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.
40 Comments
Top Craigslist Tips
Good find.
I normally write the html my self or use a custom program I wrote to display the inventory on one of my used cars sites. But this is great for someone who wants to get it done faster or doesn’t know how to code!
May 31st, 2007
TerryG | Psychic ability
So very true. A good listing on Craigslist can do wonders for a search engine listing with a brand new site. Not only that but it is quite a high PR link back. The trouble I had was actually getting the html linking code to work better. Your post here has just helped me out of one very deep problem that I was having. Well Done.
Jun 2nd, 2007
TOMAS
@TopCraiglistTips: Would you mind sharing a link to one of your Craigslist ads for all to see?
@TerryG: It sounds like you’ve came across some big benefits by using Craigslist to promote your website(s) - any tips you would mind sharing with us?
Jun 2nd, 2007
James
I like classifiedflyerads.com because of the different template style choices and because they post to more directories. A little easier and quicker to use too.
Jun 12th, 2007
TerryG | Psychic ability
@TerryG: It sounds like you’ve came across some big benefits by using Craigslist to promote your website(s) - any tips you would mind sharing with us?
Yes I started the anxiety site and listed each day for two days on Craigslist. I found Google indexed the site within 24 hours. Y and MSN were a bit slower and have not indexed the whole site totally but some. The good thing was that no pages under Google hit the supplemental results index nor was it sandboxed. Site submitters charge a lot of money to do this and I have just done it for free. All I need now is to continue with high PR sites linking so when the next page ranking comes around the whole site will hit PR3+. I suspect using this method with pages in the supplemental index would pull them out and into the natural index as well. I am yet to try this but I cannot see why not, anyway, if done it would only take overnight to find out. If I can help anymore just let me know.
Jun 15th, 2007
Linda
I use CraigslistAdMaker.com… it’s free and you don’t need design or coding skills. I’ve gotten a better response when I’ve used the craigslist ad maker.
Jun 27th, 2007
TOMAS
@Linda: CraigslistAdMaker.com is a pretty nice webapp, it could use some fine tuning but it looks pretty simple to use and has a nice “web 2.0″ feel to it — thanks for sharing!
Jun 28th, 2007
Josh Padnick
Hey Tomas, Thanks for writing this posting up. I recently put a job listing up on Craigslist and used the method you walked through. We wound up getting a really great response, and I think there’s no question that compared to a sea of text ads, the extra design really makes it stand out.
Jul 19th, 2007
TOMAS
Hey Josh, I’m glad to see that the extra eye candy helped out! Now, when do we get to read Josh’s 10 tips on nabbing a great new-hire?
Jul 28th, 2007
Terry Little
I am a musician and a realtor, and this article helps my craigs list music ad and my real estate business!
Thanks-fab post!
Sep 9th, 2007
TOMAS
@Terry - Hello Terry, thanks for visiting and I hope your real estate and music biz benefit from the info!
Sep 14th, 2007
aslook
Thanks for sharing.
It is a helpful article.
Sep 15th, 2007
Pablo
I like using postlets.com for craigslist.
Sep 25th, 2007
jeff m
The only one of these I can get working on CL is Vflyer. Classiflyerads is more flexible with html, but will not show up on CL. CL admaker has the same problem.
Oct 4th, 2007
TOMAS
@jeff m - I’ve never tried using classifiedflyerads.com or craigslistadmaker.com, but I do know that CL uses various filters to keep spammers from posting on CL. Unfortunately, regular posters are not exempt from these same filters. Case in point, I used Vflyer to post a washer/dryer that I had for sale and although I could access the post through the URL that was provided, it wouldn’t show up on CL under the respective category. Even worse, my post wouldn’t show up in any search results. Ultimately, I had to remove all but the most essential html, delete my post, wait a few hours, and then repost my ad just to get it to show up on CL (and in the search results). I’m not sure if Vflyer is aware of this (I guess I could email them
), but I do know that they regularly make updates to their service to account for such issues. Hopefully no one else runs into the same issue.
Oct 5th, 2007
James
Yes CL uses various filters and it is not specific to vflyer or classifiedflyerads.com. CL has been tightening up lately. They have also been having issues with ads not showing up on the list pages. This is currently stated on their system status page and is happening with html and non-html ads.
Oct 6th, 2007
Matt
You might also check out http://slozzle.com, it has the same approach …..definately funny
Self serving to a degree I supposed as we created it for a client but I ran across this post and decided I would promote them 
Thanks for the space. Have a great Christmas to all
Dec 23rd, 2007
TOMAS
@Matt - Thanks for sharing!
Dec 27th, 2007
spongeblog
This post caugth my attention as I use Craigslist a lot. I didn’t know we can improve the outward aspect of our postings. This is great and very informative. Thanks Closet Entrepreneur.
Dec 28th, 2007
Door Pros
This info worked out great!
Thanks
Dec 29th, 2007
Greg
Craigslistadmaker failed me completely - twice. Just a big white screen staring me in the face after spending valuable time inputting. Now on to something else.
Jan 7th, 2008
TOMAS
@Dan and Door Pros: Glad you were able to make use of the info!
@Greg: I haven’t had a chance to use Craigslistadmaker, and unfortunately I couldn’t find an email or contact form for web support. Hope you were able to make use of the other ad maker tools mentioned in the post and comments.
Jan 13th, 2008
Karma
OMG. This is the best thing I have seen in a long time, THANK YOU FOR SHARING!!!!!!
Jan 25th, 2008
TOMAS
@Karma: Glad to know that you were able to pimp out your ads on Craigslist!
BTW, congratulations on the pursuit of your passion (and your move to Hawaii), hope your photography business is doing great!
Feb 17th, 2008
Zoe
After reading about Craigslist ‘tightening’ up their policies, I waa a little leary about spending time working on a post design that might not work.
V-flyer worked perfectly. I was really happy with the process, professional output and ease of application.
Thanks for the great idea.
The improved and professional ‘look’ was exactly what I was looking to create.
Many many thanks!
Feb 18th, 2008
TOMAS
@Zoe: Glad it worked out for you, and nice blog BTW!
Feb 19th, 2008
Patrick
You can give Ethach.com a try. It is fairly new.
Feb 20th, 2008
TOMAS
@Patrick: Thanks for sharing!
Feb 21st, 2008
Jimmy
I tried vflyer twice and both my CL ads got flagged and removed. I re-posted my ads not using the vlfyer format and they were not flagged. Seems like CL users will flag your ad if its vflyer or too much bling.
Feb 23rd, 2008
TOMAS
@Jimmy: Same thing happened to me, and strangely it is hit and miss because I’ve come across some CL ads that were using just as much html as the vFlyer ad I was using. Well, at least you could get away with using vFlyer on eBay without issue.
Feb 24th, 2008
Juan
I use Classifiedflyerads.com and love it. Cheaper than others out there, and has more features.
Apr 15th, 2008
Judy Keyes
Any way to write an ad using html which prevents it from being flagged? Am in very competitve market and ads are flagged by retailers to eliminate competition. Thanks.
Apr 18th, 2008
jordan demeis
http://www.ezadsuite.com/
Has anyone used the easy ad poster software spoken about in the above link? It seems pretty compelling for a business using craigslist to market a product/service.
Anyone’s feedback would be appreciated…
Thanks
Jordan
May 8th, 2008
Miguel T
I use classifiedflyerads.com on a regular basis. The interface is clean and efficient. They have 5 “plans” that are very competitive. You can review their pricing plan here, http://www.classifiedflyerads.com/compare-plans.php. As stated in previous comments, they also provide HTML for Craigslist. Visit the FAQ section for Craigslist specific information. They also provide a ton of templates to select from.
May 19th, 2008
jr
Craigslist is a great website for lots of traffic. I use the Craigslist Auto Poster Software to post my ads. Its a great tool, but just dont spam with it, and you will be ok.
May 27th, 2008
Cody Snider
Hey, all. I’m developing a new tool that I think everyone in here would really enjoy. Unlike the other services listed here, my application does graphical (image) ads rather than HTML ads. We’re launching the beta version this week and we’d love to see some community feedback and feature requests. Let me know what you think!
Listing-Doctor.com
- Cody Snider
Jul 2nd, 2008
TOMAS
@Cody Snider - Listing-Doctor looks like it has some potential especially since Craigslist’s spam filters focus more on html and not images. One thing I did notice is that the uploaded images on the ‘Add Info’ page show up as broken links in Firefox 3 - I haven’t tried it out on IE or Safari yet. The uploaded images do show up when you check the preview though.
As for feedback, although the system appears to be quite intuitive for the most part, it might be a good idea to put some instructions on the ‘Add Info’ page just so users know what each section is for. Also, more templates would be nice along with the ability to create your own custom template.
Good luck on making this a solid app, it might just be the answer to the issues everyone has been having with Craigslist’s html filters.
Jul 3rd, 2008
destination wedding photographer
This is quite useful article. Five years ago I heaviuly used CR and had great results with my HTML ads…
Jul 17th, 2008
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