Learning the Tricks of Free Classified Advertising

Online free classified sites offer a risk free, no cost solution to promote your businesses and sell products and services. Advertising in free classified sites can be time consuming and frustrating if you do not know how to successfully profit from these sites. Knowing the right tricks and tips of online free classified ads will separate you from the hundreds who post thousands of ads without getting any results.

All free classified sites are not created equal. You should focus on a few good sites and post your ads regularly in those sites only. Your starting point is Google search. Go to google.com and search for "free classifieds" and "free ads". From the search result pages, visit 10 to 15 sites and register in those sites. If a site asks too many questions during the registration process, abandon the site and go to the next site. Why should you have to provide all your personal information for the site's benefits? Good sites will only ask minimal questions to setup your account so that you can edit, delete and renew your ads. Also, look for sites that will allow you to post without any registration.

Write a precise ad using 80 to 100 words. Write about benefits of your products and services for ad viewers. Try to think benefits in terms of generating extra income, improving health and relationships and providing a sense of good feelings when they use your products and services.

Write a concise, interest grabbing, key words filled ad title with action words that asks the reader to do something now. If you are promoting an affiliate product and many ads are also about the same affiliate product, write your ad title and ad copy differently than others so that your ad stands out in the crowd.

If you are selling personal items, like used cars, cameras etc., provide details description of the item, its selling price, and your contact information. If you are promoting an item to make a profit, do not try to sell your products or services in the classified ad. Use the free ad to lead to another site or your affiliate site where you can provide more information to make a sale.

In classified sites, most recent ads are listed on the top of the ad search or ad listing pages. Some free classified sites have paid premium ads which are displayed on the top of the listing pages, followed by the free ads. Avoid those free sites that accept premium listings. In free classified sites, your ads will be buried deep in the listing pages as more ads are posted in the same category. To keep your ads fresh and on the top of the listing page, renew your ads every couple of days.

Do not spam by posting your ads in all categories. Post only in a few relevant categories, preferably using different ad copies and ad titles. If the site has regional sections, e.g. US states, cities, or countries and your target is to reach every region, post in 10 to 15 regions only. For the search function of the site to pickup your ad for display, you do not have to post in all the available regions. This will save you time.

Always use photos or banners in your ads. Make sure that the size and dimensions of your image files are within the site's acceptable limits. Otherwise, the site may not display your images in your ad at all. There are a few free sites where you can create your banners or you can use your affiliate banners. If you are using the picture of a product, take the picture using a good digital camera and then convert the image to jpeg format and reduce the dimensions prior to uploading.

Using the simple techniques mentioned above, you should be able to minimize your online free advertising effort and increase responses from your ads. Remember, your ad title and ad copy should stand out with action words and pictures. You should regularly post your ads to keep them fresh and on top the listing page.

Your Blog: An Easy Alternative to a Website

These days, it is much easier to create a website than it used to be. In general, website-creation programs are much simpler to use - and you also have the option of signing up with an online web host with easy-to-use page creation tools.

But the biggest change has to be the advent of the blog.

"Blog" is short for 'web log'. Blogs started off as a way for people to create an online diary. Bloggers would simply log on, tap out a paragraph or two giving their thoughts on life and the universe (and everything in between); click 'publish' and that was that. Their words were live on the Internet for anyone to see. The big appeal of a blog was that it was interactive: readers were welcome to add a comment on any post, with a link back to their own blog or website.

Gradually, bloggers started to want more. They wanted easy ways to upload photos, and extra pages on the site - just like a 'real' website. They wanted a range of themes, to better express their personality or business.

Programmers everywhere came to the party, particularly with WordPress, a well-known open source. Now, if you want a website/blog, it's possible to:

* Sign up with a web host with CPanel for a low monthly fee

* Install WordPress with just a few clicks of the mouse, using Fantastico on your website's CPanel

* Either use one of the pre-installed themes, or browse the various themes available at WordPress (and on many other sites) to choose one that suits your personality or business

* Upload the theme you want to the wp_content folder, using a simple FTP program (such as WS_FTP or Cute FTP)

* Start posting your articles or comments

* Add extra pages to your site (if you want to)

Now that you can add separate pages to blogs - just as you can with a standard website - many people are turning to them as their preferred way of building a website. By using various plugins, it's possible to do pretty well anything you want.


=== What Are "Plugins"? ===

Plugins are extra features available for your blog to make your life easier. You can get plugins, for example, that will:

- help you block spam

- make it easy to upload and sort your photos

- ping the search engines so they know when you've added new content

- insert Adsense blocks so you can earn money from your blog

There are quite a number of plugins available now - take some time to find out what they will do.


=== Help With Using Wordpress ===

While Wordpress is not the only blog software available, it is an excellent choice because (a) it's free; (b) it's relatively easy to use; (c) it's open-source, and therefore has a lot of people working on it constantly to make it better, and (d) there are quite a few 'how to' sites on the Internet showing you how to make the most of your Wordpress blog.

One of them is Guido Stiehle ("The Jungle Marketer") who offers an excellent free tutorial (with video tutorials) that will show you, step by step, how to set up and use your blog. You can find other providers by simply typing 'how to use Wordpress' into a search engine.

Spend an hour or two browsing, and you'll see why a blog is a very viable option for establishing your presence on the Internet.