How to write a good ad for craigslist posting

When you post on craigslist you need to keep a check and balance between attractive nice looking ads and ads which have high survival probability. Highly HTML decorated nice looking ads may catch more visitors but may reduce the probability of going live, at the same time.

Following are some tips for writing a good ad for posting on craigslist.org:

1. Avoid HTML unless you are posting under the services section. Plain text ads increase the possibility of going live.
   
2. Avoid hyperlink to an website. Put the domain name as text without www. or put it into an image.
3. Titles must match corresponding category you are posting to.
4. Avoid using a particular word/phrase (i.e. brand name, email, telephone number etc) in the titles or descriptions.
5. If you need to receive query from visitors use anonymous email feature of craigslsit, don't insert your actual email in body of the ads.
6. Don't use external image using HTML tag in the categories which allow image uploading. Upload the images during posting your ads in such categories.
7. Check spelling and punctuation. A badly punctuated ad with wrong spelling can really be a nuisance and compel the visitor to flag.
8. Short relevant descriptions works well in terms ad survival rate. So use a lot of short variations of your description instead of using a few long descriptions.
9. Don't use too many special characters in titles.
10. Avoid using blacklisted keywords. criagslist has a long list of blacklisted keywords for each category. For expample: "instant cash" may be a blacklisted keyword phrase for "financial services" category but not for "small biz" category. Study the posted ads under your intended category before you start writing your ads and try to identify the blacklisted keywords for that category.

I hope this will help you to write ads for craigslist which will actually be listed on craigslist's listing page.