Free Online Classified Advertising

Free online classifieds are booming. They are so numerous and popular now that they are eroding the offline newspaper classified revenue in a major way. This is one of the main reasons that so many newspapers are struggling to break even now.

Online classifieds can be effective for getting clicks - and calls if you are posting your phone details. This is because they often rank quite highly in search engines. Because of this they can also confer some SEO benefit to websites listed on them (although now, in 2012, I'm sure that the effect is much smaller than in the past -- and it will continue to wane). They are very category-specific, which helps in telling the search engines about your site. And a lot of them are crawled by the search engine spiders frequently since they are updated so often. Craigslist is a case in point. Apparently posting an ad on this massive, highly ranked site is one of the quickest ways to get your site indexed by Google.

While bloggers and webmasters who aren't actively selling goods and services wouldn't find much use for classifieds, anyone with a business site should consider them.

I know of the SEO benefits of free classifieds from personal experience. A few years ago, when I knew very little about SEO, I had a site that was advertising a flyer distribution service in Sydney. I thought that the best place to advertise it on the net was on free classified sites, so I placed ads for it on as many of these as I could find. I did do a bit of other link building - on directories mainly. But the vast majority was done on the classifieds.

A few months later I started to get phone calls from people who had found my site on Google. While they didn't flood in, they certainly trickled in pretty consistently. I had a look at my stats and saw that they were coming via a long tailed keyword search "flyer distribution Sydney" and a few variations. These were the words I had used most often in those classified ads. So I can only assume that they helped with SEO. (Of course, it is possible that the directories alone did it. But somehow I doubt it -- although I can't say that with complete confidence. Only Google knows the answer to that!)

Of course that was a while ago when there was much less competition, and search engine algorithms were very different. That said, I do think it's still worth doing a few.

You may want to check that they do allow you to ad a clickable URL, and if they do, whether it is dofollow or not. But the bottom line is that these sites are still popular, and the more people who see your site the better.

Googling will bring up a squillion international classifieds sites, often with sub-sections devoted to Australia. Also, there are quite a few that are locally owned and run that keep reappearing in searches. Interestingly, the other main search engines like Yahoo and Bing give you quite different results. It's a good idea to return to all these search engines and look again from time to time because there are always new classifieds sites starting up and there seems to be a lot of variation in their rankings from week to week.

Here is a list of some that look good: Free Australia Classifieds, Local Trader, 134 Sale, Aloc, Dinkos, Our Classifieds, Jumbo Classifieds, PostClassifiedListing, All2Go, SimpleTrade, ChaosAds Australia, One2Sell, Trade City, Free Ads AU, Classify Me, Trading Hub, Australia Exchange Network, Free Ad, Annonz, Bondi Classifieds, Ad an Ad, No Flies, Ocka List, iKoala Australia, Findix, Free Ads Australia, Australia Big Ads, Over Here Mate, Post a Deal, BuyAndSellAustralia, AussieZone, Oz Ads, Shopmania Classifieds, Local Note, Ads Oz, Thobby, Sell-Buy, Wanted Post, For, Z Classifieds, Pamscom, Tengo, Classo, Uni Classifieds, Free Plug, Burl, Street Markets, Trading Space, Adoodau, LikeitBuyit, Freelists Australia, List Online, 4Sale2Buy, Ozeseller, Australian Free Ads, Australia Ad Post, Trade Exchange, and Classifieds Here.

Some of the bigger local ones (along with international sites that have Aussie sections) are: YatBo, Free Community Classifieds, Universe Listing, Free Classifieds Directory, Zims Post, Top Hit 24, Sebule, Noticeboard Online, Expat Ads, Ki Classifieds, Zapp Classifieds, Biggest Classifieds, Everything Globe, Razzza, Muamat, Kugli, Ad Port, Web Day Ads, Ilanyolla, Anuncioo, Global Free Classified Ads, Eon Ad, Classifieds For Free, Market4Free, GlobesList, Freedale, Top Classifieds, Adeex, Domestic Sale, C Mather, Gumtree, Craigslist, Oz Free Online, InetGiant Australia, OLX Australia, Locanto, Adoos, Clicads, Compulist, Anunico, Free Ad Lists, Mirzas List, My World Listings, Ads Ad, Atoncer, Perfect Done, and Cracker.

I don't know of any other Australian site with such a comprehensive list so if you find it useful please link back to it, or share it on social media using the button below.