The Power of Free - Have you Considered Craigslist?
WRITTEN by: Bill Sterzenbach |
categories:
SEO
Small Businesses - Use the Community Tools Available to You
Everybody has heard of Craigslist, but I find few have really tried to leverage it for their business. You would be surprised at the level of traffic Craigslist can bring to your website when it's used by the book and cleverly. With so many categories and geo-locations, you can almost always find a perfect fit for your product or service that will bring many new visitors clamoring to your site.
Example Traffic Volume
Here is an example of a site that uses Craigslist for recruitment. As you can see that traffic is nearly flat until the Craigslist ad runs. The site goes from just a handful of visitors each day to over one hundred visitors. Granted, this is a recruitment ad, but we've seen nearly as impressive spikes when used for promotion as well.
Ok, But How is the Traffic Quality?
The quality of Craigslist traffic can rival that of any other source. Our test case generally sees about a 40% abandonment rate from their combined sources. The spike in traffic brought with it a decrease in overall abandonment (38%) resulting in net increase in traffic quality.
How Can You Use It?
There are many ways that you can leverage the power of Craigslist. You can do things that are clever (see best of craigslist cursed coffee mug), or you can simply promote your site using the tools they provide. Be very careful to follow the rules however, because they do not tolerate nonsense if they detect it.
