Why It’s So Hard to Find Free Advertising Online… Even When It’s Everywhere
Want Free Advertising? Well, you’re already here, but just for fun try a little search on Google. That’s where most of us start. I searched for the name of this website, Free Advertising Online, on Google to see how far from the top I am. Of course, as much as I try, I’m really far. It’s a fairly competitive term, which is surprising considering it’s “free.” So I wanted to see who actually is up at the top of page one for the term. What are they doing right? I’m no SEO expert, but whatever they’re doing is likely to make Google happier than it makes the person searching the term for answer to the question “Where can I get free advertising online?”
While there are many sites that do offer just that on page one, they won’t get you very far. Many lack the needed traffic, others are so full of ads that yours will never be seen. Google doesn’t have the facilities to separate one from the other. It’s a case of water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
There are several reasons for this, not least that Google is not as good at separating the wheat from the chaff as they think.
While everybody’s results differ, mine are topped today by a site called Skepter. It looks an awful lot like Craigslist with a Web 2.0 update. You know, everything is a Twitter blue and all the edges on boxes are curved. That’s not enough to make me overlook the relative paucity of users. Well, it’s free, right? But it does take time to make a posting. If you are a spammer and have it all automated, fine. Make 100 posts here, and even one follow up will make it worthwhile. If you have nothing else to do, give it a whirl. However, here’s food for thought from a great little site for webmasters called Sharenator. Skeptor.com gets about 8000 users daily. That’s far more than the 47,000 monthly estimated elsewhere, which I think are more accurate. That would be fine for a little site like FreeAdvertisingOnline.net, but a mere trickle for a Craigslist knock-off. On top of that, 39% of those visitors are from India, which most likely means that they will not become valued customers in your business is based elsewhere (or even there, for that matter). The name was registered in the Ukraine, by the way. I’ll have to remember to favor Ukrainian SEO guys when I look to climb the Google ranks. It’s a good job they did to get this site ranked number one – over Craigslist or any other site that actually has traffic worth talking to.
Below Skepter is a site called BestWayClassifieds. They appear to get about 10 times the traffic that Google’s number one choice of Skepter gets. While this still leaves them out of the big leagues, I would guess that they are worth the effort to post ads to, at least. They have a nice down and dirty look like a real site that used by real people. None of this glossy “here today gone tomorrow while we pass through page one of Google” stuff.
Others at the top include Ad-Mart.co.uk, which will work for you if you are targeting UK customers – though Gumtree.com may be better. Oddly enough, Craigslist is nowhere to be found anywhere near the top of Google for “free advertising online.” They might even be behind this site for all I know.
The only three I use are listed below, and none of them will be found if you search Google for “free advertising online,” at least not from my computer.
Backpage.com
Craigslist.org
USFreeAds.com
When thinking of free advertising, it’s best for you to go beyond traditional thinking. We were all brought up to know classifieds, so we instinctively head that way. The internet has introduced so many varieties of free advertising that we need to broaden our approach. That’s why I have articles on Twitter, press release services and other sources of attention. While a few classifieds are fine, you’ll get much more bang for your efforts if you try other methods. And I haven’t yet started talking about iTunes, Facebook, file sharing, Ebay, Youtube or a myriad of other brilliant ways to get free online advertising.
One things is for sure, though. You won’t find the answers very easily searching at Google.
Maybe if I add the Google +1 button somewhere, it might help? What do you Ukrainian guys think? Call me…
June 14th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Great post. Thanks for valuable sharing, right from beginning till end it was really very informative
July 1st, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Thx for the info …
July 1st, 2011 at 12:29 pm
Thanks for the share good job