Classifieds website

Mr.David

Hi all,

Just wondering - anyone here have any experience of setting up a classifieds website? Just at the initial stages of exploring the possibility so not yet sure what is involved. Any suggestions?

forbairt

Step A ... have idea
...
Step Z ... profit


1: Decide if you have money

step 2 based on step 1 and a yes answer ... hire designers / developers
step 2 based on step 1 and a no answer ... http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Classified_Ads/index.html

Step 3 ... domain name
Step 4 ... hosting

Step 5 ... marketing / building up listings / praying it works

Step 6 ... profit ?

Thats just a rough 2 minute response though

Lplated

There are loads of those kind of websites around already - what are you going to do to be different, what is your unique selling point?

In thinking of how yours will be different, will your idea be easily copied?

Mr.David

forbairt wrote: »

Step A ... have idea
...
Step Z ... profit


1: Decide if you have money

step 2 based on step 1 and a yes answer ... hire designers / developers
step 2 based on step 1 and a no answer ... http://www.hotscripts.com/PHP/Scripts_and_Programs/Classified_Ads/index.html

Step 3 ... domain name
Step 4 ... hosting

Step 5 ... marketing / building up listings / praying it works

Step 6 ... profit ?

Thats just a rough 2 minute response though

Going with the step 2 based on step 1 and a no answer option, what would the initial outlay be in order to buy the domain name, hosting, server etc be?

Basically looking to start small with local adverts offered free of charge and then expand etc.

--amadeus--

Mr.David wrote: »

Going with the step 2 based on step 1 and a no answer option, what would the initial outlay be in order to buy the domain name, hosting, server etc be?

Basically looking to start small with local adverts offered free of charge and then expand etc.

Hosting isn't that expensive, do a google search and you'll get an idea.

But if you are offering free local adverts where does your income come from? And if you have no money how will you market the website?

TBH the likes of Buy and Sell and teh local press have classified adverts pretty much sewn up, the chances of a totally new entrant on a limited budget breaking in are slim, unless you have a real wow! different idea (eg, linking to Google maps or something)

forbairt

Mr.David wrote: »

Going with the step 2 based on step 1 and a no answer option, what would the initial outlay be in order to buy the domain name, hosting, server etc be?

Basically looking to start small with local adverts offered free of charge and then expand etc.

If its local ... get yourself a .ie (get the .com as well if possible)
.ie about 25 quid ?
.com about 6 quid

hosting for year about 50 quid (go with irish hosting .. in terms of SEO its better if your target is the local market)

so you're looking at about an outlay of 100 quid
(you may need to get a registered business name to get a .ie www.cro.ie)
(it can just be a lot less hastle in the long run)

Mr.David

Firstly, thanks for the replies lads.

I would have some cash to throw at it, say €2k to start with. Basically, I will come clean. I have moved to the UK and was thinking of a car classifieds site similar to autotrader.co.uk. The market is worth almost 300million annually of which autotrader have a 38% share.

Was hoping to start a local one say covering Birmingham, then expand. Want to offer free ads to private and trade sellers by contacting dealers directly and advertising in local media. Then when I have a couple of thousand cars on the site, start charging a small fee (e.g. £1/week). Autotrader charges about £6/week for a private advert which seems very high.

My background is in engineering, I would have a very good idea of the motor industry set up and features that I think would be important for the site to have. Also where to advertise. On the other hand, I have very little proper IT knowledge.

there, I let the cat out of the bag!

Lplated

Not a bad idea, in the sense you seem to have an idea of the industry at any rate, and your product seems based on your intention to be a very much cut priced version of other offerings.

On the car industry, one angle you might consider is UK cars for Irish people - the level of imports in here has risen significantly (because of cheaper starting price and now changes in sterling). So much so that BMW garages here announced at the weekend that they're introducing a 'special service' where they'll source a car in the UK from a BMW approved stock and import it for you etc...

One reservation Irish people usually have is what condition the car (abroad) is really in, and the fact that they won't be able to bring it back to where they bought it if there's a problem. You might be able to do something around that maybe..

Good luck anyway.

betonit

Mr.David wrote: »

Autotrader charges about £6/week for a private advert which seems very high.
QUOTE]

This may include an entry in the magazine.
Also the "autotrader" brand name probably warrants this price.
if you want to sell your car in the morning there are 100s of free classified sites but you'll probably put it on autotrader.

To command a price on a website it needs traffic, people wont pay 1c for an ad if they dont know the site.

Why not host car websites for free (cbg, autrader etc). The put ads on it or charge for premium position?

DublinDilbert

Mr.David wrote: »

My background is in engineering, I would have a very good idea of the motor industry set up and features that I think would be important for the site to have. Also where to advertise. On the other hand, I have very little proper IT knowledge.

there, I let the cat out of the bag!

You should go with the car-zone approach, which lets dealers to integrate it into their own web site (like the "powered by car-zone")... I'm not sure if autotrader cater for this market.

You would need to make it easy to intergrate into people's web pages. Maybe have some templates which they could have it up and running in an hour.

This also allows you get large numbers of vehicles listed on the site quickly and generate traffic...

gypsy777

At first I was thinking of saying save your money.

The only way you can break into this market is if you confident you can rank for high traffic search terms...which to be honest im not sure how easy it will be. (e.g. 'used cars' gets around 1,830,000 average searches per month on google.co.uk...'used cars birmingham' gets around 3,600). The birmingham specific terms may not be too bad to rank for but you'll need to know what you're doing.

For example the website ranked number 1 in the UK is www.usedcartrader.co.uk and a bit of research showes that he has 11 anchored backlinks being counted by google (there tonnes of yahoo backlinks) for 'used cars'. Not a lot but when you consider that it has contextual anchored PR 5, PR 3 and PR 2 links you know you're going to struggle finding equivalent links for yourself. And thats just for one keyword you'll want to target.

The website in the number 1 spot for 'used cars birmingham' has no achored backlinks for that term being counted by google suggesting you could take that keyword over pretty easily but for 3600 searches a month its not going to make you rich...its a place to start though.

Obviously your best chance is focusing on more niche keywords based around birmingham and its county perhaps...used cars birmingham, cars for sale birmingham...but traffic isnt going to be huge. And you're going to want to be able to show high targeted traffic volumes to suck in local advertisment if you go down that route.

Advertising in the local press might not give you great results as your likely going to be advertising along side car classifieds there...you'll need to brand yourself really well.

I'm not saying it's impossible but your going to need an SEO (search engine optimisation) guy who really knows his ****.

You then have issues with the google sandbox if you going with a brand new domain...maybe look into buying a good brandable expired domain.

All this comes after youve found a good platform for your classifieds website. Support for the site could get way out of hand.

Dont mean to piss on your parade...just chucking in some considerations. Just dont like to see people biting off more than they can chew.

If you need anymore advice on the matter feel free to PM me.

R3al

Mr.David wrote: »

Was hoping to start a local one say covering Birmingham, then expand. Want to offer free ads to private and trade sellers by contacting dealers directly and advertising in local media. Then when I have a couple of thousand cars on the site, start charging a small fee (e.g. £1/week). Autotrader charges about £6/week for a private advert which seems very high.

If you are targeting Birmingham you will need a co.uk domain name (you should also consider reserving the other common TLDs, .com etc, also as these are relatively inexpensive), if you are considering targeting the irish market at some stage in the future you should also go for the .ie domain.

You should probably try and find a niche in this market that currently isnt being covered in the Birmingham area, trying to take on the market leader at their own game with limited funds is going to be extremely difficult. If you can create your own specialised service you will have a much higher chance of success and once this becomes well known you can expand the brand to cover other areas.

You will also need to be realistic about the amount of profit the website will generate especially in the early years and how time consuming it could become. A good deal of planning and research before you begin will tell you whether the idea is a runner or not.

Bandara

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