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Classifieds Portal

by Emp
15 replies
Hi I guess, this may be discussed before. But couldn't find a relevant thread.

My question is how do classifieds or member related sites start out? How do they expand and grow their members?

For example if I were to start a classifieds portal from scratch. How best to grow the traffic? Maybe to add, say I have a budget of $30 a day I can spend on ads. FB ads to drive traffic?

But when people come, there isn't any content to start with. Would people want to post stuff?

Thanks
#classifieds #portal
  • Profile picture of the author brotherZ
    First of all, you need to find a niche that isn't already saturated. There are tons of classifieds websites online that very popular, and it will a monumental task to compete with them.

    Once you have found a niche that isn't saturated and which you think would appeal to some visitors, I would visit websites that target to your audience and advertise there.

    $30/day is good if you can make the most of it. Facebook ads are cheap and can drive some traffic to your website. I would also look into bing ads. $30/day won't get you very far with Google Adwords.

    Best of luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Emp
    Thanks BrotherZ!
    How is bing ads different from Adwords, in terms of pricing? I assume both are SEM?
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    • Profile picture of the author brotherZ
      Originally Posted by Emp View Post

      Thanks BrotherZ!
      How is bing ads different from Adwords, in terms of pricing? I assume both are SEM?
      Bing Ads are much cheaper than Google Adwords.You can get $0.10/click or less per keywords with Bing Ads. If you bid for the same keywords on Google Adwords, you can expect to pay 5 times more.
      There are more advertisers on Google Adwords, therefore more competition for keywords, which drives prices higher.
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  • Profile picture of the author n3o
    it's more of an egg or chicken problem, what most of them does is they first populate with enough content themselves so when new visitors come they can see that the site is active so they would also post
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  • Profile picture of the author ezplr
    You could try PPC, but I'm not sure how much it will cost, if it's a micro-niche then the CPC shouldn't be too high. Or you could try advertising from buysellads.
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  • Profile picture of the author AntonioSeegars1
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author plxiZnoGouD
      is it legal to take ads from other websites?
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  • Profile picture of the author qwikad
    As a classified site owner, I can give you a few tips on how to start out a classified site.

    1. Make the ads stay on the site for at least 90 days (initially).
    2. Invite all your FB friends to check out your new classifieds and post at least one ad per person.
    3. Promote your own gigs (if you have other sites or projects you're running).
    4. Start a Bing PPC advertising campaign. Bing ads are cheaper. If done right you will only spend 5 cents per click. It should give additional 20-300 visits per day, depending on how many countries you choose to advertise in. Make sure you choose Bing and Yahoo search engines only (no search partners).
    5. Utilize Twitter as much as you can. Twitter will send you a lot of traffic. However, the Twitter's visitors are reluctant to post, but they will stop by your classifieds nonetheless.
    6. Make sure your site is responsive. Capturing the cell phone users is essential these days.

    If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
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    • Profile picture of the author Emp
      thanks! there's an interesting comment you mentioned - not to target search partners of bing and yahoo ads, Is there a reason for that?

      Originally Posted by qwikad View Post

      As a classified site owner, I can give you a few tips on how to start out a classified site.

      1. Make the ads stay on the site for at least 90 days (initially).
      2. Invite all your FB friends to check out your new classifieds and post at least one ad per person.
      3. Promote your own gigs (if you have other sites or projects you're running).
      4. Start a Bing PPC advertising campaign. Bing ads are cheaper. If done right you will only spend 5 cents per click. It should give additional 20-300 visits per day, depending on how many countries you choose to advertise in. Make sure you choose Bing and Yahoo search engines only (no search partners).
      5. Utilize Twitter as much as you can. Twitter will send you a lot of traffic. However, the Twitter's visitors are reluctant to post, but they will stop by your classifieds nonetheless.
      6. Make sure your site is responsive. Capturing the cell phone users is essential these days.

      If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
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      • Profile picture of the author qwikad
        Originally Posted by Emp View Post

        thanks! there's an interesting comment you mentioned - not to target search partners of bing and yahoo ads, Is there a reason for that?
        The "search partners" is a collection of sites and pages that display Bing Ads (kind of like AdSense). Supposedly, it's used to send more traffic to your site and to improve your ROI. In reality, the search partners will send you a ton of irrelevant traffic that will eat up your budget in a heart-beat - with no ROI. That was my experience, anyway. Maybe it does work for other niches, it definitely doesn't work for a classified niche. That's why I always warn classified site owners to avoid using that option.
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  • Profile picture of the author jsaez
    We started a classified website for a country with a population of 2 million. We had someone to copy ads from newspapers directly into the site - if you start out almost with no ads it's very difficult for the site to pick up.
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    • Profile picture of the author Mindymm
      Great idea!
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  • Profile picture of the author aspire7
    Have people found it harder creating these kinds of websites because of the recent google updates and people being scared of placing links on classifieds?
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    • Profile picture of the author qwikad
      Originally Posted by aspire7 View Post

      Have people found it harder creating these kinds of websites because of the recent google updates and people being scared of placing links on classifieds?
      I don't know. I started mine back in 2012 and it's still growing steadily. I assume those who are concerned about the updates can and should mask their links via bitly or similar services.
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  • Profile picture of the author webcosmo
    This is a saturated market.

    Spending money on ppc alone might not be enough. You may wanna utilize guerrilla marketing techniques as much as possible to keep the cost down.

    One major challenge is utilizing AdSense. Since most general classified sites have a personal section, it might contribute lot of adult ad which will get the site banned on AdSense.
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