Methods of advertising

Available methods of advertising on the internet:
  • Pay per click advertising like google’s AdWords
  • Buying text and Banner advertising on other sites
  • Email advertising
  • Social media advertising
  • Advertising on free online classifieds
  • Sponsoring news letter
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Sponsor listing on SERP, directories, yellow pages etc.
Advertising on free online classifieds is getting popularity very rapidly. Online free classified sites are catching good numbers of visitors. So advertisers are showing more attention to advertise on free online classifieds. Since advertising on those sites are mostly free and yet giving good number of targeted traffic, there is strong competition among the advertisers to post ads on popular free online classifieds websites. craigslist.org is the most popular free classifieds site and pioneer in the field of free online advertising. Competition of advertising on craigslist.org is so high that some categories of the big cities like New York or San Francisco get thousands of ads. craigslist authority try hard and fast to reduce number of ads posted to acceptable limit. Phone verification is the latest attempt by craigslist to reduce number of postings.
The main reason free classified advertising is getting popularity is that posting ads on them are mostly free although some of those sites have featured listing option and these free classifieds produces quick and geographically targeted traffic. I guess in the future more and more advertiser will give more importance on advertising on free classifieds instead of expensive PPC advertising.
Every month, a lot of local free classifieds and specialized free classifieds are coming into scene. For example:
These sites will play vital role in the internet marketing field in the future.
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Country wise list of popular online free classifieds

Following is a country-wise list of popular online free classifieds:
  • USA: craigslist.org, kijiji.com, backpage.com .  More free calssifieds of USA.
  • Canada:  craigslist.ca, kijiji.ca, Classifieds.Ca . More Canadian free classifieds.
  • UK: gumtree.com, craigslist.co.uk, adzooks.co.uk, adoos.co.uk. More free classifieds on UK.
  • Australia classifieds: gumtree.com.au, craigslsit.com.au, ozfreeonline.com
  • India classified ad posting: quikr.com, craigslsit.co.in, kugli.com, webcosmo.com, locanto.com, vivastreet.co.in, olx.in
  • Japan classified advertising: kijiji.co.jp, craigslist.jp
  • Spain local classified websites: loquo.com, spain.franglo.com,
  • New Zeland classified websites: gumtree.co.nz, auckland.craigslist.org
  • Singapore free online classified sites: www.gumtree.sg, craigslist.com.sg, olxsg.com
  • Italy classified advertising:  www.kijiji.it, italy.franglo.com, italyclassifieds.net
  • French local classifieds: www.kijiji.fr, frenchclassified.com, paris.franglo.com
  • Germany classifieds: kijiji.de, locanto.com
  • South Africa classified sites: gumtree.co.za, orangepages.co.za, youpost.co.za
  • China online classifieds : baixing.com,  shanghai.craigslist.com.cn, www.locanto.cn
  • Philippines free classifieds:  manila.craigslist.com.ph, classifiedsph.com
  • Russia : www.slando.ru, ru.anuncioo.com
  • Poland : www.gumtree.pl
  • Hong Kong:  gumtree.com.hk, hongkong.craigslist.org
  • Thailand: craigslist.co.th
  • The Netherlands: www.marktplaats.nl, amsterdam.craigslist.org
  • Mexico: craigslist.com.mx, www.mexonline.com, mexico.zeezo.com
  • Brazil: rio.en.craigslist.org, redeparede.com, brazzilads.com
  • Argentina: buenosaires.en.craigslist.org,
  • Switzerland : zurich.en.craigslist.ch, market.local.ch/en, www.kijiji.ch
  • Belgium: www.kijiji.be
  • Austria: kijiji.at
  • Czech Republic: www.slando.cz
  • Slovakia: www.slando.sk
  • Hungary: www.slando.hu
  • Ukraine: www.slando.com.ua
  • Turkey: www.kijiji.com.tr, www.turkeyclassifieds.com
  • Taiwan: www.kijiji.com.tw, tw.anuncioo.com
Feel free to share popular free classifieds of other countries here.
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Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide from Google

Google is the giant in the field of internet search. Google alone catches more traffic than all other search engines can combined. So the main target of search engine optimization is to reach first page of google’s SERP. Getting good positions on other search engines come automatically as a by-product if you can optimize your site for google. So a guide for SEO from google itself is highly valuable for SEO professionals.
Google recently released “Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide, Version 1.1“  which is published 13 November 2008. If you are new to the field of SEO then I highly recommend to download this 22-page PDF guide. It is full of useful information. This nice SEO guide is available  here.
Optimize your site for search engines. You will get a lot of business for free.
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Free marketing tools

Internet is now full of useful free resources. Just you need to find out the appropriate tools that meet your needs. A lot of free marketing tools are available on the net as well. I want to mention a few here which I use frequently:
  1. Craigslist.org : the most popular free advertising location on the planet. The site is almost free except job categories of few cities and real estate by broker in new york. You can sell everything here including your old unused staff to cars, software, tickets etc.
  2. digg.com: Can give you tons of free traffic. If you can reach front page of digg then most probably your webserver will crash!
  3. EzineArticles.com: the most popular free article directory. A great source of traffic and relevant one-way backlink for SEO.
  4. FireFox : this completely free browser opens the door to use thousands of free useful add-ons. FireFox is much more secure and speedy than Internet Explorer.
  5. Google Analytics: know your visitors. Maximize your revenue with this free traffic analysis tool.
  6. Twitter.com: twitter is the only popular micro-blogging platform. It’s very useful to keep people updated with your latest status.
  7. WordPress.com: blog for free and get traffic and SEO benefit. WordPress is the most popular free blogging platform.
  8. Dot TK: Dot Tk gives free domain name. This is very useful for affiliate marketers to hide affiliate links.
  9. YouTube.com: I don’t  try this due to my relatively slow connection speed. But this popular video sharing site is a great marketing tool used by million of people.
  10. LinkedIn.com: Connect with millions of professionals. Ask questions, be recommended by others, get projects for free. LinkedIn is the best spam free professional network. My linkedIn profile.
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Free Video Classifieds

Free video sharing sites like YouTube are catching a lot of attention of people. At the same time free classified advertising sites like craigslist are also gaining popularity. The purpose of video sharing sites are mostly entertainment and learning while the purpose of free classified sites is advertising. Some people try to use YouTube for advertising their product. The trend of using the video sharing sites for business advertising is increasing. Keeping this in mind, some sites have combined the two model where you can upload video and at the same time advertise your product. Which means now you can advertise your vehicle to sell and at the same time you can show performance and condition of your car uploading video.  As more and more bandwidth are being available, such free video classifieds will gain popularity day by day.
Following is a list of Free Video Classifieds I have found so far:
  • http://www.adhysteria.com/   Popular in India, United States, Australia, Canada and Philippines. adhysteria.com has a Alexa rank of 65,355. So it’s quite popular.
  • http://www.iposte.org/  -  It’s a new site. Getting popularity in the United States and Puerto Rico
  • http://www.myplace2sell.com/
  • http://www.listasaurus.com/  This free video classifieds is being popular in the USA and Thailand.
  • http://www.reachoo.com/
  • http://www.realpeoplerealstuff.com/  Popular in the United States, India, United Kingdom, France and the Philippines
Most of free video classified sites are new. But they are gaining attention and popularity day by day. Hopefully, a lot of new free video classifeds will appear soon.
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Popular Free Classifieds of Australia

Sometimes my clients who are willing to market their products or services in Australian market ask me what free classifieds sites of Australia are popular and will be profitable to advertise. So I have compiled a list of popular online free classifieds of Australia.
  • Gumtree Australia  is the most populasr local free classifieds of Australia. Current Alexa rank is 4,576 and Rank amoung Australian sites is 57.  Popular cities of Australian Gumtree are sydney.gumtree.com.au, melbourne.gumtree.com.au, newcastle.gumtree.com.au, perth.gumtree.com.au, brisbane.gumtree.com.au. 
  • Craigslist.com.au is the second most popular free classified website in Australia.  Current Alexa rank is 28,973 and Rank amoung Australian sites is 748.  Popular cities of Australian Craigslist are sydney.craigslist.com.au, melbourne.craigslist.com.au, darwin.craigslist.com.au, brisbane.craigslist.com.au, canberra.craigslist.com.au 
  • cracker.com.au  is another free classifieds for Australia. Place an Advert on cracker now
  • adoos.com.au  Australia Free Classifieds. Post your FREE Ad on Adoos.
  • locanto.com.au  Browsing, searching and posting classified ads on Locanto Australia is fast, simple and free. Posted ads will be live for 60 days,  pictures may be used and on Locanto you can even add a clickable hyperlink url to yourwebsite.
  • aufreeads.com Also popular in India and Saudi Arabia.  Post a Free Classified ad at this Australian classifieds website for FREE! No sign up. No email confirmation. Your ad goes online immediately.
  • kugli.com Kugli is getting popularity in Australia too. Kugli is already popular in India and Pakistan.
  • adpost.com  Australia free Classifieds for over 1000+ cities, 500+ regions worldwide & across Australia.  Post a Free Ad with video.
  • freead.com.au Australian free advertising portal.  Register for free!
  • ozfreeonline.com Oz Free Classifieds Online is the largest free Australian advert posting site. Place your classified ads, items for sale, wanted to buy sell trade online. Getfree classified ads listed in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Queensland and other cities in Australia. OZ free Online has Auction section as well.
  • dclassifieds.com.au  Place FREE classifieds ads on dclassifieds  which will be seen by hundred of thousands of australian internet shoppers.  Place Your Ad on dcclassifieds
  • annonz.net Your free local classifieds ads in Australia.   register on annonz  for free advert today!
  • quokka.com.au  online version of Quokka Free Ad Paper. Quokka was founded by Erik and his wife Elizabeth. It is published every Thursday.
  • Other sites are following:
  • www.hukes.com
  • www.olxaustralia.com
  • www.ablewise.com/ads/listings/Australia
  • elist.com.au
  • yousell.com.au
  • oznet.net/classiads
  • dewalist.com
  • perthonline.net
  • classifiedshere.com.au
  • hotfrog.com.au
  • australiaclassifieds.net
  • tradingpost.com.au
  • simpletrade.com.au
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Social Bookmarking Websites:

Social bookmarking websites suitable for SEO link building These sites give one way quality backlinks. At the same time popular sites like digg, sumbleUpon can give you thousands of traffice.
1) http://blogMarks.net/
2) http://fark.com/
3) http://co.mments.com/
4) http://de.lirio.us/
5) http://delicious.com/ Formerly http://del.icio.us/
6) http://digg.com/ Very pouolar. You web server may crush with tons of trafic if you can reach digg front page.
7) http://feedmelinks.com/
8) http://ma.gnolia.com/
9) http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/
10) http://reddit.com/
11) http://segnalo.com/
12) http://blogsvine.com/
13) http://tailrank.com/
14) http://dropjack.com/ A digg like voting based bookmarking website.
15) http://www.mixx.com/
16) http://www.linksmarker.com/
17) http://www.connotea.org/
18) http://www.furl.net/
19) www.boxedup.com Formerly gifttagging.com . Bookmarking for the online shoppers.
20) http://www.linkagogo.com/
21) http://www.netvouz.com/
22) http://www.newsvine.com/
23) http://www.rawsugar.com/
24) http://www.shadows.com/
25) http://www.simpy.com/
26) http://www.spurl.net/ - it seems spurl is down
27) www.StumbleUpon.com Another very popular bookmarkeing site.
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Internet Marketing Resources:

Online Advertising Resources:

 

My blogs:
My general blog page
Review of free classifieds sites
 

Free image hosting:
ImageShack (100mb/hr band width)
Photobucket
 

Free URL redirects:
http://www.arranges.it/
TinyURL
 

Freelancing sites:
ScriptLance
GetAFreelancer
Guru.com

 

Free classifieds  

Craigslist
Backpage
Kijiji
 

Search engines
Google
Yahoo
MSN
 

IP test:
WhatIsMyIP
IP to Location
 

Web hosting:
HostGator
 

Social networking sites:
MySpace
Hi5.com 

 

Blog hosting:
Blogger
Wordpress
 

News sharing:
Digg
 

Social Bookmarking: 

delicious
 

Free email:
Gmail
Yahoo
 

Free domain:
Dot TK
Video Sharing:
You Tube

Proxies:
V-tunnel 

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Free Classified Websites

Free classified websites have changed the notion of internet marketing. Free classifieds are now one of the prime source of internet marketing. Craigslist.org is the leader and model in this field. Being inspired by the success of craigslist, internet giants like google, yahoo, microsoft have also started free classifieds.

1) www.craigslist.org
2) www.backpage.com
3) www.kijiji.ca
4) www.gumtree.com
5) loquo.com
6)eBay Classifieds
7) www.locanto.com
8) www.adlandpro.com
9) www.usfreeads.com
 10) www.oodle.com

and many 
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Tips on craigslist ad posting

Craigslist posting tricks

Craigslist.org is the leader in the field of online free classified advertising. Craigslist is within top 50 in Alexa ranking. Due to it’s enormous popularity, the site is number one target of the spammers. Craigslist is upgrading it’s system continuously to fight against the spammers. Following are some tips for posting ads on craigslist:
1) Use Craigslist registered account: Try to post all ads with phone verified CL accounts. Avoid posting the ads anonymously, rather post the ads with a registered CL account. Posting ads with registered account will give you the opportunity of reposting which may save some time.
2) Different Ad Descriptions: You need to change the ad description each time to avoid "similar posting" error and auto deletion (popularly known as "ghosting"). Use image in the description or upload image during ad posting. Using an image increases response.
3) If you are trying to promote your affilite products then you must hide your affiliate URL. A lot of techniques are available to to do so. I suggest to use GoDaddy to register new domains. Then redirect your new domain to your affiliate URL.
4) Titles: Titles should match with category. If your title don't match with the theme of the category the visitors are more likely to flag your ad. And obviously user flagging leads to staff deletion popularly known as ghosting.
5) Don’t post too many ads at a time. Give some time gap between each batch of postings.
6) Select your posting category properly. Postings on wrong categories are flagged and ghosted so quickly. This is very important.
7) To get maximum benefit select your posting time carefully. Do some research to determine approriate time of posting for your business.
8) Don't post too many ads or too frequently. Over exposure is not a good idea. You can repeat the same ad on every 48 hours interval according to TOS of craigslsit.org
9) If your ads are flagged so frequently then make your ads more natural looking. Too much commercial looking ads may be flagged so frequently unless you are posting under "services offered" category.
10) Finally, avoid using a particular word or phrase (may be company name, phone number or email address etc.) in your titles or ad descriptions.

Frequently Asked Questions on craigslist ad posting
Craigslist Posting Service
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