Today, about 80% of home buyers use the internet when searching for a home. So your ability to promote your listings online is of paramount importance. The great things about online advertising are it’s usually free and it also helps your website get higher ranking in major search engines like Google and Yahoo. Here are two classifieds sites you should definitely most your listings to regularly.
This is one of the newer classifieds sites on the internet block, but it has become very popular in Canada, thanks to being owned by and heavily promoted by eBay, the world’s most popular e-commerce site. According to Alexa.com, Kijiji is the 11th most popular site for Canadians although it’s considerably less popular in the US. It has individual classifieds sites for 62 cities and regions across Canada. You can post ads for free on Kijiji and can post the same ad to as many cities and as many categories as you want. It currently costs $38.49 to get premium positioning for 7 days in the Toronto Housing For Sale category, but only $12.49 for the exact same deal for Victoria, BC. This is excellent value since the Toronto Housing For Sale board currently has 10965 ads total, yet only 15 ads have premium positioning. Having your ad in Kijiji’s premium section will also help your website’s search engine ranking since Kijiji is such a popular site in Canada.
Craig’s List is the other classifieds site you definitely want to regularly post all your listings on. It’s just behind Kijiji as the 15th most popular site for Canadians and it’s the 8th most popular site in the US according to Alexa.com. It has 47 individual sites for cities and regions across Canada, many of which are not found in Kijiji, and vice versa. The problem with Craig’s List is their system is keen at finding identical ads you’ve posted (even if they’re posted in different cities), and many of their Real Estate For Sale classifieds areas (especially for major US and Canadian cities) get literally hundreds of new postings per day, so it’s very easy for your ad to get buried amongst the other ads. Craig’s List will also not let you delete recently posted ads and post them again just so they will get to the top of the list. So it’s best to make 2-3 different versions of your ad and post a new one once per week. You’ll be able to tell which ad was most effective. Look into posting automation software for Craig’s List and Kijiji.
Learn more about how to promote your listings and your website online by taking my Building Your Ecommerce Course. This course has been approved by the Registrar, REBBA 2002 to qualify for 6 credits.
