So you think it would be great to have a classified ad section on your website. It could be for your business, blog, charity or non-profit, club, sports organization, or just abut anything. If you think about it, there’s an overwhelming number of business’s/groups that could really benefit from the addition of an Online Classified Ad section being added to their website.
Probably the biggest reason that a classified ad section isn’t explored is the cost of development, and secondly the ad management after everything is setup. One GREAT alternative is a WordPress plugin called AWPCP (Another WordPress Classified Plugin). This plugin can be configured and manipulated to function just like a mini Craigslist website. It’s entirely automatic, or at least can be, it can also be monetized, if this is how you envision the classified section working.
Here’s how it can work:
- A user clicks on a link to place a classified ad
- Register – name, email, or what ever information you need to acquire.
- The user will automatically be e-mailed a password and link to create their ad.
- User logs in and creates a classified ad uploads a picture/image.
- This can also be set up to be free or paid…?
- Ad’s can be automatically deleted after a defined duration of time.
- Great search features and the ability to show category’s on the website
To create or build this kind of functionality from scratch would be extremely expensive, and that’s why you don’t see a classified section used in more online web applications. This Plugin happens to be built for wordpress.
A website designed in WordPress opens the door to options, functionality, and even more options than you have with your current website. With a website designed in WordPress, you have the option of adding various widgets & plugins, providing almost unlimited levels of functionality.
Plugins are snippets of functionality that are created by very geeky and brilliant people all over the world. These snippets of functionality can be up-loaded and manipulated or setup to function on your WordPress website. In this particular case, it happens to be Classified Ad functionality. But you can easily find plugins for – image gallery’s, shopping carts, google ad’s, image rotations, protected page or membership plugins, custom form creation, just about anything. The widgets and plugins provide an enormous amount of sophisticated functionality, generally for free, however you (or your web designer) will need to know how to manipulate them
Some of the other great features of WordPress are the admin panel. WordPress comes with a complete content management system or admin panel, so you can easily add/change page content, add blog posts, add articles, change pictures, up-load image gallery’s, add/remove pages, create landing pages, change advertising banners, just about anything. If you have a website that changes on a daily or weekly basis, WordPress is the perfect option to manipulate your website with out having formal html/php coding knowledge. Keep in mind, it’s important to communicate with your WordPress web designer the areas that will change and the kinds of changing content that will appear on the site. By doing this, your Web Designer can make it easier for you to make changes and manipulate the page content based on your technical comfort level.
Adding a Classified Ad Section to your website might not be as hard or expensive as you originally thought. You will need to have your website re-designed on the WordPress platform however the benefits far out weigh the cost of conversion. In WordPress, a website overhaul is pretty easy and cost effective.
Ask your website designer about the options of utilizing WordPress.