You probably do this already – complete regular searches in Google for your key phrases and see how high you rank. It’s well known that the first three results are far and away the sites that get the most clicks. If you can get one of the top three results in your key terms then you will have more targeted visitors coming to your site. If you can get the first result, well that is even better. Of course all your competitors want to do the same.
One of the great things about Google is that is updates quite frequently. That little GoogleBot is busy 24/7 indexing the web to make sure everyone gets the best answers to their search questions. I’ve recently been playing with a technique that I thought might be worth testing and because Google has updated so quickly I’ve been able to get a result within a few weeks, and I got the perfect result – a number one ranking for one of the key phrases I was after. In fact this technique worked so well that I got the number one result for a related search phrase too!
A Quick and Easy Google SEO Trick
The technique I used was to place an ad in a particularly highly ranked classified site. In this case it was the famous site Craigslist. This site is the original free classifieds trading community that has become a world wide phenomenon driven by word of mouth. But that’s not important. What is important is that Craigslist is very popular and has a high PageRank, and most importantly you can place a free ad on the site anytime you want to. There are restrictions and limitations but it is easy to do, there is no reason you shouldn’t make an ad or two. It’s free promotion for your business that may happen to also help with your placement in Google SERPs.
Key Term: SERP – Short for Search Engine Results Page, the Web page that a search engine returns with the results of its search. The major search engines typically display three kinds of listings on their SERPs. Listings that have been indexed by the search engine’s spider, listings that have been indexed into the search engine’s directory by a human, and listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine.
A Practical Test
For testing I was after the search phrase “Thesis Proofreader” for my business site’s thesis proofreading service. I entered the term into Google and noticed that a Craigslist entry was receiving a high result, but the subject and keywords were not highly targeted. However they were good enough to get a third page result in Google for that term. I went in and created a very simple ad in Craigslist that directly targeted my keywords and a week or two later I had the number one result for that term in the Google global SERP. Also because I had used the term “Essay” in the subject of the ad I managed to secure the first page result for “Essay Proofreader” as well. Not bad hey.
A Bit Hit and Miss
I was surprised that it worked as well as it did but I know better than to expect that good a result every time. One important consideration in my test is that there just isn’t much competition for my search phrase; hence it was easy to get the top result. If your market is more competitive your result likely won’t be as good. Craigslist deletes ads in 45 days so it’s not a permanent result either, you will need to keep going back to recreate your ad if you want to keep the result.
You should be sure to check the current results in Google to see if any free listing sites like Craigslist are pulling up high results for your terms. If you have some advertising cash to spend, see if any pay-for-entry directories or classifieds are pulling high results too. If there are then there is a good chance that if you create a well targeted ad you will have positive results.
It’s important to do search research first so you know which city listings in Craigslist are pulling the high results. Ideally for an online business that can service the world you would have a Craigslist listing for every city, but that just may not be feasible and may break the Craigslist rules anyway. With search research you determine which city is pulling the best results for your terms, which could be caused by a whole number of reasons – backlinks to that particular Craigslist city, key terms – the amount of variables to consider are beyond human comprehension, let Google handle that and just take the results on face value.
Take the time to locate the best city based on current search results and place your entry in that city at the very least. If your business is specifically targeted at a geographical area then it is a good idea to do a comprehensive ad in your Craigslist city (if available) as well, it certainly won’t hurt.
It’s also important to note that there is nothing stopping competitors doing the same thing as you. The SEO war may spread into Craigslist and muddy the site, which would no doubt prompt a clampdown on commercial listings in Craigslist. Perhaps this technique is best for those operating in small or unique industries since it is unlikely that competitive action will ruin it for everyone.
Also note that Google itself is a completely uncontrollable variable in this equation. Google may decide that it will no longer count Craigslist entries. Maybe it will decide to only index for certain terms. Just accept that you can’t control what Google decides to do, but you can test to see what results you can get. Not trying guarantees no results.
It’s Too Easy Not to Test
There is no good reason to not use this technique. Classified sites want listings, it’s what they do. You may or may not achieve better search engine results but at the least there is a chance that a browser may stumble across your ad and come shopping at your business. It takes very little time and usually is free so get out there and start creating those free ads. Just remember to use the right keywords and don’t go overboard, you don’t want all your incoming links to come from free directories because in the long run Google may penalise your results.
Yaro
Google Hunter
Note: The links in the article to Google search results were current for the date that this article was published. There is a very good chance that the Google search links no longer validate the test completed for this article because Craigslist only allows ads to stay online for 45 days and Google constantly refreshes search results. Regardless it is still a very good practice to advertise your business in free online classified sites – it’s free advertising, so well, duh! – Just pick the reputable and popular authority sites and get busy creating ads.
Hi Page Rank Experimenter – Hmm, your suggestion is okay (taking out any consideration of the rel=”nofollow” issue), but it’s not not nearly as good as the idea proposed in this article because your blog comment is not the focus of the link returned in the SERPs. A craigslist entry will be focussed 100% on you and linking direct to your site.
Or perhaps I don’t quite grasp the point you are trying to make?
A tactic that is somewhat similar to this yours but that often provides permanent results goes something like this:
Find a blog that is about the general topic you are addressing. Find a post that contains the key words you want to use. Use those key words in the “Name” field of the comment form, e.g., Page Rank, followed by a noun like “tester,” “pro,” “expert,” etc. Then link to the correct landing page in the “Website” field of the comment form. Make sure to make a constructive, relevant comment.
Most people won’t mind if you post your interest (page rank, SEO, etc.) and position (tester, amateur, manager, etc.) as your name. What you get is perfect link text, from a perfect site, to the perfect landing page.
Ahh, okay PRE – I was curious because the article focused on how to get a number one ranking in google so I felt like you were implying that leaving blog comments were a better technique because they are permanent. Of course there is no way a blog comment will ever get you a number one google ranking, at least not as the focus of the piece.
But yes, certainly leaving blog comments in general is a good technique to improve traffic. One main problem is that WordPress – out of the box – attaches the rel=nofollow automatically to all blog comment links. Changing it is often too difficult for the average blogger.
Many blogs don’t use the rel=”nofollow” system to block the links from being followed by spiders.
The link is still counted as a vote for your page, and anyone who reads your comment will possibly follow it.
The reason I mentioned this at all is that it’s a permanent link–you don’t have to babysit classified listings.
And it’s not necessarily better than the idea above, it’s just another idea.
Try the gumtree website it is similar to craigslist.
Thanks for the tips, never looked into this in so much detail!
Great tip! I also love using MySpace profiles to build inbound linkage because MySpace ranks really well.
Hi Justin,
Do you know where I can find more information about MySpace link building?
Ant
I think this system works for companies that have items to sell, but what about a site that sells or advertising nothing? Can it also receive high rankings? In this internet dog-eat-dog world, can a site still acheive rankings while not selling or promoting products or memberships?
Judy – I’m not sure what you mean? A high search engine ranking is good for any site no matter what you sell or if you sell nothing, presuming you want traffic from search engines.
Nice post Yaro,
I’m going to give this a try in the next few days and see what happens.
Regards
Ant
Hey Thanks for the tip yaro. I will try this idea and see if i get google juice….!
Judy – I’m not sure what you mean? A high search engine ranking is good for any site no matter what you sell or if you sell nothing, presuming you want traffic from search engines.
Very Interesting… What brought me to this blog was a Google search for “rel=nofollow craigslist” as I was told that to avoid ads with links to sales pages from getting booted off of craigslist, use the rel=nofollow in links back to your sales page. Any follow up advice would be appreciated.
Thanks
Bob
I like it. Time for me to try another strategy. I’ve been testing using Scribd to get on page 1 of Google – it works within days – (see my blog for full details) but I’m looking for multiple ways of achieving high rankings because the playing field regularly changes and you never know when something will stop working overnight.
Thanks for guidance, I am trying to get health and safety policy (keyword) ive others h & s regulation, manual handling training but the main page is now just sticking.
Ive pages representing each of my keywords and they are slowly moving up, but why are the rankings different from uk to web on some of them? on good ranks in uk ive usually go to go 6 or 7 deep to find them on web. I think this may just be because of goverment sites. What do you think?
Yaro,
Have you found this technique to still be valid? Any recent successes? This post was from pretty long time ago so just curious.
I can’t see your ad post in the Google result. It’ still alive?
I know that this is a old post but the information with in is gold to a newbie like me. There it a lot of great ideals and in sites here. On my way to craigslist now lol!
Sorry about the word sites instead of sights. Got the web on my mind. 😉
Thanks..
I give it a try and lets see whats happen 🙂
Position 1 her i come
I used Craigslist in the past to increase traffic and ranking for a photography website. I posted ads in multiple cities. It helped considerably. I was researching this avenue again because I wondered if Google still counted Craigslist. Thanks for the post, Yaro.