The Right Way To Use Classified Advertising To Grow Your Business

The Right Way To Use Classified Advertising To Grow Your Business!

We receive a lot of questions from first time internet marketers about marketing strategies that work. Almost every one of them asks us if it makes sense to blast their ad out to the internet classifieds. They seem to believe that this will bring in a flood of visitors clamoring to buy their products and services.

This is our usual response, "sorry to disappoint you but the classifieds do not work, at least in this regard". A couple of years ago, posting to classified sites made perfect sense and even made people a decent amount of money but things were different then.

If you wanted to find web sites on which you could place your classified ad, you had to first look them up in the search engines and then submit your ad to them manually. This meant going to each site and typing in the same information over and over again. A boring, arduous task, nevertheless one that brought in decent results.

But then one day everything changed: automated submission software was introduced. Ahh, yes how many internet marketing veterans remember the day when you first heard of this amazing new software that would allow you to type in your information only once and then submit to thousands of sites with the click of one button? Well, this turned out to be a real mess! Every marketer and his brother began to use this software and soon everyone was submitting to the classified sites.

This Scenario Produced 2 Results:

Advertising on "Free Classified Sites" became a strictly automated task which meant that noone was actually visiting these sites and responding to your classified ads!

The owners of these sites began to realize that they could send out email responses to each person who submitted an ad to their site and then add the submitters to their mailing list. While some may cry foul over this list-building technique, it is in fact a valid way of collecting addresses to mail to. So, like all things on the internet that evolve, classified advertising became passe and many people gave up on it. I too would have given it up. However, one day I noticed that my site had moved up in position on several of the engines. Not knowing how this had happened I began to investigate.

The first step I always take in investigating my search engine position is to determine my site's link popularity (i.e the number of sites that have a link to my site). Search engines figure if other sites link to you, then your site must be worthy of a high ranking. Therefore, the more sites that link to yours, the higher your site should rank in the search engines.

I use a tool that tells me the link popularity of my site in the 8 major search engines. This tool is available to all members of The Ultimate Marketers Resource™.

What my investigation revealed was that the same classified sites I had submitted my ad to using automated software were also being indexed by the search engines. Since these sites were indexed with my link on their pages, my link popularity had increased greatly. And consequently, my sites ranking began to improve.

I realized if I could submit my site to the classifieds weekly using automated software, my site would steadily increase it's link popularity ultimately increasing my site traffic.

Now anyone can follow this strategy to increase their search engine positioning. Here is how:

Pick up a good piece of automated submission software. Trellian's Classify 98 is by far the most superior product out there.

Submit your site to the classifieds weekly. Also, make sure you craft ads that contain keywords relevant to your site, this will help you to receive search engine listings for several different keyword phrases.

Check your position and your link popularity weekly using a link popularity tool such as the one in The Ultimate Marketers Resource™.

If you find sites that have been indexed with your classified ad (and/or your link) on them, you can manually submit the specific pages containing your ads and links to the search engines. This will give your site better exposure. Look, classified advertising may have become ineffective in drawing traffic to your site directly but using these tools can assist you in increasing your search engine positioning, which, in the long run will bring you far more visitors, prospects and sales.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Article by Marc Goldman, Goldbar Enterprises. Our web site offers Top Quality, Easy To Use, Affordable Online Tools To Help You Build, Promote & Grow Your Business - All In One Place! Visit The Ultimate Marketers Resource™ before your competitors do.