So you are starting an online, home business. You have bought into the company, you have your tools, your website is all set up, and you are ready to rock and roll! Everything looks good, but you are missing customers in your business setup. The truth is if you intend to build a healthy, thriving business, you have got to get the word out to as many people as possible. The competition is tough and you have to do something to distinguish your business so that it will stand out in a crowd.
If you have spent any time searching for advertising methods on the internet, then you surely know that there are thousands of ways and places to advertise and get the word out. There is free advertising, posting to forums, press releases, search engine optimization, social networking, blogging, and the list goes on. post free ads online In this article I will focus on Free Advertising through Classified Advertisements.
There are many people who believe that free advertising is a total waste of time. They postulate that spending time posting ads is not worth the one or two visitors that respond to the ads. It is true that more time must be invested with free advertising than with paid ads in order to maximize the potency of the ads. But let me just go on record as saying that the time you spend will be well worth your efforts. You simply have to know what you are doing when you post these ads and develop a clear strategy before you post.
Here is a tip that is an absolute must. You must set up an email account in Gmail or Yahoo before you post. This sole purpose of this account will be to collect traffic from your advertising sites. You must know before you start that you are going to get a tsunami of traffic that will end up in your email account if you post your advertisements correctly. You will thus need a separate email account for your ads.
There are different times of the day that classified sites get the most traffic and there are times when the get absolutely none or a small amount of interested buyers coming to their site. As a marketer it will be to your advantage to know what time of day to post so that you can cash in on the maximum number of qualified visitors.
A common estimation of when the best time to post is Tuesday at 12-noon. You can use that as a rule of thumb, but I would also encourage you to search the internet for traffic surveys in classified sites. Obviously posting at 3 am when most of the world is sleeping would not be the optimal time to post. At the same time, many people are off on Saturday and Sunday. It is likely that they will spend some time surfing the web during those days. Knowing when to post will multiply your effectiveness at least 10-fold.
When you are ready to post your ads, it is easy to be overwhelmed with the number of sites that offer you free advertisement. To post to even 10% of them would consume your time day and night. The best sites to post to are Craig’s List and Backpage.com. If you limit yourself to those sites you are up against a lot of competition. You may want to use submission software to post to many classified ads. Just beware that such software often posts to dead sites that have not seen a human visitor in years. Manual submission is always the best way to go. Your effectiveness is enhanced if you use something like the AdWizard.
Like everything else you do, when you create your ads you need to be certain that they are keyword rich. Your next goal is to find the right category in the classified ads to post your ads. Be sure to pick the category that will attract the right kind of customers to your advertisement. If you can, always post to many categories to increase your chances of being seen. Another tip is to post your ads as many times a week that you are allowed to post and check your ads frequently to be certain that they have not fallen off of the page.
One last tip is to track your ads with HTML code to make certain that you can track their effectiveness and their conversion rate. When you find an ad that is not pulling traffic, take it down. Likewise, when it is pulling customers, post it as frequently as possible. Be sure to give your ads time to convert. It usually takes people 6-or more exposures before they are ready to buy.
In closing, advertising to free classified sites can be a huge asset to your advertising portfolio. But like anything else you do online, you need to research, post your ads strategically, and track your results. Repetition is the mother of skill. Do it over and over until you see the results you want to see.
Lindy Diffenbaugh is a Mental Health Therapist and Life Coach by Profession. She has followed the trend of Internet Marketing and the Home Base Business in order to help others move forward and get beyond the perils of the current economic threat in our nation, to a place of personal and economic strength. For more information on how Lindy can help you prosper, even in a down economy, visit,