PROMOTING AFFILIATE PRODUCTS OR LINKS ON CRAIGSLIST - HOW?

Promoting affiliate products or affiliate links on Craigslist is a bit tricky but can be very fruitful if done properly. We all know Craigslist does not allow to promote affiliate links directly but when I am saying you can do it - that too the legal way - you can - only thing you must know the right way (the trick). I believe "Where there is a will there is a way" - you just got to find that way. This post will show you the trick so that you too can start promoting your affiliate products and affiliate links on Craigslist leading to a boost in your affiliate sales. Just read on and then apply and see it for yourself.

Why Craigslist is important?

• Craigslist is one of the most famous classifieds site online.
• Millions of people from all over the world visits Craigslist daily looking for different products and services.
  
• Craigslist is a free classified site.
• Craigslist is well maintained and provides quality service.

So just think what more qualities can you as an affiliate marketer want in a classified site - Craigslist has them all. What more could you get for free? - in fact they are giving more then the other classified sites that charges you a fee without even having the traffic volume that Craigslist has.

WHY ARE AFFILIATE LINKS PROHIBITED? - We all know that there are hundreds and in some cases thousands of affiliates promoting a single product and there are thousands of affiliate products and services. So just think if they are allowed to post ads on a classified site then the site will be filled with the same ads again and again which will obviously look like spam and will no doubt hamper the quality that Craigslist is known for and as a result it will lose the visitors trust and soon turn into one more of those free classified sites online which fail to deliver the goods.

THE TRICK - This trick is like say - if someone asks you to touch your nose you can do it probably in two ways :-

1. Touch it directly.
2. Touch it taking your hand all round your head.

So you can see there are two ways doing it - one direct and another indirect, but placing ads with affiliate links is not allowed on Craigslist (thus the direct way is not allowed) so we will be doing it the indirect way because that is allowed. There are two indirect ways :-

1. Buy a Domain Name and redirect - Buy a domain name and then log on to the control panel and redirect your domain name to your affiliate link. So you can use your domain name in the ad (which is allowed). But this process needs one domain name per affiliate link. So choose affiliate products with care - you can visit my post How To Choose Affiliate Products? You can get cheap domain names at GoDaddy . You can get free domain names at CO.cc .
2. Build A Blog / Website - Build a Blog / Website and put the affiliate links in it. This is always a better way because you can promote multiple affiliate products from the same site and as said you can use your site's link in the ads on Craigslist. Building a blog is easy, read my post How To Start A Blog? to get the details on how to start a blog for free. You can start a website for free at Google Sites but first get a Gmail account(also free) from Google.

SOME TIPS TO MAKE YOUR AD UNIQUE :-

1. Insert Some Symbols - Try inserting some symbols at the beginning and end of your Ad Title to make them stand out from the rest of the ads. You can add the following ASCII codes before and at the end of your title to get these symbols.

• &#64 - you will get @
  
• &#165 - you will get ¥
• &#167 - you will get §
  
• &#174 - you will get ®
• &#169 - you will get ©
• To get a full list click here

2. Insert Images - Insert some images in you ad to make it stand out as we all know pictures can draw more attention in compared to text but remember to put pictures that are relevant. To get pictures do a Google search or go to some picture hosting site. Use different images for different ads to avoid all your ads looking the same and thus prevent spam.

3. Give Some Effects - Consider giving some special effects in some of your ads to make it stand out. You can use Microsoft PowerPoint or Adobe Photoshop or some other software for this purpose.

4. Short And Compelling - Make your ad title short and compelling.

SOME TIPS TO MAKE YOUR AD APPEAR ON THE FRONT PAGE :-

• Make multiple accounts (but not more than four - to avoid spam) each with a separate email account because Craigslist allows only one posting per account per two days.
• Never forget to delete the cookies before logging on to each account and posting an Ad. Also try using a connection with a dynamic IP address and then each time you use a different account try connecting and disconnecting so that the IP address changes.
• Allow a minimum gap of three hours between each ad post to avoid spamming the site for our own good (remember it is in our interest to keep craigslist clean from spam - Hate Spam).
• You can post the same ad on Craigslist after a gap of two days but do remember to delete the previous ad before posting it again.

OVER TO YOU

I hope this post will help you greatly in using Craigslist. But if you want to give some suggestion or comment on the post please use the comment section below. Any response from you is highly appreciated. Your response is what gives life to my blog.