Posting on Internet Community Boards

Internet based community bulletin boards can be a way to either drive traffic to your blog and/or get your phone ringing. All of the boards listed here are free - I've never found a board that brings in enough traffic to make it worth paying for.

Writing Ads to Post

Title

Begin by writing a title that will stand out from all the other ads that are posted and that is keyword rich. Even though these ads are NOfollow, they will still show up in Google, so you will want to apply all that you know re: using keyword rich text.

Do not use all caps, although you may want to capitalize one or two words. Using a font such as Wingdings, preface and end your title with 3 to 4 characters that are related to your ad.

Example
**** Prescreened BABYSITTERS Available ***

In this example, the stars could be hearts or flowers. There are also a couple of Wingding type fonts where the characters are taller than normal. Using a few of these character before and after your title can REALLY make your ad stand out as it will take up more space on the board. I use these characters but I cannot remember what font they are. When I do get it figured out, I'll post an update to this post.

Write several different titles, either focusing on different aspects of your niche or just stating your case in several different ways to see which title draws more visitors. In the case of CraigsList, having several different ads available to post will allow you to post more often than they would normally allow if you find that you need to do so to stay on top of the competition.

Ad Copy

The first couple lines of your ad will either show up in Google and/or show up when someone searches from within each board, so make them keyword rich also.

CraigsList and BackPage allow you to use HTML coding to enhance your ads. All other boards mentioned here will accept text ads only.

For CraigsList and BackPage you can make your ad all text, enhance it with bold words and/or headings or you can make your add a picture. You'll see some simple examples of HTML coding which unfortunately the only way to be able to see and therefore learn, the code is to view the page source for this page. To do that, simply right click anywhere inside this article and choose View Page Source from the menu that pops up. Then scroll down through the document to find the coding for any of the elements below. Or you can click over to The Web Source HTML Tags.

To make your ad a picture - design the ad in a program such as PrintShop, PrintMaster or Adobe. Upload the picture to your server. You must have access to a server to do this. CraigList will not host your picture. Then when posting the ad on the board use the following code:




I like to preface a pic ad with at least one or two lines of text and follow the pic with more text that repeats the highlights of the pic ad. Basically, I want the reader to be able to read my post if they cannot see the pic.

It helps to know a little HTML coding so that your ads won't look like a bunch of words all bunched together. For instance if you don't use the paragraph tag
after each line then all lines will run together into one big block of unbroken text.

If you want to add a bulletted list then take a look at the code below:

• item 1
• item 2
• item 3
• item 4

You don't need to have any spaces on each line, I put those in to make it easier for you to read the HTML code.

To bold a word or phrase:

bold words

To make a line a heading:

heading

You can use h1, h2, or h3. You can also use h4, h5 and h6 but you won't find them useful in an ad of this type.

If you find that you want to be more creative in your ads then check out this chart showing more HTML codes.

Write several different ads to match each of your titles.

Keeping Track of Ads

I use a spreadsheet to keep track of my community board posts.

WORKSHEET 1 = Internet Boards
Column A = BOARD (name of board)
Column B = URL (link to board using URL)
Column C = SIGN IN NAME
Column D = PASSWORD
Column E = NICKNAME
Column F = LAST DATE POSTED
Column G = HOW OFTEN to post)
Column H = AD TYPE (HTML or text)

WORKSHEET 2 = (name of niche) Ads
Column A = TITLE
Column B = AD COPY

By separating the title and ad copy into their own cells I simply click on each cell, copy the cell and then paste it into the proper spot on the internet board.

I continue adding worksheets for each niche.

A setup like this makes it not only easy for me to repost on a regular basis, but makes it very easy to psss this task on to someone else, such as a college student you bring in once or twice a week to perform tedious tasks such as this.

Posting

All of the internet based community bulletin boards below use NOfollow links, which makes them almost useless, with the exception of CraigsList. Still, I make it a habit to post monthly to each board, again, CraigsList being the exception to that.

Even though these boards use NOfollow links I still make it a point to keyword anchor my links.

CraigsList

This is the mother of all internet community bulletin boards and frankly the only one that I've found to produce any results at all. Depending on your category and geographical area that you're posting in you may post daily, every couple of days, weekly or bi-monthly. Monitor your posts and when they move below the first screen that pops up and definitely if they move off the first page, then you'll want to repost.

If your new post highlights a different offer or different area of your service or a different product then you can leave your previous post up.
But if your new post is essentially the same ad (even if you use different wording) then delete your old post so as to avoid triggering someone flagging you for overposting.

BackPage

I post each of my offers here once a month, but I have not seen any new business come in from these ads as of yet. That said, I don't monitor incoming calls to match them to incoming traffic on my website. Once I start to do this, I'll post an update if I find that I am getting traffic from this board. I have however, posted ads on this board with only a phone number and have received no calls from those ads, while receiving calls from the same ad on CraigsList.

Kijiji

I post each of my offers here once a month, but I have not seen any new business come in from these ads as of yet. Again, I don't monitor incoming calls to match them to incoming traffic on my website. Once I start to do this, I'll post an update if I find that I am getting traffic from this board. I have however, posted ads on this board with only a phone number and have received no calls from those ads, while receiving calls from the same ad on CraigsList.

San Clemente Bookoo

This board is for residents and businesses located in San Clemente, California. Anybody can post here, but you should be aware that if your business is located outside of San Clemente, you probably won't get any traffic.

I post each of my offers here once a month, but I have not seen any new business come in from these ads as of yet. Again, I don't monitor incoming calls to match them to incoming traffic on my website. Once I start to do this, I'll post an update if I find that I am getting traffic from this board. I have however, posted ads on this board with only a phone number and have received no calls from those ads, while receiving calls from the same ad on CraigsList.