I want to make a local classified ad website, I have questions.

[Wombo Combo]

I wanted to make a local website kind of like Craigslist but I wanted the users to be able to leave comments on local ads for things they are selling (not just email). I wanted to be able to make money via adsense and maybe other ads and include local companies which they can advertise on the site also.

I have looked at some wordpress themes like Classipress http://www.appthemes.com/themes/classipress/

And wanted to know if there was anything out there better that I can implement. I dont have much knowledge on web site building but I wanted something basic where users can comment on ads and they can communicate on where to meet to buy the item etc..

Has anyone ever done this with any site they have made and I don't mind paying for themes/scripts/etc I just want to know the best way about doing this.

Thank you for you help.

 

[FAST6191]

Is there truly a market for this, why would people use your site over craigslist/a local paper's attempt/ebay/a yard sale, following on from the previous one what counts as local (town/city/county/selection of counties/if you are next to a state border it might be easy to hop across), do you know how much of a moderation headache this could be and if you do not have much knowledge of website building then you now have the financial drain on your site of having to find somebody that knows database programming* so can you still make money given that?

*it usually comes part and parcel but them being able to debug a site when it decides to get hacked is also useful.

There are many things you can do in web design as just yourself but this seems like a full project. Most of my web design stuff that includes this sort of thing tends to be token additions to forums or directory sites and I have not really had cause to make something like this so I will have to take a step back for the time being. The token search says there is some pretty interesting stuff happening in the joomla world too.

 

[air2004]

A better option would be , a site where you pull in the local news , national news ect . but have your comment section over lay/replace the real comment section of the site and allow anonymous posting .
Example would be , CNN story here
CNN comment section here
Your comment section overlays CNNS

The site traffic could still go CNN so they get paid , and you find away to fit in adds on your overlay so you get paid

 

[Seyiji]

I wanted to make a local website kind of like Craigslist but I wanted the users to be able to leave comments on local ads for things they are selling (not just email). I wanted to be able to make money via adsense and maybe other ads and include local companies which they can advertise on the site also.

I have looked at some wordpress themes like Classipress http://www.appthemes.com/themes/classipress/

And wanted to know if there was anything out there better that I can implement. I dont have much knowledge on web site building but I wanted something basic where users can comment on ads and they can communicate on where to meet to buy the item etc..

Has anyone ever done this with any site they have made and I don't mind paying for themes/scripts/etc I just want to know the best way about doing this.

Thank you for you help.

As FAST said you'd be competing with ebay, craigslist yard sales, flea markets, classifieds, word of mouth, hell even facebook has local groups dedicated to "online garage sales" similar to craigslist all without the middleman and fees. So good luck with that

 

[Wombo Combo]

Thanks everyone for input. I actually got the idea from facebook groups. A lot of users in my city use a facebook group to buy and sell things but what I wanted to offer is something local (like my city only nothing big scale) but be able to sort by categories because so many people post on the group and they post all kind of items but most of it gets over shadowed by clothes and I wanted to offer a similar thing but with the ability to sort through price and categories to make it easier for people to find what they want.

I do not want to compete against ebay because everything is sold to each other in person and Craigslist doesnt allow for comments where everyone can see. The group has over 15,000 users and I heard from alot of them they wish they had some type of way to sort through the items because facebook doesnt do this and Craigslist doesn't have the community aspect where you cant talk to seller and see what other people are talking to them about on the ad.

TLR: Basicly I want to know with around 15k - 25k users not saying I will get that at all but if I had that many users could I make money off of just ads? (registered users not necessary per day users)

 

[FAST6191]

Online services in 2013 is a hard gig, especially in the US, unless you either sweep in after another site implodes (in this case it would probably be more if your local paper went bust), offer a vastly superior service, have a fortune to advertise your way into things or hang it off the back of something already popular (GBAtemp has shoptemp for example) though popular can also include real world things (in your case if you are limited to a city then maybe hang it off the back of a town hall, a church if that is your community works or a general meeting point though each of those limits your earning potential an awful lot). The online money which is made is usually because you have an existing business and sell things through it or you have a very focused service for someone (basically a freelance web design/programming/possibly SEO type).

Money from ads at that level... depends where you are really. If you are in a computery/tech town then it is probably adblock country. You also have the facebook corral effect to overcome; if facebook is as you say then it is inferior to other existing offerings but for some people the internet is facebook and trying to get them out of there is hard work. Naturally you are going to want some kind of facebook login here though. Also regardless of what people say they want you may still face inertia.

The other question of course is what if facebook decide to add such a feature. It is a fairly obvious move for them to add it and then you could be left hanging.

I mean you could do it (I am presently looking at a few joomla extensions that will do it) and as ever the biggest cost would probably be advertising/getting it out there IF you are already versed in web programming/web design (buy the domain, buy one of those 3 years for $150 or so packages*, prepare to scale up rapidly if needs be and install said software). Depending upon what you are doing you might also want to flank it with something in the real world (whether you want to provide a safe place to make trades, a printed edition or something else I am not thinking of at this point).

*I like these for even if the venture fails you now have basic hosting you can stick a couple of wordpress blogs/general info sites on for any tradesmen and other such people that could do with a basic website, have your own hosting for future projects and other such niceties.

 

[Sop]

Online services in 2013 is a hard gig, especially in the US, unless you either sweep in after another site implodes (in this case it would probably be more if your local paper went bust), offer a vastly superior service, have a fortune to advertise your way into things or hang it off the back of something already popular (GBAtemp has shoptemp for example) though popular can also include real world things (in your case if you are limited to a city then maybe hang it off the back of a town hall, a church if that is your community works or a general meeting point though each of those limits your earning potential an awful lot). The online money which is made is usually because you have an existing business and sell things through it or you have a very focused service for someone (basically a freelance web design/programming/possibly SEO type).

Money from ads at that level... depends where you are really. If you are in a computery/tech town then it is probably adblock country. You also have the facebook corral effect to overcome; if facebook is as you say then it is inferior to other existing offerings but for some people the internet is facebook and trying to get them out of there is hard work. Naturally you are going to want some kind of facebook login here though. Also regardless of what people say they want you may still face inertia.

The other question of course is what if facebook decide to add such a feature. It is a fairly obvious move for them to add it and then you could be left hanging.

I mean you could do it (I am presently looking at a few joomla extensions that will do it) and as ever the biggest cost would probably be advertising/getting it out there IF you are already versed in web programming/web design (buy the domain, buy one of those 3 years for $150 or so packages*, prepare to scale up rapidly if needs be and install said software). Depending upon what you are doing you might also want to flank it with something in the real world (whether you want to provide a safe place to make trades, a printed edition or something else I am not thinking of at this point).

*I like these for even if the venture fails you now have basic hosting you can stick a couple of wordpress blogs/general info sites on for any tradesmen and other such people that could do with a basic website, have your own hosting for future projects and other such niceties.

Off topic: FAST, you seem to know a lot about electronics and things like that. Could you ramble on about what I would need to know to create a website and provide me with some basic resources? I already know how to use image editing software and know HTML/CSS. I am thinking of creating a website for a local club (blog sorta ting) with a section where you can order merch.

 

[FAST6191]

Though I can do web design it would not be very hard to get my best fish impression/my walking around knowledge leaves a lot to be desired.

For a small local club.... spare yourself the aggro and just set it up on amazon/ebay/cafepress/whatever, indeed many are even observing a trend away from running your own web store to just sticking it on whatever. By all means have a page saying "we offer this merch, call/email us if you want to buy some". Between security, updates, fiddling with payment methods and whatever else you might as well take the hit.

Basic resources.... your web host probably already includes something like softaculous or something like it (if it does not you are a either on a cheap and nasty host so leave before you get too invested or are paying hundreds for a real host and do not need my help). They will install stock wordpress or joomla (the two big CMS options out there for most people, both have a lot of extensions and customisation options which allow most people to do most things) and maybe a handful of other things like galleries, wiki software, source code repos, forums or guestbooks. Most other times you get a zip file with a bunch of files in it that want to be on your server, installation typically amounts to "unzip and run installation script", "upload and follow these nice instructions in this PDF file" or "unzip and edit the conf files to match the database users/site directory structure". You can do a search for "[insert type of site software] reviews" or "[insert type of site] software" (maybe also add open source to one or two of those -- many open source offerings are really good) just as well as I can and most software sites will list plugins and such that works for them.

HTML and CSS will only get you so far nowadays -- most things revolve around php (not the most intuitive/well designed of computer languages) and databases (typically mysql but some of the other SQLs are getting popular) with CGI and cron jobs doing a lot as well to say nothing of many pieces of software taking you further and further away from the basic HTML and CSS editing. Do not get me wrong an appreciation for how HTML and CSS works is incredibly useful but it is quite far from the full picture. The only "secret tool" I might add to that is http://astrogrep.sourceforge.net/ which is lovely for figuring out just where that "powered by ????" thing resides in the code.

On security. If all you ever do is install premade software and maybe customise a few links here and there you run the risk of getting in way over your head if your site gets hacked or your database gets corrupted, especially if you do not understand PHP and databases. It it getting slightly better as time goes on but realistically you still have to know an awful lot and do an awful lot to have a properly secure site if you want it to have any functionality.