Businesses & Craigslist - Lessons And Advice For Beginners
When my wife and I started our own home business we were of course very excited and eager to get going
. I was in charge of advertising and immediately started to think about where I could advertise to get the biggest bang for my buck and time. I realized early on that it was only me and my wife in this so unless I was going to go out and hire more people I needed to work with the limited resources that I had. I also didnt want to work any more than I had to as I was now playing with my own time instead of someone else paying me to sit in a seat from 9-5 regardless how much work I was doing. Now I had the freedom to get things done faster AND have the reward of more time off for good behavior. So with that in mind, where could we possibly get free/low cost advertising and reach a huge amount of quality people? Craigslist (CL) of course! We had used this service before to sell stuff that we didnt want anymore, and we had also found jobs using the service as well. We even stumbled across the business that we are currently doing on CL. The stars just seemed to align on this one.
Excited to get going we immediately started to post ads on CL with reckless abandon. Ok, maybe not reckless. It was probably only about 5-10/day. We posted in areas that we were familiar with and used generally the same message and email address for each ad. Even with this limited amount of activity, it eventually got the attention of CL. Far from actually sending us any kind of notice, we found that one day, no matter what we tried, we just couldnt post anything to Craigslist. Stunned that our biggest lead producing source had just dried up, we took to the internet to find a CL replacement, and fast! There are plenty of articles out there that can give you alternatives, but none of them seemed to drive the same amount of quality traffic our direction. Not one to easily give up, I started to research more about why CL suddenly stopped responding.
During my research, I came across several sites that gave me the idea that I wasnt the only one that had the idea of advertising on CL. A bunch of sites offered software that claims it could post hundreds of ads on CL each day! Wow, that seemed like a lot of ads. I wasnt interested in gaming the system, I just wanted to be able to post consistently without CL shutting me down. I would also soon find out that it was this kind of spamming that was causing me to go through and learn how to use CL. You see CL likes different posts from different email addresses and with varied text or sometimes images. Spammers tend to post the same ad over and over in different locations. In the Job section of CL it clearly states that it doesnt want you to post the same job in different areas as CL is first and foremost a local posting service. So, now that we know a little bit more about CL lets discuss how you can use it to further your business while still being a good citizen about it.
So, knowing that many others were experiencing the same trouble that I was, I thought that there had to be some information out there that could help me navigate around this issue. I learned that CL had been tracking people using their IP address. The Internet Protocol (IP) Address is a specific and unique number that each internet connection requires. Not to get too complicated, but if you are on a wireless connection and using multiple computers, you still only have one IP address. This address is given to you by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). CL can read this number and track all of the posting activity that comes from that address. With this information, CL can determine when someone is spamming the system and shuts them down. Ok, so knowing that CL shut our IP address down we needed to get a new one.
Depending on who your ISP is, this can be as simple as shutting down your internet (unplugging everything) for a couple of hours and then starting it all up again. Again, Ill let you do some research into your own situation. In our case, turing off the modem overnight didnt change anything. So, back to where can I get a different IP address.
Our first solution was to go to a location where we could get internet access as this would mean that it would have a different IP address. Where can you get online besides at home (or at work for the more adventurous)? Coffee shops! Yes, this was the perfect solution. Here in Seattle, coffee shops are even more ubiquitous than the normal Starbucks on every street corner that many places have experienced. Not only are there sometimes several Starbucks per block, but there are other smaller shops as well. So lots of different places for us to try.
Hmmmm, well this too worked out well for a while. Again, others had beaten us to the punch. We soon found ourselves being asked by CL to sign up for accounts. Arrrrg. Ok, by now we had spent a bunch of time, not to mention money, on coffee and trying to get CL to play nice and let us post our modest amount of ads. We were starting to question whether it was even worth all of the effort. I mean, we had started this whole thing with the idea that CL with be a great place for us to get a bunch of leads with the least amount of work. Now it was CL who was working us!
Many of you are hoping that this story has a happy ending and that Im going to tell you how to solve all of your CL problems. Unfortunately it doesnt. CL is still treating us like criminals and blocking our attempts to use its wonderful service. HOWEVER, we do know many people who are still having luck using CL to advertise so what I want to do is to share with you what they are doing as responsible CL posters who havent gotten their accounts flagged or banned.
Dont abuse the system!
This will be a continuing theme for this article and should be a no-brainer. Dont go into using CL thinking that it will solve all of your advertising problems. It is a great system and an outstanding way for you to get some traction with your advertising. However, it isnt and shouldnt be considered the one trick pony solution to your advertising. CL works best, as with any other online advertising, when it is used in conjunction with other forms of advertising. If you treat CL nicely it will provide you a steady stream of quality leads. Dont get greedy, thinking that you will game the system and post more ads that weve found acceptable to CL (see below for numbers). Use it for what it provides and combine it with what you can get on other sites. Youll eventually find that you dont need as many leads as you initially thought.
Protect your IP Address
Remember, Craigslist can track your IP address. If you can use a proxy server or other service to block or mask your IP address, then by all means use it. We havent had any success doing this, but havent paid for IP addresses or proxy server services either. As your IP is basically your ID card to play on CL you should keep your record as pristine as possible and dont abuse the system.
Use multiple email addresses
CL also tracks the email address that you use, which means that even if you are using a different IP address, CL will still be able to track you if you consistently use the same email address. Be reasonable and dont be greedy. CL is only part of a successful advertising campaign. Dont abuse the system.
Change your ad copy and titles
If you are using an 800 number or a web address consistently in all of your ads, CL will be able to read your ad and in combination with the above methods of tracking see what you are doing and block or ghost (the system says that your ads are posted, but they are no where to be found - youve been ghosted) your ads. There are a bunch of ways around this. Anything from clickable image ads (a whole different post) to just simply changing what you say each time you post. You dont need to re-write the whole thing, just enough to make it a little different.
Delete your old ads
Another CL no no is to post the same ad multiple times in the same area. Some people (not you, of course) do this so that they stay at the top of the list. In really populated areas this can be a huge advantage as within minutes you can go from the top of the heap to the middle. Again, dont abuse the system. Put your ads in there once and leave them for a couple days or a week. When you want to repost them, simply find the email that they sent you confirming that your ads was live and delete it. Once you have done that feel free to repost the ad.
Dont overpost
Some people seem to get by with just a couple of ads a week, being very diligent to either post to the same areas with the same email account or keeping their CL history clean by deleting ads since they want to repost in different areas and use a large supply of email addresses or verified accounts. We havent ever used the verified accounts so I cant speak to their effectiveness. However, we were having some great success with posting 5-7 ads per day and using a rotating list of email addresses. Again, we were eventually blocked, but this could be because of other posters using the same IP addresses as we were, thereby compounding the amount of posts from those IP addresses. Im not really sure. Again, dont abuse the system and you should be okay using just your one IP address.
So, there you have it. Our experience with CL. Hopefully this will help you get off the ground and save you a bunch of time and possibly money trying to work with CL.
by: Kuhl Lifestyle
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