Free Targeted Local Traffic: Using Craigslist

I want to share a tip to help you drive free, targeted traffic to your developed websites. It’s something I’ve been using on DogWalker.com and DogGroomers.com, and it works pretty well at not only getting local traffic to my sites for free, but also at getting companies to sign up for paid listings.

Craigslist has hundreds of local sites like ranging from large city sites like newyork.craigslist.org to smaller city sites like greatfalls.craigslist.org. Each site offers similar forums where users can post listings and visitors can find those listings. For my two sites, I like to use the pet services category, but there is everything from car services to marine services.

I had to create an account and verify it by phone to post in the pet section, and I am allowed to post three listings a day throughout the Craigslist network. I target cities in which I have several dog walkers, and I keep my listing fairly simple. You can have a look at a Ft. Lauderdale listing I created a few days ago.

There are a few things to note:

• Call to action is to go to DogWalker.com, and I include a link for tracking and to make it easy to navigate
• Message is to the point and doesn’t have much fluff
• Have a call to action for dog walkers who might be scoping out competitors’ listings
• It’s easy to replicate this message for various cities

It takes about 3 minutes to create a listing from start to finish, including navigating to the correct  Craigslist  page and customizing the listing for the city. From a dollars perspective, I am paying Google between $.75 and $1.50 per click with Adwords, so if a free listing sends just a few visits, it’s well worth the time and effort.

On average, I would say that each post drives anywhere from 5-20 visits, depending on the city. I also notice an increase in sign ups when I post Craigslist ads.