Online Classifieds

Working the Classified Ads

I have to admit, I think that placing ads in the classifieds, on the 'big two' (America Online and Compuserve) or on the Web takes a lot of time and generates few leads compared to Search Engine Submissions or Reciprocal Links. The only real reason to post to the classifieds is to test your headlines and ad copy. The more responses you receive, the better your headline or ad copy was. When you get an optimised ad for your particular product, you can 'roll it out' and use it on all your other advertising media, safe in the knowledge that it has been thoroughly tested.

When it comes to online marketing there are really only three categories of classifieds to post to. AOL as an Internet Service Provider gives all of its customers proprietary access to the AOL classifieds board. To post, you simply move from the AOL main menu to the 'Markeplace' and on to the 'Classifieds and Advertising'. You then choose whether to post a paid ad or a free ad at the 'bulletin board' section. Ads are rapidly removed from AOL so you need to post frequently. The same is true for Compuserve, which only posts paid ads. A few other good tips are:

a) Post to the most relevant group, you will reach more prospective targets and generate more positive responses

b) Post from an address you don't mind receiving unsolicited email (spam) from. You may want to sign up for a free email account at Bigfoot and set the account to 'autoresponse' with a simple message saying that you get a lot of junk email at your Bigfoot address and if people want to ask questions your real email address is ...... or your website address is..... Why should you go to these lengths? Well, there are software programs which 'harvest' email addresses from bulletin boards and you will almost certainly receive a large amount of unsolicited emails as a result of posting a classified ad

c) Make a note of when boards fill up and are refreshed. If you can post when the board is refreshed you will have a good chance of taking a high place at the top of the board and receiving more responses.

Apart from the service providers, for which you will need an account with them (roughly $10 per month), there are also a million places where you can post clasified ads on the Internet. Yahoo! has a great classified ads section which is free to post to, other recomended sites are:

a) Free Classifieds
b) Dollar Ads
c) EPages Free Classifieds
d) Free Net Classifieds

Post to these sites in the same way you would AOL or Compuserve. Use the same tips outlined above, and don't forget your autoresponder, you don't want to drown in a sea of spam!

This article was written by Neil Shearing, webmaster at
ScamFreeZone

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