Craigslist (styled craigslist) is a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, items wanted, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums- via Wikipedia.com
We are using Craigslist as a marketing tool for the previously created web pages. The reason being is craigslist according to alexa.com(website rating company) craigslist is among the top 10 most hit websites in the U.S today with an average 13.09 minutes on site daily. People spend a lot of time on craigslist of finding buying opportunities for just about anything. So we are going to show you away/system that will get you found on craigslist.
Since Craigslist ads is a strong way to market your websites and lead capture pages. We will talk about a few things in this section of training
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Writing of craigslists ads. This means what you should write, when you should write, how often you should write. Here we will talk talk about tools that may help you in writing your ads. Purpose of the ads is to get your customers to come to your page.
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Entering your posts in craigslist. this will talk about the anatomy of the craigslist page. Ill teach you strategies to get to at least 50 ads in a months time
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Tracking your leads. Numbers numbers numbers. while in craigslist, you need to know if your ads are working or not. Number of ads are definitely important, but the success of your ads plays a strong role as well
Writing Craigslist ads
What to write
Craigslist as stated earlier is classified ads, so lets start thinking about craigslist in ways of growing attraction to your web pages in this manner. When you think of paper classified ads, you are charged by the letter so being efficient with your words is crucial. even though craigslist(for the most part) doesn’t charge for their ads, it is still recommended and encouraged to be efficient with your words. Do not get too wordy (2 sentences or less)(recommend or develop these elaborate flyer systems, they may look great but do not gain any real traffic. Thousands of people are reading and posting on craigslist, they want to get in and find what they want, they are not looking to read a ton. if they are interested they will click the link or will call(depending on what you are asking them to do.)
SEO is also important to think of when writing your ads, even though it doesnt happen as much, people still search for items in craigslist, so you will want to think keywords, even if you dont want to add them in your description of the ad, we can add them on the bottom of the ad(out of site of the viewer) where when people search on those terms they will get found!
When to write
When to write is important, craigslist is a feed based system which means new ads will get placed on top of yours, so to stay on top, you either have to post often or/and you will want to know when to post. Posting times vary, depending on topics and the location you are posting from. early on it is encouraged and recommended to use a tool like Craigslistadtracker to find out when you are getting your best results. If you are not willing to do that, then use these basic time frames 7-9am,11-1pm, 5-7pm. Please understand posting at these times will vary based on topic and location.
Tracking your Leads
At least very early on tracking your ads are very important. It is going to prove important to know what is getting you the best hits. What ad is getting the most clicks. Is it an ad they is selling a specific house, is it an ad that is marketing a search variable. is the text straightforward, is it goofy. does the add make sense? does it matter? This answer will not be known unless you track. again a tool like craigslist adtracker will help you understand this. If you do not track this it would be like fishing without radar, sure you will catch something sometime but you don’t know what or when. while doing this it is recommended to keep this tool running always, but if you are cost conscious, use if for 6 months and get an idea of what works for you.
Anatomy of Craigslist ad
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Title – This is your best and only opportunity to get their attention and get them to chose your ad over any others
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Description – add 2 sentence or less description. add a link you have from your tracking tool or your website itself
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reply to- choose no replies by email, you want them to go to your website, not email you. if you want something add your phone number
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posting details – here you can put information about your advertisement, it is encouraged to leave it blank we are trying not to eliminate opportunities
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map the address- again use your discretion, this is not necessary.
Tutorial for Creating Craigslist ad
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Select My account to log into your craigslist account
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Log in to your account
Once you are here you will have your dashboard for all your ads created or will create. Here we will post an ad, you will find the ability to post on the right hand side, where it is says new posting in
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Change the location to the area you are posting in. then select Go
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Pick your category your posting in(this tutorial pick Housing offered)
*Notice the message up top, You cannot post the exact same ad twice in craigslist, it does not matter if you are posting in another location or another category
*you may also select Service offered
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Now you will pick Real estate by broker
this is required, you are a real estate agent you need to identify yourself as such, you do this 2 ways, 1 picking Real estate by broker and 2 by putting your name/brokerage and location in the ad -
optional step, depending on the location you pick, you may have it broke down to one more level here is where you will identify which location it best fits. Select the area that best represents the ad
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Enter your posting information
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posting title- keep it simple and attention getting
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description-
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short 2 sentences or less. and dont forget your brokerage information(confirmed by your brokerage)
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Add your link. This link will be copied from your cheat sheet,your website that you want to send them to, or from your ad tracking tool
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Key words, add key words on the very bottom of your add under your name. put this so low that it is unlikely the reader will see them(hit “enter” about 10 times) put key words in there separated by key words
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reply to option: pick one, it is encouraged to select no replies to this email address the reason for this is you want them to go to the website not email you. if you want them to call you put your phone number in the body of the post
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The rest of the fields are optional, these are fields to play with and see what level of success you get with filling them out or leaving them blank
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Once done select Continue
next window allows you to add pictures to the ad, pictures do have value, will talk about a different way in advance section of craigslist. for now do not add picture -
Select done with images
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Select Publish.
You may see this message pop up(especially if this is your first time creating your ad in craigslist. Simply go to your email, in the email select the link.
You have posted your ad!