The Unofficial Craigslist Book | "Ask Shanon" Question of the Week

Craigslist Question of the Week

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"Ask Shanon" Question of the Week: 6/19/2006

This week I got two questions from a new reader looking to utilize Craigslist. I’d like to share them with you, as they are fundamental and useful knowledge for everyone:

I am on high-speed internet, but I find that Craigslist is excruciatingly slow to come up and go between sections and ads so I found it tedious to work with--is it just me? Are there better times to try it than others?

I have not had similar issues; Craigslist has experienced some slight technical issues over the past week or so. I am uncertain if this has impacted load times. This is the first time I have heard this, so it most likely is something on your high speed provider’s end.

Another option is to set up Feed Burner or MyYahoo to use the Craigslist RSS feed option. This way you can set up your typical searches in the software or just check it a couple times a day to see all the listings from one interface. There is a section about this in the book.

In your example for the person selling real estate, you mentioned he posted daily, and general rules are posting in a different city every day. Doesn\'t that conflict? Can you repost like you can a job ad if you delete it first, or how often can you repost it if you do so? Also, an extremely frustrating thing is how quickly your post falls down the list into oblivion.

First off, you can repost an ad if you delete it. This does help keep you in the top, but can be very tedious if you hit a lot of metros. This is an area of the book that will increase in detail in the 2nd edition. To answer your question, Craigslist prohibits posting the same content to multiple cities or sections. The submission engine knows how to recognize duplicate content. How I tend to get around this is by setting up multiple e-mail addresses and putting together 5-6 variations of the ad I am submitting. Then depending upon how many metros I want to post in and how many categories, it allows me to get feeders out there about twice daily, which keeps me on the first page.

Too often posters think people scan the main page for listings, while this is somewhat true, the sheer number of listings in each category and the diversity of those listings make it hard for the searcher to find what they are looking for. By being on the first page you get the eyeballs of the window shopper, but not necessarily of the buyer you are seeking. Instead spend time optimizing your listing for targeted search. Make sure your listing includes all the phrases your potential customer will search. Don't be afraid to add a keyphrase list at the bottom of the ad if the words don't fit easily into your copy.

Craigslist Question of the Week

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