When I first started doing freelance web design years ago, I posted ads daily on Craigslist to try and generate leads. As a complete unknown in the industry, it seemed the most effective way to advertise. I was happy with the number of leads I received, but I quickly noticed a trend. The people contacting me typically didn’t want to pay any more than a couple hundred dollars. When I looked at some of the other web designers advertising on Craigslist, I realized that they were mostly scrubs. They were web design outfits that had almost no presence in the search engine results, and most of them charged pennies for their services. And the quality of their work was clearly that of amateurs.
I quickly grew to hate Craigslist. But…
I recently started doing SEO for one of our Phoenix moving company clients. After designing and building a new site, complete with new copy and a onsite optimization, I proposed running daily Craigslist ads. Granted, the ads aren’t doing anything in the way of SEO, but my job is to generate traffic, period.
One of my friends at work challenged the idea, and her point was valid. ”Is Craigslist really the kind of platform for a brand as big as this client’s? My point was simply that A) it’s free and B) you can’t ignore the popularity of Craigslist and the traffic it gets.
We hashed it out and decided to move forward. And the results have been impressive. Craigslist has risen to become one of the site’s top referrers, and we’ve seen conversions, too.
