Thread: A Trick to Getting Quick Traffic Before Your SEO Kicks In

For people who have started with search engine optimization and are not to the point of receiving the traffic they need; there are a few things you can do to get quick traffic. Anyone who has created a successful site with SEO knows that it takes time. It not only takes time to complete the various tasks like backlinks, article writing, creating quality content, etc. but it also takes time for the search engines to give you credit and start making your site visible.

Here is a great tip to get quick traffic to your site while you wait for that SEO to kick in.

Craigslist posts

Craigslist and other sites like it are a great source for generating quick traffic.

1st: If you haven’t created an account go ahead and do so. It’s simple and will only take you a few minutes.

2nd: Once your account is created you can post ads from your account.

At the top right corner in your account it will say "post new ad:" Select the county you would like to post in.

Next, you will be asked “what type of posting is this:" I recommend selecting “housing offered”.

Then choose a category: you will choose “real estate – by broker”.

Now here is the first secret to making successful ads on Craigslist:

Craigslist will not allow you to post multiple ads that are similar to one another. You need to post multiple posts a day in order to be successful at it. Craigslist has a filter that reads your content and will not allow you to post similar ads. It checks both the title of your ad and the main content.

What types of ads should I post?

Here are a few titles that have been successful:

3 bedroom homes in “city”

4 bedroom homes in “city”

City homes in the $300,000s

Make ads that would be of interest to buyers in your target area and make sure you change your content along with your titles so that craigslist allows you to post.

Example ad:

Posting Title: 3 bedroom homes in “city”

Posting Description: For a list of all the 3 bedroom homes for sale in “city” click on the link below.

"website link"

The second secret to making successful ads on craigslist:

When creating an ad, only fill in the "Posting Title" and the "Posting Description".

Why?

Craigslist will place your ad in the categories that fit the ad best. If you give your ad a "Specific Location" your ad will only be listed in that locations category and not be found in any other categories. If you don’t provide craigslist a specific location it will look at your text to find which category best fits your ad.

For example: If you leave the “specific Location” blank and your title is “City 4 bedroom homes” your ad will get placed in that city and will only be found when someone searches for homes in that city.

How do you get each ad displayed in multiple cities?

Once you have created your title and main text you need to place the name of all the cities that you would like your ad to come up for. Because Craigslist allows you to use HTML you can use code to change the color of the text and make the name of all the cities blend into the white background and place them at the bottom of your ad with page brakes.

Example of an ad with HTML:

Posting Title: 3 Bedroom City Homes For Sale

Posting Description: <img src="(link to image)" height="150" width="173"align="left" border="0"> 3 bedroom city homes for sale. There is a surprisingly broad array of homes available when looking for city 3 bedroom homes. Click below to get the most up to date information from the MLS (Multiple Listing service).
<a href="(Link to image)" rel="nofollow"><h2>city 3 Bedroom Homes</h2></a><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br >

<font face="Times New Roman" size="1" color="linen">city1,city2,city3,city4,city5</font><p>&nbsp;</p><font face="Times New Roman" size="1"></font>

Above in my Posting Description I have an image that is hyperlinked to my site I want the traffic to go, the text I want them to read, and the invisible text pushed down to the bottom of the ad by page brakes.

Creating ads like this on craigslist will place your ads in more categories and more people will find them. The name of the game to getting traffic to your site is to become visible in as many places as possible.

For those of you who are not HTML savvy you can get creative and place the names of the cities within the main text of the ad. Just make sure it sound nice and flows.

I hope this helps you drive some quick traffic to your site while you are working on your long term SEO strategy.

If anyone has any questions I would be more than happy to answer them.