Sunday, December 14, 2008

What Free Classifieds Can Do for You

By Alex Wu

Free classifieds are almost an institution. People have been using them for years. They use them to sell items. They use them to advertise goods and services. They use them to give things away, such as pets. Naturally, they also use them to find things. In a word, people use the classifieds for everything. They have been a source for finding, buying, and selling for over thirty years. In our fly by night society, which specializes in quick trends, that is nothing else than amazing.

Therefore, it is definitely worth it to talk about why the classifieds are so advantageous. Before getting to that point, though, you need to know how to write the perfect ad. After all, an ad is only worth the response it gets. For that matter, there is only one single reason to advertise something.

Your first priority is not to make a sale or even find a sale. Your first priority is to capture the readers' interest so that they will want to contact you for more information. If you put it all out there or try too hard, you will more than likely turn people away.

People have to be interested in order to contact you. You have to grab their attention. Some people do not even try to sell anything when they place their ads. They simply try to grab the readers' attention so that they will want more information.

You see, when you try too hard, people usually turn the other way - even in print. It is essential to make someone contact you. You have to pull them in instead of pushing something onto them. You can get to the selling point after they have contacted you.

One of the ways you can do this is by staying away from ads which only run a week or so. These are considered one shot ads and they rarely do any good. You should either let your ad run for a few weeks at least, or place a subtly different ad every week. That way, you can keep catching the readers' eyes. This is also the reason so many people prefer free classified ads.

And what can you do with classifieds? The only limits pertain to you. There is no end to the possibilities. Perhaps you want to direct new traffic to your web site or blog. Classifieds give you a great opportunity to do that. The same holds true if you have something to sell. Maybe you have an actual product. Perhaps you want to sell your own talents. For example, freelance writers and designers, tutors, contractors, carpenters, and other people who are self employed can do quite well with classifieds.

Naturally, free ads are a wonderful place to buy and sell things as well. Perhaps you are looking to buy a washer and dryer, a stove, a futon, or any number of other things. Perhaps you are even looking for a roommate! Then, too, perhaps you have something other than a private product you want to sell. People who are having garage sales and yards sales can even benefit from advertising. - 16651

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