Running A Photo Classified

If you ever placed an ad in a paper, posted on craigslist or anticipated search engine traffic, you are familiar with advertising and know the value it has. If you have ever paid for an ad, you most certainly are aware of how much money they can make.

With websites being so popular, anyone can run a classified and many people do or at least try. Most take payments through paypal, take the ad text by e-mail and post the ads manually on a static page. Needless to say, most are not very successful.

But there is hope for those of you seeking a better solution. pageBuzz has a great online classified program for webmasters and site owners and it is standard with the hosting at pageBuzz, so it is available to everyone.

The classified program is extensive in configuration and provides an automated system to sell classified advertising photo ads using paypal as the payment processor.

By automating the process the website can manage hundreds of daily ads without anyone doing any manual work. Automated ad expiration and tools to edit, manage and remove ads by an administrator make this program as comprehensive as they get.

So how do you make money with it?

We provide the vehicle for making money, now you have to generate the client base and traffic.

A great way to get started is to open in a local market, a captive user base. Try limiting the ads to a church group or school. A base of potential customers that you have some ability to reach.

The classified works well for clubs or organizations that want to allow members to offer products or services to other members. Since the ads are localized, the members have a direct need for the program and will access the ads when they are shopping for a product or service.

This has been a great way to monetize an existing website with an existing user base.

Of course most people have bigger ideas and are shooting for ebay style growth. That is going to take a little more effort to launch, but still possible.

The trick to running a successful classified is to be able to get buyers and sellers together in one place. So the marketing needed is for both customer types.

One solution is to offer free ads until the traffic builds up to a level that people will pay for. Another option is to offer free ads in some categories while charging for others like craigslist does.

The next step will be to make people aware of your website. The search engines will no doubt bring in a trickle of traffic but not enough to support your dream.

The big challenge will be to spend less money advertising that you generate. This is the standard business model for any business. Spend $1 to make $2.

If your website earns $100 in advertising revenue, you need to invest it back over and over again until you each a revenue stream that you are happy with.

The biggest obstacle in getting bigger is an unwillingness to work and invest earnings in website growth and future potential.