One of our friend Joe, from Seattle, was discussing the website project for the city. He is planning to start with the classified Ad website for the city. He was trying to figure out what he should be doing to start the successful website. Classified has been popular with print media but with the Internet expanding things has been moving online. The classified website is extremely popular with small business for marketing online. With the script like our, it has become easy to build the online classified website.
Research
Before starting the classified website in your city you need to carry out research. Research the top players like gumtree or craigslist or it’s local newspaper classified website. Next, is researching which ads are the most popular or most posted this will give you an idea of market. Being a startup you should figure it out where to hit the most to get most out of it. This in more technical terms is also known as Niche marketing. Focus in a particular segment will help you to outrank the biggest.
Don’t get stuck up on the research phase, make notes move out of it fast. Remember if the market is competitive means there is maket to be in. You would never like to be in the isolated market.
Brand
Once you are done with the research, next is to hunt for the brand name, this is what your customers will remember so it is important to have a good brand name that has high recall-ability. So look for the good domain name, yes it is difficult to find a good one but you can always look for it. Also, check our guide to our 10 tips to find a good domain name.
Software
Next important thing is to finalize on the ready-made classified software here are ten points you need to be looking in the classified software
a) It should be easy to install.
b) It should be easy to customize on the home page.
c) It should be easy to handle at least three levels of categories.
d) The classified script should be able to handle it based on locations
e) It should be user-friendly when posting ads.
f) There should be options to upgrade to paid ads or premium enhancements
g) There should be banners area for additional revenues.
h) It should integrate with the payment gateway like PayPal.
i) As you grow you should have the ability to upgrade to the bespoke design.
j) It should be SEO friendly
Make sure to take demo of classified software before finalizing on the software.
Hosting & SSL
Once you are done with software based on the requirements look for good web hosting . The easy & fast hosting could be deal breaker for the sucess of the website. We would recommend to start with at least VPS Hosting. Only if your budget is limited opt for the linux shared hosting.
As people would be communicating over the internet while posting ad & login in the website. We would recommend to enhance the website security with the SSL, this adds to the cost but we would highly recommend to have one.
Classified Business Strategy
Once you are done with the classified website figure out which business model you would like to opt for the classified website. Freemium, Membership or Paid Ads are most popular business models. You can read more about business models.
Marketing Classified Website
Once you are done with the setup the most important to make your classified website successful is the marketing.
a) Optimize your classified website for SEO
b) Setup social account for the classified website & start optimizing it.
c) Find the top poster in other website and ask them to post them on your website.
d) Start the blog & create community around it.
e) Figure our low cost PPC adwords, allocate the budget and go after it.
g) Track conversions with one metric to go after
h) Now update & modify for the best
i) Generate content so more organic content could be build upon
j) To track use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster
Making can be classified website all alone it could be challenge but when you have proper classified script that can help you with your business plan. Get back to use about your classified website project details & make sure to ask for ready classifeid website demo.