Craigslist Tricks
There are some quick and easy Craigslist tricks that will boost your conversions – like these.
HTML Symbol in Title
I’m sure you’ve seen ad titles that had some sort of symbol in front of them.
Like this one: ? Or this: ?
When you implement this symbol on the web in html form everyone will be able to see it, and it will make your ad jump out from the rest.
How do you make these little eye catchers?
In the TITLE of your ad type in ? to make the dart symbol that points toward the title of your ad. Go to Google and type in ascii symbols for more ideas. There are tons. They all start with ‘&#’ followed by a number (amount of digits varies).
All you have to do is type in those symbols &# followed by the numbers suggested (with no spaces). When you submit your ad, the symbol will automatically appear.
Affiliate Links
Affiliate links are not permitted on Craigslist.
If you try, you will get an automated message telling you that affiliate links are not allowed.
If you want to promote an affiliate product, you need to link to your own website, and then get the visitors to click on the affiliate link there. This is good advertising practice anyway, so stick with it.
Ad Content
Don’t overwhelm the reader of your ad with a wall of info and sales talk.
Keep it simple, as you just want people to click through. The sales pitch come after they arrive at your website. An ad that gets the reader curious, or makes them want to read more is all you want. An “…” at the end of it suggests there’s more for them. Don’t forget the link to your website!
“See how ordinary people are earning millions from home, even while they sleep…”http://yourdomainname.com
If you leave a bit of mystery in it, the reader may feel like they HAVE to click on it to get the full story.
Ghosting
‘Ghosted’ means you posted an ad, and it just never appeared on craigslist.
You to go through all the effort of posting your ad. You receive a confirmation email. You click on ‘Publish’ inside the email and it tells you your ad is now live.
Except that it’s not – and never will be.
Cruel, eh? But why does Craigslist do this to you?
Here are several reasons why you may get ghosted:
1. You posted too many ads from the same IP address within a short amount of time (looks like spam)
2. Your IP address has been previously banned.
3. You are posting ads with certain keywords that CL blocks purposely
4. Your email address was previously banned
5. Your URL has been banned because it was flagged multiple times for things Craigslist doesn’t like.
Or a combination of one or more of the above.
How to Not Get Ghosted
Look at the reasons above and try to figure out which one you are.
Or, start fresh. Get a New IP address. Simply call your cable company or dsl and request one. If you have dial-up or a Verizon wireless card, you should have a different IP address every time you reconnect to the internet!
Make your ads unique. Don’t write the same ad scrambled 100 times. Write short, effective ads that are COMPLETELY different from each other. Use HTML symbols in your title and make your titles UNIQUE as well. This is very important.
If you create an ad for a URL that is NOT banned, using a fresh E-Mail address and an IP address that is NOT banned…AND you use short, unique ads that don’t have suspicious key words or titles, your ad WILL SHOW UP.
So, if you have a URL you feel might be banned, check it with a new e-mail address and a fresh IP address if you can. (dial up is always a different IP)
If it is banned, get a new domain name, it’s cheap and well worth it. Just don’t mess things up with Craigslist and everything will be fine.
You could try creating multiple e-mail addresses and alternating between them so that you don’t get ghosted if you are going to create multiple ads (CL doesn’t like this though).
To be very cautious, you could try writing your URL without the http:// in front of it.
This way it shows up as just text. You would have to add something like “copy and paste this URL in your browser for more info…” though. But at least this way, CL won’t notice the link – and they are very suspicious of links
Some More Advice
Look at the ads that ARE showing up and see what they are doing different from you. A lot of people now are making picture html ads. They create an html image in any html editor…then they upload it to a server and link to it in their CL ad. It shows up like a banner and looks like a text ad but is a picture.
Your link is written on the picture but doesn’t show up as a hyperlink or a text.
It is also a very effective way to build a lead list using Craigslist.
These Craiglist tricks should give you a great boost right out of the gate. And it’s all free advertising online, Baby!
