You're ready to post an ad but you're not quite sure what steps to take, which fields to fill out, or which ones are required, or even what info to enter in certain fields?
Step 1.Selecting a category for your ad.
Once you login in and click the "Post an Ad" link, you will first be asked to select a category for your ad, be sure you select the appropriate category for your listing, some categories contain sub-categories, for example "Horses for Sale" has sub-categories such as "Geldings" and "Mares" etc., be sure to select the appropriate category or sub-category as this could cause a delay in your ad being posted.
Step 2.Selecting a Type of ad.
Next you will be asked to choose which type of ad you wish to use, usually there will be only one choice, such as "Horse for Sale" or "For Sale" etc. (don't get confused, this is not a category being selected, it's a type of ad, usually there will only be one option).
Step 3.Entering the info for your ad.
Fields marked with an asterisk (*) are required and must be filled out or your ad won't go through and you will receive pop up message asking you to fill in the required field. These are usually the *Title, *Price and *Description fields. All other fields are optional and will not appear in your ad if left "blank". Just keep in mind that your ad will be more effective by providing as much info as possible.
Note: Even though other fields are technically optional, it's extremely important that you select and provide info for your location, such as "Country", "State" and "City", often many users do specific searches by location seeking products or services that are closest to them. Address and postal codes are optional and not necessary unless you wish to provide it.
The Title Field:
Titles are a short intro to what your ad is about. Try and keep your titles brief and to the point (max of 10 words). Use the description field for providing details, this will make your ad more appealing and effective. Do Not use a site URL as your title. (such as: www.mysite.com) Using a URL will produce a string of un-legible code in the viewer's browser header rather than a textual title. This can also potentially cause your ad not to get indexed by the search engines, such as Google.
The Price Field:
Enter the dollar sign $ and then the amount. For example $5,000
If you're posting a product or service which is free, just enter FREE in the price field.
What is the "Located in:" field for?
If you're from a country not listed in the Location: drop down selection list, use the Located in: field instead.
To make your ad more search friendly don't use abbreviations for key elements such as the breed, color, make or model of what you're listing. For example, if you have a Quarter Horse gelding listed and you use "QH" as the breed, people that use the advanced search and then type in "Quarter Horse" and select the gelding section to narrow down their search, your ad may not appear in their search if you only used "QH" to describe the breed.
Optional Website URL Field:
You can use this field to create a link to your website. As per our site Guidelines & Terms of Service the website must be owned by you and relevant to what you're advertising in the classifieds.
Important: When entering your URL website address in the field, in order for it to be created as an active clickable link it must be entered as a string of code, exactly as shown below ...
<a href=http://www.mysite.com TARGET=new>Click Here to visit our site</a>
Do Not use any quotation marks ( " ) in the URL.
Tip: To prevent typo errors, you can simply copy and paste the line of code into the required Website URL field which is also provided on the page when you're creating your ad. Be sure to change the www.mysite.com portion to reflect your website.
Status Option:
By default your ad will show as being active, you can change this to sold at anytime by editing your ad and going the "Additional Options" section and choosing either "Active" or "SOLD". This is advantageous should your sale fall through and you want to make it active again. When you sell your product and decide to delete your ad, this action is un-reversible.
Adding Photo Images to Your Ad:
In most cases you will be allowed to upload and add photos to your ad. Your photos will be automatically resized by our system and then created in 3 different sizes. One for the image which is displayed on the ad page which is created to a max of 350 pixels wide, the second image is a larger version displayed in a popup window which is created to a max of 650 pixels wide, the third image is a small thumbnail version which acts as a preview in the category listings and/or as a reference link to a larger image on your ad page.
Please try to keep your images to be uploaded under 200 KB.
For maximum effectiveness it's recommended that the photos you are uploading for your ad be at least 300 pixels wide, but your uploaded versions can be larger as our system will resize them to the appropriate sizes.
Important Info about image sizes:
Digital cameras take huge photos that are megapixels in size and jpegs produced by digital cameras are often as large as 10 - 20 megabytes in size. High resolution digital photos are meant for print reproduction, not for the web, and are way too large for uploading to our system. It's not only hard on our system resources, it may land up failing or being rejected by, and if you're using a dial up connection you could be sitting there for hours trying to upload a small handful of photos.
Most scanners and digital cameras provide software for editing your digital photos for the web or emailing them to friends but many people often find these programs hard to learn or too complex to use. If you go to the "Photo Help" link provided in our menu, we provide some valuable and helpful info to make the process of creating web ready photos as easy as possible. You'll also find links to freeware programs designed just for this purpose, they have been researched and chosen for their ease of use and effectiveness for getting the job done quickly and without any lengthy or complex learning curves, and best of all they are free! Once you've used one of these programs a few times, you'll be able to convert a batch of digital photos reading for the web or emailing in a manner of a few minutes.
A Final Tip When Creating Your Ad:
Avoid typing your description message in all "CAPS", it’s considered bad etiquette and will not make your ad more noticeable or easier to read, on the contrary, it's actually harder to read and even annoying to many people. Books and newspapers are not printed in all caps for this reason. It's ok to maybe use all caps for a short Title or the odd word or phrase in the description just to stress a certain feature or point, but use it sparingly and in moderation.
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