TOP 5 FREE CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING WEBSITES (GLOBAL)

A very effective form of marketing, promotions and advertising these days which cuts across online platforms even to newspapers, magazines and even periodical publications, is Classified Advertising. This form of advertising and promotions has swept the global marketing world off its feet with a more flexible, peer-to-peer, generic and best of all, free form of sales and marketing.

This article will dwell in and around the online free classified advertising mode which has to do majorly with dedicated websites that allow large, medium and small scale business enterprises to market and promote their products and services online. 

Individuals are not left out when it comes to showcasing their goods or services to the online world using free advertising websites. 

Onward, this article will treat the word advertising as ads for the sake of cross-platform comprehension and co-relation. 

Before the advent of the internet, classified advertising basically functioned through tradition mass media platforms like radio and television while a larger bulk of classified advertising were published on the pages of print media publications, which meant that, business owners or individuals with either goods or services to promote or sell had to either promote their wares or services on radio, television or head out to print media houses to get them on the pages of newspapers, magazines or yellow/white page periodicals. 

The wide use of the internet today has shifted focus majorly to dedicated free classified advertising websites. Most of the thriving traditional media outfits which handled loads of classified advertising, now have their online classified advertising platforms. Most free classified ads websites today, restrict their services to geographical zones or business owners and individuals from a specific region, country, state, postal or zip code areas are allowed to put their goods and services up for promotion and advertising while anyone outside of that geo-location cannot use the services of these free classified ads websites. 

The word free is not usually totally free when it comes to the context or working of most 'free' classified advertising websites as most of these sites offer premium services where they charge advertisers a token fee monthly, quarterly or yearly to make their ads appear on the websites front page or give advertisers product or service top priority spot on the website which is targeted at driving sales and making some more profit for both parties.

 Using a free classified advertising website involves using graphical representations such as photos, artworks or illustrations to depict a product along with a short written description which has to be accompanied by the value per product (price).

This article will focus on 5 of the best global free classified advertising websites or the top 5 free classified advertising websites that operate globally and without restrictions of any kind.

1. CRAIGSLIST:

Created in 1995, Craigslist.org boasts of being one of the very first free classified advertising websites on the internet. The website which started from its humble beginning as a San Francisco Bay Area email distribution network for just friends who used this platform for over a year as a public notice board for basically gigs, events and occasions, before the service metamorphosed into a full-blown website in 1996 which began to and still offers global free classified advertising services to business owners and individuals across the world. The website is known for servicing over 25 million users monthly and commands a lot of authority when it comes to free classified advertising online. With a vast array of categories for users choose from when placing their free classified ads.


2. ADPOST:

Adpost.com is a global free classified advertising website that boasts of over 30 million page views monthly with a rising count of over 60,000 unique visitors daily. With that massive figure business owners and individuals with both goods and services that need advertising can post them on the ADPOST website free-of-charge and be rest assured that a quota of the daily 1 million page views by visitors will see a spiral-rise on their sales report. Adpost comes with search engine listing which is a unique feature to advertisers, the advantage of this feature is that potential buyers can from any search engine find advertisers post directly without having to visit the Adpost website first.

3. OLX:

This is one of the most innovative free classified advertising websites on the internet today. The OLX.com website works basically using each visitors (seller and buyers) geolocational information to deliver content specific to their location. Aside from its online marketplace OLX also allows users the levity of having to socialize by allowing users to share their experiences, tips, and ideas on various topics which hover around the classified ads categories on the website. OLX allows users to sync their accounts with their social media network account for easy sharing to yet a wider audience. Using OLX's forums is quite an interactive experience for users because aside from getting first tips and guides from fellow-users, users can get acquainted with other industry professionals and like minds quite easily using the OLX website.

4. OODLE:

Oodle.com boasts of a monthly traffic of over 15 million users from around the world. This free classified advertising website comes with a distinctly unique social media network sync function to advertisers allowing them to seamlessly incorporate the sharing-power of their various social media platforms into the Oodle account for a wider reach. The website localizes content worldwide to suit both buyers and sellers, thereby driving more local sales and purchase power the way of its users. Oodle boasts of a very vast range of categories for users to choose from without having to leave the site.

5. YAMSIO:

First of its kind free classified advertising website that pays its small business owners and individual users to post their products and services on the website. Unfortunately, Yamsio.com is geo-locationally restricted to Nigeria, which means that only sellers and buyers from Nigeria alone can use the services of this quite innovative free classified ads website. The website also doles out gifts (aside from its regular pay-to-post package for advertisers) like smartphones and cash. The brainchild of Nigerian-born web geek Lawrence Obot the website has come to be an authority in the Nigerian free classified advertising community within a pretty short period and has with astronomical strides stood shoulder-to-shoulder against industry giants like Jiji.ng, olx.com.ng, tradestable.com.ng, mobofree.com and ady.ng.