Posting on Craigslist

You’ve probably used Craigslist to advertise your listings, right?   It’s a great place for that purpose.   I’ve gotten a few calls on properties I’ve advertised on Craigslist.

But I use it another way, too.  I use it to drive traffic to my website.  And it does - between 50 and 100 visits a month.

Fishing for Home Buyers

People who find my ads are looking in the "homes for sale - by broker" classification.  So, it seems to me it’s reasonable to assume that they’re looking for a home, right?

So I generally post 2-4 ads a day with links to my site, with anchor text like "Search the Cincinnati MLS ", or "Find a great Cincinnati Realtor", or "Save $5-10K on your Home Purchase", or "Get an Email List of Cincinnati Foreclosures "…. for example.

Posting every day

You’re probably aware that Craigslist starts pushing your ad down from the moment you first post it.  So, if it’s a couple days old and 200-400 people have posted more recently than you, your ad’s essentially invisible to all but the most diligent of deep searchers.

So, I suggest you post a few ads every day.  Pretty easy to do, really.  First signup for a free Craigslist account.  Then post your ads.  Tomorrow, post a few more ads.  Next day, delete the first ad you posted 2 days earlier.  When it deletes it, hit your browser’s "Back" button.  Craigslist asks you if you want to re-post the ad.

Simple!  No need to change anything at all about the ad, unless you choose to.  Just re-post.

The whole process - signing in, deleting an ad, and re-posting it - takes under a minute.

Works for any business

The examples I gave above are specifically for real estate.  If your line of work is something else, be creative.  Figure out how to make this work for you.  It works!

Try Backpage too!

Backpage is a Craigslist copycat.  Doesn’t get near the traffic Craigslist gets.  But if you have the time, follow the same strategy with Backpage.

Do you know of any other free "local" advertising services ?  Post them here!

To your wealth!