How to Use Online Classified Advertising to Promote Your Business
Click here to return to main contents page
There’s no getting around it. If you intend to attract potential customers to your business, sooner or later you’ll have to advertise. But, the good news is, if you use online classified advertising, you don’t have to spend a small fortune to get customers to your eCommerce store. There are a great many websites that offer classified advertising. Unfortunately, most of these sites offer traffic that is of little value. You ONLY want to deal with highly professional websites that attract the kind of customer you need. So, how do you locate the best places to advertise online? This article will show you some of the sites you should consider when creating your advertising campaign.There are basically two kinds of websites that accept classified advertising - pure advertising sites and those that provide it as an additional service. An example of a pure advertising site is Craigslist. (link: www.craigslist.org) This highly popular and heavily trafficked site should be at the top of your list. Ranked at #38 out of millions of websites by Alexa.com, Craigslist reaches over 566,000 avid visitors per month. These people are all looking to connect with other people to purchase products and services, find a job, or promote themselves or their businesses all over the world. Craigslist offers the ability to geographically target your advertising by allowing you to select the country, state and city where you would like your classified advertising to appear.
Once you’ve selected your location on Craigslist, look under the section labeled “services” for a link called “sm biz ads”. Clicking on that link will take you to a page listing the most current small business classified ad postings. Browse through some of the ads to get a feel for the style and content of the ads they accept and to check out your competition. There is also a search box at the top of the screen to help you locate what you want.
If you want to post your own ad, click on the “post” link at the top right of the page. This will take you to a categories page. You will need an account to post an ad. You’ll see an “apply for an account” link at the top right of the categories page. The great thing is Craigslist will allow you to post an ad for FREE! That’s right; your ad will appear for 7 days, reaching thousands of potential customers at no cost whatsoever. Now that’s a price anyone can afford! And, you can post your ads under multiple locations.
You should try to post at least ten unique ads under different, but appropriate, categories and locations on a regular basis. Make sure your ad contains information about your website and includes a link to your site with your main keyword phrase as the anchor text. What that means is, don’t say something like “To visit my site click here.”. Instead, use your keyword phrase as the link description. For example, “We offer great deals on home decor”. Then, in this example, link the keyword phrase “home decor” to the page on your website that offers home decor. Again, always make sure that each of the ads you post at the same time contains different content. For example, you can target one ad for kitchen utensils and another for plush animals. Remember, your eCommerce site offers a wide range of merchandise. Take advantage of that fact by targeting specific customers in appropriate Craigslist categories with keyword phrases that link to their appropriate page on your website. You should be aware that not all classified advertising sites allow this kind of linking. But, take advantage of those that do. Fortunately, Craigslist allows such linking. This practice will also help you with search engine rankings for those keyword phrases. Other pure advertising sites you should include in your advertising campaign are USFreeAds (link: www.usfreeads.com), Oodle (link: www.oodle.com), Yahoo Classifieds (http://classifieds.yahoo.com), and Epage (link: www.epage.com). This brings us to the type of site that offers classified advertising as an additional service. One of these sites is Facebook. Facebook is a very popular social networking site. A social networking site is a community environment that brings people together to share their experiences, knowledge and interests in a fun, interactive way. Whether or not you choose to advertise on Facebook, you should strongly consider creating an account there, learn more about the Facebook environment and engage with other people on the site. They represent the real future of the web – interactive community involvement.
Facebook offers classified advertising in a service they call Facebook Ads (link: http://www.facebook.com/business/?socialads). What is unique about this service is the way in which it permits you to target your ad and where the ad appears. Instead of simply appearing in a classified advertising section, your ad will appear right on the targeted member's own page! Their service ensures that your ad will not only be seen by the person you’re targeting, but their friends as well. Though you must follow their strict acceptance rules, Facebook classified advertising is a great way to reach a large and growing audience.
Another location for targeted classified advertising is the subscription publication. Check your local newsstand for newspapers and magazines that carry a large classified advertising section. These publications usually offer classified advertising on their websites, as well. In fact, they usually offer discounted package deals for advertising both offline and online. Here’s an example from WE Magazine for Women:
If your site has not yet been upgraded to Version 9 and you'd like to find out about the fantastic new features availableto help you market your business, please call us at (888) 806-2081. As always, if you have any questions please contact Technical Support via e-mail at techsupport@emerchantclub.com by going to Live Chat Technical Support at http://www.emerchantclub.com/support.html or by calling (877) 384-4691. Thank you, Your eMerchantClub Team
Give us your opinion on this article by filling out the survey below:
|
