Local SEO Using Classified Ads

By Tammy Wood
Promoting your business on Craigslist is very effective if you are on a tight budget or have no budget at all. Craigslist provides nearly everything you could want to find in any specific area. It is highly categorized by products and services. There are excellent search capabilities making it very easy to locate specific products or services.

Craigslist was created by Craig Newmark in 1995 to serve the San Francisco Bay area as a free classified ad service. By the year 2000 it had grown to nine cities. By 2009 it had grown to approximately 570 cities.
Commercial posts are only accepted by craigslist under the “Services” section. Here it is OK to advertise as a company that provides services.

Businesses can place an advertisement for an individual piece if they don’t make it sound commercial. Get the customer to call you. Be sure to categorize your advertisement correctly to reach your intended audience. Use specific descriptions, so your product can be found in a search.

Because craigslist.com has suffered at the hands of spammers the regulations for posting have become tedious. You can only post in your geographical area, confirmed by craigslist via cell phone or IP tracking, after you have created an account.

Where to begin?

• Visit: www.craigslist.com (locate your state and city)

• Create an account

• When advertising your business you must use “Services”- under services choose “Small biz ads” on the right hand side up near the top, click “Post”.

• You will be prompted to create or login to your account.

• Fill in the Posting Title (this is what will set your ad apart)

• Specific location- List your location

• Reply to: radio button, show your email address- use your domain (accudiagnostics.com or arcpointus.com) This will add a link online and show that you are a reputable organization.

• Posting description- Add your ad content. Be sure to spell check your content. Where it offers to insert an image, insert an image of your location. This also establishes that you are a real organization and legitimate resource for drug testing, dna test, or whatever you are writing the advertisement for.

• Once you submit your ad to craigslist, you will receive a verification email. This email contains a link. Click on that link to verify that you indeed intended for that advertisement to be placed.

Your ad will appear generally in fifteen minutes.

Warnings:
Double check your ad for errors or omissions.
Add your phone number within the advertisement
Do not cross post the same advertisement ( craigslist will call it spam and possibly flag you).
Use this tactic in general once every 7 days. Vary your topics depending on what you are hoping to promote (drug tests, dna tests, alcohol testing etc.)

*Bonus:
*After you find ad copy (wording) that works in attracting new business- copy and paste it in a separate document. This will speed up future postings.
* In Spanish speaking communities, be sure to mention you are able to communicate in Spanish
* Ask in your ad- be sure to tell us you found us on craigslist! You don’t have to offer anything for that, but it might be an idea in the future.