Marketing a local classifieds site...

[sdamos]

Craigslist misses a huge area where I live. I was considering starting a free local classified ads site and monetizing it with Ad placement here and there. Two questions:

- What is the best way to get people from the local area to come and post? Facebook?
- How can you optimize a local classifieds site for good SEO rankings? For example, what keywords would be best when it encompasses 6 or 7 local cities?

Thanks for the advice.

Shannon

[ralph.m]

What is the best way to get people from the local area to come and post? Facebook?

Every legal way you can think of! Creating the site is not the hardest part of the task. Getting known is probably more work. So speak to people, put up posters, advertise ... whatever you can.

How can you optimize a local classifieds site for good SEO rankings? For example, what keywords would be best when it encompasses 6 or 7 local cities?

It depends on your site and what it sells. But obviously be clear about what the site offers, make sure to name the cities involved etc. More specific answers would require knowing your site, offerings and so on. It might be worth reading up on SEO or hiring an expert. There are some good sticky threads in this Internet Marketing forum that present the basics of SEO.

[sdamos]

Well, it will be purely a localized classifieds site. I plan to keep it completely free for users. I imagine, even would solid traffic, that it would be difficult to get people to pay for featured listings. I may be wrong, but I probably won't create a theme around FREE, instead I will just leave it free until the site is more popular. At some point, someone selling a car, or a house, may be interested in bumping their ad to the top for $10 (for example).

So, no specific product, just a general classified ads site, highly targeted to our local area. I will also NOT offer personals, I do not need that kind of liability, just normal classified ad categories.

My first thought was ibusinesspromoter, but I am just not sure what keywords I would even address.

(cityname) classifieds
(cityname) classified ads
(cityname) free classifieds
(cityname) free classified ads

Would these be examples for keywords of focus?

Another concern was getting some ads posted as fast as I could. I doubt there is any service out there that can post TRUE local ads in my categories for me. I was also considering the fact that some wordpress themes allow the ability to insert Ebay and Amazon, category specific ads, which may help fill some space while ads add up. These wont be posts, but adverts, so I am sure they will not look the part.