10 tips for creating a classified ad site

Classified ads are - and have long been - crucial to the development of advertising listings. Business owners used the classified sections in newspapers to buy and sell their services and products. At the dawn of the modern era, the focus shifted to more easily accessible media and everyone turned to classified ad sites. Anyone from anywhere in the world can access websites to buy or sell on classified ad sites.

In this way, a classifieds site acts as a portal for sellers to advertise their products, and interested buyers can browse the ads listed in the relevant categories and contact the sellers to buy their products.

If you want to create your own classified ads site, here's a step-by-step guide to incorporating the essential features you need to set it up.

1 - The ad creation form

A classified ad site is only as good as the ads it contains. As you can see, this step is essential. Set up a simple and clear form for creating ads.

Some classified ad sites make it possible to publish ads without the need to create an account on the said platform, while others make it compulsory to create an account in order to be able to publish an ad. It's up to you to choose the option that suits you and your future users best.

Compulsory registration will reduce the rate of false ads, but non-compulsory registration will make it easier to publish ads, so you'll automatically have many more.

2 - Featured classified ads

Featured ads can be displayed directly from the ads home page, from an ad category page or directly on a page dedicated to featured ads.

This feature is aimed at classified ad owners who want to buy a prominent place on your website so that their ads stand out from other similar ads. To do this, they obviously pay extra to have their ads featured at the top of search results or in the list of categories.

3 - Advanced search

The heart of every classified ad site is an advanced search system. Your site will contain tons of ads that visitors can easily get lost in. If you use an ordinary search function, they will find it difficult and time-consuming to find the right product. So you need to equip your search with filters so that visitors can ignore irrelevant ads and focus only on the ones that matter.

For example, for a property classifieds site, it may be a good idea to allow visitors to specify various details such as: search for properties by keyword, status, type, price, location, surface area, parking spaces, number of bedrooms and bathrooms. This enables them to find the most appropriate listings according to their desires and needs.

4 - Personalised geolocation

When you want to make a second-hand purchase from a private individual, it's essential to know where the product is so that you can arrange to collect it or have it delivered. A personalised geolocation system is therefore very important to include on your classified ad site.

When creating classified ads, you can give your users the option of locating themselves on an interactive map of France. Alternatively, you can simply set up a location selector. Users can enter their address and define the area in which they are located using Google Maps. This will enable users to better plan their future purchase.

5 - The contact form

People contact advertisers from time to time, whether to find out more about the product or simply to clarify things. That's why your classified ads site needs a contact form. You don't have to overload it with several fields. Instead, keep the form simple with basic fields for the sender's name, e-mail and message.

6 - Adding to favourites

Favourites and saved searches help users to view the ads they have liked and saved, eliminating the need to search through thousands of ads again. So there should be functionality to save classified ads to the wish list.

All ads marked as favourites will therefore appear in the "My favourites" section, which can be added to the menu.

7 - Reporting an advert

Classified ad sites must take strict measures to combat spam and scams, which are very common on this type of platform. For example, add a special "Report" form on each page to allow users to report irrelevant or misleading ads.

Some websites also have teams dedicated to finding and removing spam content from sites. So, in addition to "marking as spam", you can also take manual action.

8 - Private messaging

To simplify the user experience, set up a private messaging system. This allows users interested in an ad to get in touch with the seller concerned very quickly.

This feature facilitates transactions and increases the number of transactions carried out through your classified ad site.

9 - Rating your users

Making it possible to rate your users will help other users to feel confident. New users will know whether or not to be wary of the person they are dealing with. Also, each user will try to make the best transaction possible to avoid getting a bad rating.

To do this, after a transaction, each of the users, on both the seller and buyer sides, must leave a review of the person with whom they carried out the transaction. A 5-star rating system and a short comment will do the trick. This will also enable you to restrict certain regular users with very poor ratings.

10 - Integration of a secure payment solution

Whether your ad site connects individuals, professionals or both, Obvy' s secure payment system is ideal for securing and simplifying all your users' transactions. A payment solution such as Obvy is essential to ensure the security of buyers and sellers on your ad site, to avoid scams and to ensure that they feel confident using your platform.

Obvy makes it possible to deal with all the most central aspects of your business and secures the funds of your marketplace's customers in a digital safe until the transaction is finalised. You can therefore ensure optimum satisfaction for your sellers and their customers, by putting trust back at the heart of the transactions that take place on your platform. Obvy can also offer transactions with immediate transfer of funds, without the need for an escrow stage.

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