How to set up a Classifieds Website??

[anna2and6]

Hi
Im hoping for some advice. I am wanting to set up a classifieds website - just a small local community one. I have zero knowledge of how websites work and my brain is fried with pcp, html, seo etc.

I am not trying to make any money out of this (but if it became popular great!) it is more for my sense of achievement - learning by doing. However, I dont really have alot of money to spend.

So far, what I am thinking of doing is buying a domain name, registering with a host (no idea which one) and buying wordpress classifieds themes.

Does this sound like I am heading in the right direction before I buy the wordpress?

Thanks

 

[bediwin]

Pretty much.

In order, what you want to do is:

1. Register the domain.
2. Set up hosting and email. (If you've got a domain, you may as well use it for email, if only for business mail. Looks a sight more professional than a hotmail address).
3. Set up the website. Easy enough with most half-decent hosting providers - they often provide a one-button install to set up Wordpress.

You don't have to pay a lot of money for Wordpress themes - Wordpress itself is free, and there are a huge number of themes available free or quite cheap. IME while there are quite a few very good free themes, the very fact they're free makes them very popular. So unless you customise it, you wind up with a website which looks exactly the same as a lot of other peoples.

The difficult bit is what comes next - making the website pay for itself, and ultimately pay you! Others on this site can give you far better advice on this than I could ever hope to.

Be warned that it's not a case of "set it up and you'll be away in an afternoon". All of these site building tools - Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal - they give you the building blocks to put together a website. It's up to you to put them together. Which means you'll either have to learn enough to put it together yourself or pay someone else.

ps. I can do you hosting, as can many others on this site. PM me if you want more details.

 

[Posilan]

The easiest way is to use a ready made classifieds script and personalise it.

Our hosting packages come with free easy to use installers for the following classifieds scripts/systems:

Noahs ClassifiedsOpenX
Kamads
PHPads
OpenClassifieds

so you can be up and running in minutes - this is the easy bit.

The hard part is marketing it and keeping it spam free though

Steve

 

[bediwin]

anna2and6: That may make more sense for you. But as Posilan says, the hard bit is going to be marketing the site - why should people use your site rather than, say, gumtree?

 

[anna2and6]

Thank you for the replies.
I understand that it will be hard to have a popular classifieds site when there are ones like gumtree about.
The site that I want to set up would be free like gumtree but ony has classifieds for one of the areas that gumtree has - offering search filters and more specific about location.
There is another very popular site people would use for these classifieds in my area, but it charges for placing an ad.
Marketing - my initial thoughts are to place ads on local notice boards where people advertise the old fashioned way for this type of classified. I have no idea about seo yet - but i would be aiming to have the site appear on same search page as that other classified sites in this location.

I have looked into the classifieds templates and the wordpress one sound like the easiest to use. I also read some very bad reviews about the Noah site!

 

[AnswerNet]

Well pretty much like that
Also you can try php scripts.. So you have huge options. But i think first you can try to think nice domain name. It is now hard to find nice one..

 

[Edd_Smith]

Buy the domain name, set up the server, install a copy of wordpress and then install a copy of anotherwordpressclassifiedsplugin - its a very simple plugin and basic functionality is free.

You could look at using Joomla and Sobi2 if you were after something a bit more complex

 

[MontagioCustomTailoring]

Depends on whether you're doing it to learn web technology or web business. If you're doing it to learn PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS etc, then sure, find an open source directory script, install and configure it - tweak it even and see how you go.

If you're doing it to cut your teeth in web business (i.e. not too concerned about the technology... more about the end result) then I hear that www(dot)wpdirectorypro(dot)com isn't bad... ($39.00 USD).

Download and install wordpress onto your own hotsed domain, then download and install the plugin.

 

[GZdunon]

now its so easy to build a usual website,but if you wanna to build a personality one,you would better learn the knowledges about it and design the frame of web

 

[MancunianCreative]

Yeh there are plenty of ready made templates offering classified style structures. You don't need a big database to kick off with and as long as the layout is clean and easy to read it would work.

 

[Websitehandyman]

You will find plenty of examples of classified ad site here;

http://www.alternativestoebay.com

Phpprobid do a great product with many features and low cost - lifetime support. They have a customer forum that is lively too.

 

[altwebdesign]

I'd b happy to point you in the direction of hosting and domain registration and to also review a few classifieds script to help you decide which one is suitable for you.

Drop me a call or a PM

Craig

 

[ITsoldUK]

Buy the domain name, set up the server, install a copy of wordpress and then install a copy of anotherwordpressclassifiedsplugin - its a very simple plugin and basic functionality is free.

You could look at using Joomla and Sobi2 if you were after something a bit more complex

If you do want to go more complex then go for a specialist piece of kit.

It ain't free but IMHO it is STILL the best, GEO Classifieds.

Steep learning curve but worth the investment in terms of time and money if you are willing to put the effort in.

 

[eventdomain]

You will find plenty of examples of classified ad site

Says it all really - doomed to failure


If theres too many of something, then you wont ever be No1! Whats the point in going to all that hassle and work, to not make any money.

1. A classified site wont make you rich

2. You wont be famous from it either

3. You'll never beat Gumtree

any personal satisfaction from this project will be short-lived, when you truly find out what's involved. Suggest, you get another and better idea than the next 20'000th classified script.

 

[ecombiz1]

Use joomla script to create classified website.

 

[Posilan]

Use joomla script.

Or a time machine? Thread is over 6 months old

Steve

 

[Ziesha008]

Go for Wordpress if you know its fully fledge knowledge.

 

[Aleksandar]

Is there any legal requirements to run a classifieds?