When creating your ad, you should use standard on-site SEO that you would use when creating any web page.  Create a classified ad title that includes keywords that people might search on, then add a description that supports the keywords in your ad’s title.

For example, rather then something like: “Great text link on site that is sure to boost your traffic“, something like “Nice PR5 Text Link – Hosting Site” might get you some direct searches for Buy PR5 hosting text link or Hosting Text Link ad.  It is important that you use keywords in your title so the search engines know what your selling so your ad has a good shot at ranking well.  Also, be sure to put something in your description more descriptive than “Contact me for more information”.

If someone is looking to buy links and they do a somewhat specific search and your ad comes up top 5 in Google, you have a much better shot at making a sale because you will be getting a highly targeted visitor.

Since many people here understand SEO, I am surprised at the lack of SEO that goes into many classified ads our members create.  You are competing for specific customers that want to buy links that you are selling. So use your on-site optimization skills to create a killer ad that people will find in their web searches.

From today until August 1, 2008 LinkAdage Auctions will not be charging closing fees on successful text link ad auctions. The only charge would be for any upgrades like front page or premium features that you can select for your auction. If you don’t upgrade, your text link auction will be free. If you want to sell links and pocket all the money, this is the way to go.

I also want to mention that last month we made a small change to increase maximum auction listing time to 15 days. We did this in response to members that wanted to renew their ongoing auctions less frequently. If you haven’t listed in a while, now is the time to start listing again.

Other news…

Content Plug-in for WordPress bloggers

I recently had a WordPress plug-in developed that creates Twitter mashup posts based on keywords/and keyword phrases. I use the plug-in extensively at Lessnau.com and my traffic has increase dramatically. Free unique relevant content, it doesn’t get better than that… The plug-in has quite a few cool options. Learn more here: http://www.lessnau.com/twitterdoodle/

The Lessnau Lounge

I started this new personal blog a few months back and call it The Lessnau Lounge. At this new blog, not only will I discuss LinkAdage and text link advertising, I’ll cover a wide range of SEO topics and other interests of mine. I found that I am not a prolific enough writer to maintain a one topic blog so I thought it is best to have a blog that covers life on the web from many different angles. After all, how much can I say about paid links other than they work and Google wishes SEOs would not buy them.

Twitter

To follow the masses, I have become involve with Twitter over the past few months. For those still not familiar with Twitter, it is an online micro-blogging site that allows only 140 character posts. So far, I have not decided if Twitter is a time waster or the next great marketing tool. If you are already on Twitter or decide to give it a try in the near future, make sure you follow my tweets at http://twitter.com/John_Lessnau — I promise not to bore you with mundane Tweets.

• What is the theme of your site?** The closer to your site’s theme the better.
• Will any kind any kind of redirect be used on the link.** You want a normal HTML text link. You do not want a JavaScript link.
• How much traffic do you get on the pages where my text link ad is placed?** While the page popularity boost may help you with your search engine rankings,the more traffic a site gets the more click throughs you should get.
• Do you block the search engines from seeing and following my link?** You don’t want the link to have the rel= nofollow tag or the pageto have the no index, nofollow Meta tag.
• How many links will be sold on the page? How many total outbound links on the page?** In general, you do not want to be on a page with more then 12 paid links and 20 total outbound links.
• How old is the website?** Links on websites more than three years old are best. Links on websites less than a year old are not very helpful.

Beyond these questions, look at the seller’s feedback rating, LinkAdage has been around since September 2003 so there are many sellers with a long history of feedback. However, you should keep in mind that we get new sellers nearly every day that have not built up their feedback ratings. New sellers just trying to build up their seller status often offer some nice links at great prices to move their inventory and build their reputation. If you are willing to take a risk on a new seller the reward (and price) may be great.

PR5 $30 / month
PR6 $60 / month
PR7 $100 / month
PR8 $250 / month
PR9 $800 / month
PR10 $2500 / month (only two sold)

Inside page prices sell for about 25% less.
Homepage plus 5 – 10 inside pages fetch about 50% more.

Prices vary because of topic – Gambling, Adult, and travel LinkAds cost more – extreme niche sites get less.

Other important factors:

Web Site traffic

Text Link Position on page

Total Linkads being sold on page / total outbound links

Number and quality of inbound links. EDUs in backlinks are extremely valuable

Age of site

DMOZ and/or Yahoo listed

Feedback of Seller – Trusted LinkAdage Sellers tend to get more for their text links.

3.) LinkAdage Auctions specializes in text link ad sales. We offer specific website metrics for you to search on the type of text link ad you need. Our buyer and seller feedback is all related to text link sales and purchases. In the one size fits all auctions, you often will find a seller with lots of feed back related to non-text link ad sales. Just because a buyer sells great blenders or baseball cards, doesn’t mean they sell great text links.

4.) Customer service. We answer our emails personally and are close enough to the daily transactions that we can get rid of any “bad apples” quickly and efficiently.

5.) Strong base of long time sellers. Many sellers are making good money selling text link advertising through LinkAdage. Our sellers want to make sure they keep their account in good standing by treating their customers properly. It is not in their best interest to scam a bidder and get banned from LinkAdage and lose access to LinkAdage.

6.) And most important… privacy. We insist that URLs of websites selling text link ads are kept private between the buyer and seller. By doing this LinkAdage offers a ’safe zone’ where you can buy and sell text links without the unnecessary companies and individuals knowing your business.