How Not to Treat Your Customers

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I have been looking for an auction site to promote products on behalf of a third party.

They place ads on YapYapOK and it has been working well for them.  The idea was to increase web presence where possible without taking too much time.  The issue with the products is that they are of the adult nature so Ebay is a no go area.

I suggested that I register them on a newer auction site which seems to be doing OK.  The terms and conditions were hard to find and in order to come across them I first had to join.  T&C still very vague so I advised that rather than pay the sellers joining fee they joined free as a buyer and then obtained advice from the forums.

The site works by upfront sellers payments and then unrestricted free listing.  Its not cheap but if you were to achieve high volume sales then it may be worth it.

The seller went on the forums only to see that many who had posted had urls as signatures.  Not one to miss a marketing opportunity he immediately set his signature with his url. 

TThe new thread read that could anyone let him know if he could sell Sex Toys without breaching T&Cs.  The admins answer was pretty quick to suggest all was fine but he had already breached T&C with his signature pointing to an ecommerce site.  He could however point to another site with a link to said ecommerce site.

URl was instantly changed to point to his advert on YapYapOK with link to ecommerce site.  He instantly replied to say that he had not meant to breach the T&C had changed his signature and thanked the responder for letting him know.

So he revisited the forum this morning to see if anything else had been advised only to find he has now been banned.  In fact the message read "You have been banned for promoting external website" ish.

So is he going to use join as as a paying seller?  The only thing which wasn't vague in the T&C was their right to cancel or ban you from using the website with no refund.  Even Ebay didn't do this.  They sent a very polite email to say that they could see it was his first time listing, that he was in breach of their T&Cs with a link to where it was on the site and a refund of listing charges.

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Business Listings Free

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There are a wealth of free listing sites available online.  However it seems that this rarely extends to businesses. 

The sad truth is that many businesses in particular retailers depend on getting their products to the market without paying commissions, listing fees or annual subscriptions.  Having owned a retail outlet on the high street as well as online I am all too aware of the difficulties that small independents are faced with.

Spending on the high street is down.  Whilst ecommerce seems the natural choice to gain a larger audience this is not as easy as it may at first seem.   Having an online shop is the natural step to increase sales, but what happens once your shop is live?

Well unless your an SEO expert or have a real niche product then its unlikely that the search engines will display your site in a good location.  Even with SEO knowledge the time required to implement a good strategy means that the time you have running your own business becomes compromised.  Without SEO resources you can at least depend on good old adwords to kickstart your site to the top of the search engines in the hope of getting noticed.

The problem with that is that its costly and its not as easy as you think.  Be prepared to spend time understanding keyword analysis techniques and what will return the most targeted results in order to achieve a good sales conversion rate.

Ebay is a great tool to achieve sales quickly although you may find a mass of competitors also selling your products at such reduced prices that by the time you factor in listing fees, commisions and other charges, then your profits are down to the wire.  If your prepared for that, then its a great way to get rid of dead stock which needs converting to progress with new orders.  Sadly this is always a short term fix as Ebay does not allow website links to enable you to promote your own site. 

The good news is that some Free Classifieds sites do allow you to post your items, totally free with url links and the benefit of high visitors.  Granted they may not be used to explore potential gift ideas in the same way as Ebay but anyone searching for items can at least know that a highly ranked Classifieds site will likely return their products through the Google search box.

This gives you the opportunity to get items listed and promote your website links totally for Free.

So instead of spending hours or cash on getting products to your customers.  Why not create ads on ad sites?  Its very quick, very easy and may be just the kickstart your business needs.

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Advertise Property For Sale Free

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Advertise Property For Sale Free on YapYapOK Free Ads.

Marketing your own home needn't cost much or indeed anything. Many homeowners who wish to sell their properties tend to go through the usual channels with Estate Agents often being the first port of call.

Yet many wishing to buy property search online before they even consider calling any agent. The secret to selling anything is first understanding your buyers habits. Whilst Estate Agents nearly always have an online presence, many do not keep their sites as up to date as they could be.

Additionally the independents rarely feature high in search results as they do not have the resources available to promote their sites as well as sites who specialise in web marketing.

Hence the arrival of property marketing sites which colate property from various channels in order to bring them directly to the customer. Agents generally pay for these services although often private ads remain a free service.

When you consider the thousands of pounds you can save when marketing your own property it has to be worth the relatively small amount of time resources invested.

Make sure that when you are placing your free ad, you give an accurate and detailed description. Key points should include location, number of bedrooms as well as any extras such as parking, garden etc.

Pictures say a thousand words so try to post as many as you can with the best one fronting the advert.

Once you have a detailed description that you are happy with, then use it across multiple sales sites. The more website visibility that you have, the more likely that your ad will get seen by potential buyers.

So why not give it ago.

YapYapOK Free Ads receives thousands of UK visitors every week - who knows they may be looking for a property just like yours!

Why List On Free Classifieds?

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Todays economy means that we are all trying to budget with our personal and business costs.  Online selling is easier and quicker than you may think.  I have seen many examples of owners trying to sell their properties online with their own websites but whilst this is a great idea, driving traffic to them is often a full time job.  

Free Ads tend to have large visitor numbers and often feature high in search results, hence they are more likely to receive the targetted traffic that you require to get your online marketing noticed.  YapYapOK has the facility to post multiple images as well as a full page description to optimise selling.

Approximately 90% of home buyers research property online before they ever set foot in an Estate Agents so selling yourself is now a viable option.  Estate Agents often place ads across a wide variety of digital media which illustrates just how effective it is.  In addition to the usual selling tools available with free sites, YapYapOK has the ability to post an embed video link to best showcase your home.

Businesses are often severely penalised with premium rate listings making it difficult or prohibitive to market when budgets don't allow.  In order for businesses to compete, grow or just continue to exist then it is necessary to facilitate them in any way possible.  For that reason all ads placed on YapYapOK are Free.

With thousands of visitors often searching for specific items and businesses listed on our free advertising pages every day, it is fairly easy to generate sales on a regular basis.

So if your selling any product or service, take the time out to list it here.  Registration is fast, listing is easy and takes just a few minutes and your ad will be live for 90 days.  Should you be a business wishing to republish then simple login, goto MyYapYapOK, expired ads and click on republish.  Easy, your classifieds is now live for another 90 days.

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Why Google?

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Working on high competition keywords is hugely time consuming.  There are some experts who recommend that you should not bother with high competition since duration of site plays too big a part and Google will always priorities them.  The problem with neglecting high competition is that sooner or later it needs addressing and you can find yourself 2 years down the line placing for lesser value words that yield too few visits.  To some extent we did that with Free Classifieds and ignored Free Ads.  It has taken a massive amount of concentrated effort to place for it.

I have worked with many different sites now.  New and established, competitive and not.   I have managed to get all non competitive keywords to page 1 within just a few weeks, one came in under a week and another very general keyword in under 2 weeks.

By general I mean there are hundreds of thousands of sites specialising in the same thing.  So how did we do it so quickly?

Lets say I was working with an antiques dealer.  Its pretty specialised.  To deal in antiques you need to know what your buying so that you can profit.  Antiques dealers spend a great deal of time running their business but don't really understand SEO, much less give away valuable resources to support it.  Hence placing in this industry at the top of Google is really very easy, even though many have an international sales base and therefore massive competition.

I have worked with several specialised sites now.  One was a local service so creating a location specific keyword enabled her to place at number 1 position with very little work.

For example if you needed a plumber in Cardiff.  Unlikely you would search Google for Plumber since your results would not be relevant and you would spend too long looking through the pages.  If on the other hand you typed "Plumber Cardiff" then youir results will be more specific.

Therefore if you are a plumber in Cardiff with a website, then getting to number one means that you have very little competition and should manage it with ease.

Clearly I am also working with high competition general sites whereby the areas of specialism are in marketing.  Hence placing against some of the other established sites is incredibly difficult.  Not least because of the large budgets they have in comparison to our very non existent one.

So why do we concentrate on Google?  Well it is the largest search engine with the most specific results.  SEO is therefore logical.  I am  fairly certain that by following a broader range of SEO techniques as well as some blackhat methods would result in better results in placing however I also think that would be detrimental to Google SERP.

Many run off the back of Google so playing to the Google tune will ultimately see results in the smaller search engines too.  Our stats are certainly suggesting this.  While 90% of our traffic is generated from Google, we are now seeing results from Bing, Ask Jeeves, AOL and Yahoo.

We will continue to implement specific whitehat SEO unless Google  becomes less important. Frankly, I can't see that happening.

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The Trouble With Fiverr Feedback

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I have used Fiverr alot in the past for SEO services.  The new Google Panda means that much of it is surplus since replicating and link spamming via directories etc hold less value.  To search for a gig its important to check out and see if the provider is using Google friendly techniques.  Then its necessary to check out the feedback.

Since feedback is usually done after gig deliver then the effectiveness of the gig is unknown.  There is no option to change it later to give the provider either a bigger thumbs up or even a thumbs down.

Those who don't understand SEO are often frustrated that their site hasn't climbed to the top of the search engines instantly - they give negative feedback which scews the results.  The only way of seeing how anyone has rated the gig is to see how many repeat orders it has.  Again anyone understanding SEO knows that repeating a gig can be detrimental particularly if it involves anchor text links on the same pages that they already have links on.  The exception to this is if they have multiple sites to promote, however this is often impossible to determine.

So I was delighted to come across Facebook page whereby someone has created a fan page for Killer Gigs.  This creates transparent discussions at any time after the gig to share how it has performed.  Clearly it can be open to abuse from sellers themselves who will promote their own gigs but if there is enough of a follow then their buyers will be able to add their experiences.

I really hope this takes off, it will save hours of sorting the wheat from the chaff - there is a lot of chaff.  We put up with it since the charges are small.  Small charges do add up though and it is easy to see how you can spends 100's of dollars on crappy gigs which give no results at all and may even get you "sandboxed". 

So inevitably I have returned to the Fiverr experience.  Not for YapYapOK Classifieds, we rank pretty well now so just continuing what we are doing will hopefully be enough to maintain position with major keywords and grow some of the minor ones. Ads being one!

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Blogging Explicit Ads

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Its time to blog the ads.  The death of my computer has meant that I have been neglecting some of the latest classifieds appearing on YapYapOK.  This, when we have had so many raunchy  adverts appearing.  Its good to see that all of the advertisers have followed the guidelines of placing them under the appropriate adult categories.

Mr Jack is an adult entertainer - don't look if your offended by nudity - its explicit.  Miss Shawnee is another adult entertainer available for parties.

And if that's not your thing - how about this advert for Sex Toys.  This one has started a shop and the other toy they have listed is more than a little baffling.

Thankfully the YapYapOK Free Classifieds has a censored facility so that it is not necessary to view the images should that be of issue.

We have a wide range of personals as well as adult chat currently live on YapYapOK.  Whilst we had anticipated adult products and services and built in a censored facility, we really had no idea that it was going to be so popular with the advertisers or with the curious and probably curious browsers.

As someone who spends a large amount of time in front of my computer I do often get distracted when looking for new media for SEO.  I love Scribd because after I have read the latest articles I often look at the authors for some short story viewing material.  By and large I am a Michael Connolly fan, I also live Lee Childs and Harlen Coben so much of what is on Scribd tends to be too short to really appreciate.

You can also find yourself reading a story which starts well and turns out to be pure erotica.  All very well but imagine my horror when after reading one short story I saw that when I loaded Facebook there was a link on my page telling all who new me what I had been reading.  Now I avoid them like the plague - even the seemingly innoculous.

Nowadays I prefer to be distracted by Pioneer Woman and her recipe blog.  Its well written with some great recipes and even helps me multi task my dinner preparations.

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