Craigslist SEO and Strategy
Posted on June 26, 2008 - Filed Under Business |
After all the input from the past few days, my new ad is up and running. And the results have been very promising. The new ad produced eight phone calls with turned into 7 appointments. Only one stood me up. But that was alright because the appointments were all back to back.
First new strategy: Listening to the people
Following Kenric’s advice, every time someone asks a question I’ve added it to the ad. Example: The other day, an appointment asked about the schools in the area. This is something that completely escaped my field of vision. Now a link is in the ad, directing them to a website which rates the schools.
Second new strategy: Ad Placement
Craiglist sorts their ads depending on age. The older the ad, the further down the page it goes. If people do manage to find it, odds are they are assuming the house is already taken and don’t bother to call. After seven days, the ad disappears altogether.
Every few days my old ad is being deleted and a new one being posted. This should keep my posting near the top of the search results.
Possible future idea
Nearly 20% of my phone calls are from people moving into the Southern California area. Many questions are posed, regarding the location of restaurants and grocery stores in the area. Also more people ask if more photos are available. Craigslist only lets me display a few photos at a time.
I’ve been kicking around the idea of creating a website. Thanks to Wordpress, I can have a website up and running within an hour. The number of photos which could be posted becomes limitless. All kinds of neighborhood information could be listed as well. All my contact information, including the rental application, could be stored there as well. This would cost around $20.
At my “9 to 5″, I’m surrounded by people who are renters. When I bounced this idea off of them, every single one said this was a great idea. Their feedback: more often than not landlords don’t put enough information in the ads.
For the website I’ve decided to wait until the weekend passes.
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Excellent idea! I can’t wait to see what kind of results you get from it!
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Yes! The website is a great idea!