How To Pimp Your Craigslist Post
If there’s one thing aspiring entrepreneurs we all love, it’s free access to great resources like Craigslist. Although Craigslist initially started as an e-mail distribution for social events, it has quickly become a jack of all trades for everything from personal ads to cheap viral marketing for startups (hint hint). Yet aside from uploading four images and writing a witty post description, there’s not much you can do to make your post stand out from the rest of the plain text crowd – until now.
How to add some “bling” to your Craigslist posting…
Craigslist allows HTML to format your post layout and text, which is all fine and dandy if you’re versed in HTML coding or handy with an HTML editor like Microsoft FrontPage or Adobe Dreamweaver. The only inconvenience is that custom images require separate hosting and a custom layout requires manual coding. Instead, you can simplify the process by using vFlyer to take care of all the formatting and coding for you. Here’s a summary of the process:
- Step 1: Sign up for the free vFlyer Personal plan.
- Step 2: Create your flyer, there are a number of types to choose from.
- Step 3: Edit and publish your flyer.
- Step 4: Copy and paste the HTML code to your Craigslist post.
- What you’re left with is a nice, eye catching post:
So what’s the benefit?
The first thing to note is that you are no longer restricted to the Craigslist default of four pictures since vFlyer allows up to 15 photos to be uploaded, the only caveat is that users are redirected to an external vFlyer page to view the slide show. There are also 14 templates for you to choose from with the option to create a custom theme if your heart desires. Also, the vFlyer code can be used on other sites such as eBay and MySpace, and last but not least you can email and print these flyers for distribution.
In conclusion…
Standing out from the crowd is a great idea (unless you’re a zebra), and free tools like vFlyer can easily provide some much needed eye candy to help you sell and promote your products, services, blog, company, et cetera in front of millions of Craigslist users without the need to learn or code HTML. Yet if you’re one of those adventurous types who wants to try a custom solution, you can pretty much do anything with HTML in your Craigslist post as long as it meets the HTML and photo requirements.
Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur
Post Scriptum: There are vFlyer alternatives such as postlets and ClassifiedFlyerAds just in case you want to try something different. If you’ve tried either of these services or know of a service I may have missed, please feel free to leave a comment and tell us about it.
» This entry was filed under Tools and tagged with: Advice, bootstrapping, craigslist
135 Comments
JHail
Ok saw this today. http://www.craigslistbling.com
How is this posible to ad moving pics to CL WITH CLICKABLE LINKS?
Jul 11th, 2010
Maximo Gaia - San Francisco Wedding Photographer
Thank you very much for this blog. Very smart and useful.
Jul 13th, 2010
Sergio Stephano
I am the founder of http://www.craigslistdesign.com. We are a premier craigslist design company and provide high end design solutions for businesses that are looking for the highest quality Craigslist ad and ad management campaigns. We provide quality headline services as well as ads integrated with social media and keyword optimization. Visit us today and mention this blog. I will extend a 20% discount to all readers.
Best,
Sergio Stephano
Founder – Craigslistdesign.com
Jul 20th, 2010
Sergio Stephano
My company specializes in custom craigslist campaigns to optimize business generation through craigslist. Visit us at http://www.craigslistdesign.com for custom Craigslist ad designs.
Jul 31st, 2010
Anthony Brocato
Thank you for this site. I has been very helpful to me.
Thank you, Tony … :o)
Aug 2nd, 2010
Matt Trifiro (CEO, Bixbe.com)
You should give http://Bixbe.com a try and let me know what you think. It has a pretty rockin’ Post to Craigslist feature that makes a stunning looking listing.
Aug 16th, 2010
Mehran
I like to use http://www.autoaddy.com for listing cars for my friends dealership, nice little site that helps you list cars on craigslist…
Aug 23rd, 2010
benny
i use http://mycraigslistadmaker.com for my ads. they have over 40 templates.
Oct 13th, 2010
Jordy Brisbin
I do custom CL ads using Dreamweaver. It is pretty basic just using a few tables, and you can even make the backgrounds different just by making a table that fits 100% of page, with a gradient image, or solid colour. Then just put another centered fixed width table inside there for you ad content.
I have created a small table that matches the look of my navigation bar on my website and has functional links, and created a GIF image that approximates the look of my flash intro on my homepage, so the look and feel are almost identical to my website. Just a handfull of tables inside of tables. All images are stored on my website’s storage area, but photbucket works great, too.
You only have to do it once and treat it as a template, then put in your custom ad material into it when you want to post. No limit on pictures…
Oct 21st, 2010
Nate
sort of disappointed with the vflyer thing trying to get me to give money
“Sign up for the free vFlyer Personal plan.”
Yeaaaaah….free trial for that junk
stick to your own html layout! save the $$$ for your startup!
Oct 26th, 2010
Shawn
I’m having trouble posting in different areas.
I’m not an auction site, I don’t even know what MLM is…
I simply have several apartment complexes around the US…
I have to post rental openings and Apartment manager jobs…
Everything I do gets ghosted….
Looked into CLBOT and CLAD GENIUS…. Do you reccomend either of these?
Nov 3rd, 2010
Wedding Photographer San Jose
Hey,
Thanks for this. vFlyer is still around. I use it for my photo business in San Jose but very little actually call since people on craigslist are cheap.
vFlyer is truly an amazing product and worth the investment.
Mike
Dec 3rd, 2010
eleas
I have a few ad’s that i am looking to optimize on CL classifieds. neew some help making them pop
-Eleas
Dec 13th, 2010
Ryan
Thanks for the info. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.
I also just came across a site called http://mycraigslistadvisor.com that has a lot of good tips and stuff on how to make your ads look better and sell faster.
Dec 17th, 2010
Matt
Thank you. Worked great!
Mar 7th, 2011
TARA
have you tryed use.com?
Apr 17th, 2011
Yolanda Oglesby
I was happy to come across these tips. I’m currently having trouble after placing a bunch of my ads on Craigslist. Tried to spruce up the appearance by using http://www.use.com. Unfortuntely, when I do a search on Craigslist just like a potential customer would, I am unable to find my ads! I do find them in my account listing. I can click on them “manage” — then click on view ad here.. and I can view the fancy ad there. Will try some of the other suggestions, but does anyone know why I can’t find my ads? Thanks in advance! Yolanda
Apr 27th, 2011
Dominic
Good stuff i like the clean look. I would always host my pics somewhere free like photobucket and just do some basic html coding to display full size hi resolution photos and also add more than four. photobucket actually provides you with the html code, you just have to put in some break tags and tags to keep everything where u want it. thanks for sharing
May 5th, 2011
LOREN FARRIS
THANKS FOR THE TEMPLATE
May 5th, 2011
Neal Lassiter
Also consider http://listhd.com
Post up to 20 images, format your ad with an html editor, and post to craigslist with different image gallery options for free.
Jun 17th, 2011
wedding photographer
What a big difference! 🙂
Jul 4th, 2011
Ryan
We have been getting a lot of business from craigslist. What a great free resource.
Jul 5th, 2011
Jason
its easier to just use craigslistuploader.com
Jul 6th, 2011
sburt
Can you upload pics from photobucket.com to vflyer.com? If so, please let me know.
Thanks!
Aug 17th, 2011
Paul
I had this guy design it for me, I did the basic one for five bucks! He has alot of other cool features for a little more! You can’t beat that!
http://fiverr.com/seven3x
Aug 19th, 2011
Doylestown
just as I was thinking on how to spruce up the html in my craigslist listings I come across this post. I have tried the tips and overall the viewers on my craigslist ads have been more responsive. it definitely gives my ads more of a professional look. thank you
Aug 24th, 2011
Julie
It doesn’t seem that VFlyer has a FREE option anymore. Maybe I should have read through the comments before! Did I miss the free option on Vflyer’s site? I didn’t see any… Thanks!
Sep 21st, 2011
SpeedySteamer
Thank you for the information. We actually use Serif and just ad html coding once we load our image up. Looks very professional and loads quickly
Oct 11th, 2011
Mandi
VFlyer might be ok for some, but they fall short of creating professional looking ads for service providers and small businesses needing to have a unique look, or mimic the visual appearance of their company website.
We design XHTML Craigslist ads for our customers because oftentimes, a cheap instant-build solution falls short of what the client needs. Check out our website at http://www.xhtmlcraigslistads.wordpress.com – We create ONLY custom XHTML based Craigslist ads for our clients.
Nov 26th, 2011
jeremy
Great post. FYI, I skim the source code off the template sites and just plunk it into Kompozer. Then I can do anything I want to it and pull out any annoying adds or links. If you use Mozilla Firefox for a web browser, just look under “web developer”>”View source code”. Copy all that text it gives you and paste it into the “View Source” section of Kompozer. Kompozer is a free website editor that is similar to the popular adobe dreamweaver product but is open source. You can download it at http://www.kompozer.net. Happy listing!
Dec 6th, 2011
Donco Designs
Great tips. Thanks for the helpful information. Still relevant after all this time.
Dec 7th, 2011
Aaron Sperling
Julie, there is still a free option. It is called vFlyer Personal edition. There is a link to it on the pricing page. The subscription plans offer more craigslist layouts and the ability to create branded design themes.
Dec 28th, 2011
Aaron Sperling
vFlyer is offering a start of the year right promotion on annual subscriptions. The promotion code is “vsitestartof2012” for 20% off annual subscriptions to the vFlyer service.
Jan 19th, 2012
Ryan
I like to use craigslistadcreator.com its free and there is no sign up or anything, its quick and easy. Their templates are pretty good but they could use a few more.
Feb 13th, 2012
Nellie A
I would like to share what I have bneen using which is called prettyposts.com, just $5.00 a month. it will also track how may clicked on your ad and traffic sources.
Jun 8th, 2012
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