Please review my USA Classified site

Discussion in 'Websites' started by benchrest, Jan 28, 2009.

  1. #1
    Really want to get this site going but do not know where else to advertise a classified site except social bookmarking and forums. Please review:

    USA Classifieds - http://www.usaclassifiedz.com

    Thanks in advance for looking and Reviews
     
    benchrest, Jan 28, 2009 IP
  2. river

    river Active Member

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    #2
    Its well laid out. I would consider changing the folder icons to something unique for each category. Most classified sites use the same icon.

    Also, you could add a favicon.
     
    river, Jan 29, 2009 IP
  3. NICKY Nitro

    NICKY Nitro Well-Known Member

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    #3
    I gotta say I like the site, now you have to work on the hardest part, getting people to post and spreading the word around.

    If you pull this one off you will be enjoying good traffic and eventually good income if monetizing is done properly.
     
    NICKY Nitro, Jan 29, 2009 IP
  4. starme

    starme Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Hello,

    It;s clean and simple looking which is fine, but I have a few comments:

    1. Buy, Sell, Find a Job! Place a FREE Ad for 30 days in many of our categories.
    What are you waiting for??? "Post an Ad" It's Easy!
    - in "many" of our categories? are you charging for some categories? maybe you should wait to charge till you have more movement, and if you do charge for certain categories you need to specify somewhere which ones.
    - What are you waiting for??? - multiple punctuation looks amateurish
    - "Post an Ad" It's Easy! - Why is "Post an Ad" in quotes?
    - Your capitalization is all over the place, in my opinion, this isn't a title so you should only capitalize the first work of each sentence, but either way, be consistent.
    - The red and blue colors should match the red and blue from your logo

    2. Posting images to a gallery is irrelevent to a classifieds website (unless you can ONLY post pics for your own ads) - Are you also offering a free image hosting service? - I'd say you really need to get rid of this, it's just filler, and you can find better filler. (heck, put current weather conditions for the state you are showing)

    3. This is my personal opinion, and some may not agree, but I would not put any of the sub-categories in until you start to get a fair amount of posting. All of those empty categories makes your site look SUPER empty, and even when you get some postings, it's going to look more empty than full for a while...
    If you don't put any sub-categories yet, it also allows your subcategories to develop organically - maybe you won't end up getting enough posts to justify having sub-categories in the "coin and stamps" section, but you you may find that you need to divide up the "entertainment" section into 25 different categories... let your users dictate that. + it will be much easier to make the site look "full" in the beginning.

    4. I don't see anywhere to login in to edit or delete your post... Is that possible? You need a FAQ for questions like these, and you HAVE TO put in a contact form (to YOU, not just to ad-posters), or some other means of contacting you.

    5. Your "report abuse" link needs to link to a form to give the user a place to explain what the abuse is, so that you can decide if it's valid or not (and what action to take), otherwise everyone just reports their competitors a few times to get them banned (FYI: I "reported" the ad in New york, did you get any info about me?)

    6. Why do the privacy police and terms of use pages look different from the rest of your site? - They shouldn't, be consistent

    7. Why does the site default to Illinois? I am not in Illinois.... I want to choose that for myself, not have it chosen for me...

    g'luck!
     
    starme, Jan 29, 2009 IP
  5. benchrest

    benchrest Peon

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    #5
    Starme, I agree with some of your stuff about the site and will look into it. This is a good script and to answer one of the questions, When people want to advertise in the site they post an ad and then they recieve a confirmation email which they click on the link in the email and then their Ad is approved.
    There is another link they can click on and edit their information if they want to later.
    If they don't confirm their email address they don't advertise. That keeps out the spammers. As far as the Illinois, united states, on home page, you can click on anyone of the States or when someone advertises you will want to enter which state you want to advertise in. I will look into the images and might change that to something else. Thanks for looking
     
    benchrest, Jan 29, 2009 IP
  6. starme

    starme Well-Known Member

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    #6
    Hi! :)

    that's fine - my point was that you need a FAQ, so that potential users of your site will be able to find out things like this (if I were going to use this site, I'd want to know that before I placed an ad.

    As for defaulting to Illinois - How about a landing page? Many sites use them for this type of situation... So the user would come in the first time and select a state, and then you could save the preference in a cookie. Seems less confusing to me....

    About advertising - There are several options which DPers could help you with - this sub-forum is more for reviews about the site itself, not getting marketing advise... You should check into the "Marketing" and "Services" forums, where more people can give you advice about how to get traffic...
    --- But all of the traffic in the world will do you no good if the categories are all empty... bit of a catch-22... maybe just fill them up with "dummy" ads for the moment to get the ball rolling?
     
    starme, Jan 30, 2009 IP
  7. mrktjunior

    mrktjunior Well-Known Member

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    #7
    what what its supposed to do, looks like rest of classified sites, you could change it to look a bit more original.
     
    mrktjunior, Jan 30, 2009 IP
  8. sandchica

    sandchica Well-Known Member

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    #8
    I like it. I especially like the fact that all the categories are all right there on the front page.
     
    sandchica, Jan 30, 2009 IP
  9. kingofsanda

    kingofsanda Peon

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    #9
    The site is nicely designed, it has a nice look and feel to it.
     
    kingofsanda, Jan 30, 2009 IP
  10. 2advance

    2advance Well-Known Member

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    #10
    Everything is fine. Just add some pleasant color at the background/layout.
     
    2advance, Jan 30, 2009 IP
  11. fedroza

    fedroza Banned

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    #11
    I like your site.
     
    fedroza, Jan 31, 2009 IP
  12. xcelent88

    xcelent88 Guest

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    #12
    Hi,
    I really like the design. The design is very simple and it looks professional. As another member already pointed out, I sugest to implement a FAQ.

    Anyway, good job ;)
     
    xcelent88, Jan 31, 2009 IP