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This guide will talk about:

• Registering for an account
• Not getting branded as a Craigslist spanner
• Posting a Services Ad
• Posting a Merchandise Ad

Registering for an Account

1. First-time users visit www.craigslist.org and select my account. If your region (city) is not set you may need to update it.
2. On the Account Log In page select the Click here link.
3. Enter your email address and fill in the captcha security verification word, then select to create account
4. If you have an aggressive SPAM filter you may need to add This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to you accept/allow list in order for the verificaiton email to come through.
5. Once the email comes through you select the continuation link and complete the registration process.
6. If successful, you will be redirected to a postings page.

Don't SPAM Craigslist:

SPAMmers will get banned and/or have posting removed. To avoid these situations, adhere to their common decency (my words) guidelines.

• The minimal guideline is to not post the same message daily; keep a minimum of 48 hours between similar postings, 3 days is safer.
• The second simple rule is to post within context; you will inadvertently make mistakes, but don't intentionally post incorrectly classified messages.
• Rule #3 - don't post filth, porn, spammers list of weblinks, etc.
• Think it through - if it sounds iffy, it probably is…

Post a Services Ad:

1. From the posting window select your region from the pulldown and click on Go.
2. Select services offered
3. Select the most similar service category to what you offer, if nothing similar, you may have to use a general or miscellaneous category.
4. Give the ad a catchy title, but both in the title and Description, don't overuse UPPER CASE.
5. In the context of your posting you can include some basic HTML markup to pretty-ize your ad, this can include adding a link to your website, setting italics (perhaps) to emphasize your slogan, adding some bold sections to highlight an area or two. However, too much may dilute the ad and make it look cheesey. Here a a couple basic HTML formatting tags you can run with:
   • Bold text
   • Italics
   • Your Business Name - don't underline, underline is a designator that the text is a web link, web URL.
     
6. To close the ad, add something like Print this ad and bring it to us to receive a 10% discount off your first service.
7. If you plan to be posting the ad or similar ads regularly you might want to copy the text with any HTML markup to a local file on your pc so that it’s not so laborious next time.
8. If you find that the wording is not quite right you can select the edit button to re-edit the ad. Otherwise to continue you’ll need to once again enter a captcha security code.
9. You cannot add images to a Services Ad, but yes to a merchandise ad.

To post a merchandise (for sale) ad:

1. From the posting window select your region from the pulldown and click on Go.
2. Select for sale / wanted
   
3. Select cars and trucks (or whatever) - in this case cars and trucks will include used and new automotive parts
4. Follow the same suggestion regarding UPPER CASE in the ad context.
5. In the ad context you can add links to images you have posted on another website; don't add to many links or it will begin to look SPAMmish.
6. Check the appropriate For Sale By radio button.
7. Images — if you want to include images in the ad select Add / Edit Images.
8. Craigslist will allow you to upload up to 4 images per ad. If they are too large in size, they will scale them down to an acceptable level. Once you have browsed to the images you want included, you click on Continue at the bottom of the page and it will take a few seconds to perhaps minutes to create the ad and upload the images.
9. As with a Services ad before you complete the posting you will be able to re-edit as necessary then Continue and you're done.

If all is well you should get emailed a link to your ad. The next time it will be smoother and quicker particularly if you have copied your ad to a file on your pc.