatly improve your business profits. They are great for saving advertising cost. But always remember that when you are writing your classified ad your focus is getting them to click through to your site, so it is very important that you demonstrate the benefits to your reader. Also test multiple adverts to see which ones converts the best. Work to improve your classified ads in order to get the highest possible conversion rate. If you have not tried this form of online advertising before now, don’t hesitate, use the information in this post and go try it today. Click here to get started right away!
Over to You: Do you have any experience with classified ads? Share your lessons with us in your comments below.
Nice points Chadrack,
Classifieds ads are overlooked by many marketers but I feel it’s one of the best way to target local audience. But yes you mush use catchy titles so that lot of people read about your offer and visit your website.
@Aasma,
It’s glad to know that this post resonate with you. Frankly, I testing this out and so far the results have been encouraging. I think why many people have overlooked classifieds is the fact that there are thousands of ads most times in a free classified site. But if you know how to target your ads and how to craft catchy headlines, you can make great impact with your ads.
Thanks for the comment.
Hi Chadrack, I have been using classified from a while but didn’t get any positive response.. Let me try once again.. 🙂
@Ansh,
That’s surprising to hear. Did you use any of the ideas presented in this post when you tried classified ads? Did you concentrate only on free ads or you did a few paid ones also?
I know that with the volume of ads that those sites get in a day you need to be more targeted and creative with your ads. Any way, hope when you try it again you will have more success this time.
@Chadrack, Actually I tried free ads only. This might be the reason . . 🙁
Hey Chadrack,
I’ve used them in the past with no luck at all. I’m like Ansh, not much positive response and I was doing the great headlines and everything else. Of course we all know that if you want to pay for them to be featured then you’ll have a better chance of them being seen but at that time I was going the free route. Probably why too!
I guess I’m surprised that people have actually had success going this route but I’ll have to take their word for it because I know it didn’t work for me.
~Adrienne
@Adrienne,
I quite agree that the free classifieds can really be frustrating sometimes considering the number of ads that get posted each day. But not minding that I can testify that I’ve had some success even with free classified. May be the sites you are using also matters. If the site allows graphics, your choice of graphic will tell how much you get from it.
Thanks for letting us into your experience.
Its too good,i think it will help me for increasing the traffic of the website.
@Denny Mickelson,
Try it and you would be able to attest to its usefulness. Thanks for the comment.
A nice information, where i can get more traffic and local audience through Free Classifieds Ads.
A form of advertising, which is particular to newspapers or magazines, which is sold or distributed. It’s a free online advertising campaign, where anyone can post their ads of their product or need of the product.
@William Jones,
Thanks for the comment. It’s nice to know the post resonate with you.
My today’s idea about your topic, if we place in online Free Classifieds Ads, the ads will be more popular when compared to post in newspapers. The post will be reviewed by every online user and you will get targeted customers and retailers.
I haven’t used an classified ads until now because i never trust them as a reliable source of traffic but from what i see i might be wrong.
On the topic of free classified that is a nice and very innovative blog where we can create more traffic. so, thanks for sharing this bolg.
Great post! All the tips you provide for How To Use Free Classified Ads For Online Promotions are great. Really very helpful for to gain traffic. Thanks for the post.
online free classified ads
hi there,
if you want free classified sites list go thorough this site http://www.adforfree.in huge collection of free classified sites
All these things look very good theoritically, but most of them wont work practically. The big players in free classified business will not let the small/new players to sustain, not easy atleast.
This is very nice post. Useful information in this post.
Thank you Chadrick for mentioning Adlandpro in your post, that is very appreciated.
Free classified advertising does work very well, once you understand the concept and learn how craft a good ad that will draw people in.
Just to let you know Chadrick, you are having a problem with your linking and if you need help, contact me on the site.
~thanks
hi thanks for the above article . Almost every free classifieds website gives an option of uploading either a personal logo or a picture of the product that may draw more attention. A lot of people prefer to see visuals rather than elaborate text so it is always more appealing to have pictures with one’s ads. People are more likely to buy a product because of the photos.