Weebly has many features, but those wanting to add classified ads to their Weebly site have been out of luck until now. MembershipWorks offers a Weebly Classified Ads plugin that is easy to implement without any code knowledge.
Advantages of Weebly Classified Ads
Weebly site owners no longer have to consider moving to another website builder to offer classifieds on their site. MembershipWorks Classified Ads for Weebly plugin allows you to simply copy and paste snippets of code to build ad pages. See what classifieds ads on Weebly look like. Some advantages of adding classified ads on a Weebly site include:
- Make money selling ads.
- Create community by allowing those who visit your site to buy, sell, and trade things with each other.
- Encourage people to return to your site more often to see what others have to sell or to post their own ad listings.
- If you offer memberships, viewing and posting classifieds on Weebly can be seen as a member benefit.
- You can offer free ad listings for premium members as a thoughtful add on to their membership.
Core Features of Weebly Classified Ads
Each business or nonprofit may have different needs, but some core features of our Weebly Classifieds plugin include:
Classified ads setup for admins
- Create custom submission fields
- Define who has to pay to post an ad versus who can post for free or a lower price (e.g. members versus nonmembers)
- Set an auto expiration date for ads
- Embed classified ads on both pages or posts
- Set up discount codes to incentivize users to place ads
- Customize email confirmation messages that are sent to verify ad submissions and ad postings
- Create tags for ad categories so that site visitors can quickly find the ads that interest them
- Free support, including live screen share training, email and phone support
Ongoing ad management for an admin or site manager
- Delete and edit ads
- See a list of ads; screen and then approve them for posting
- Track activity of ad submitters such as seeing a record of the dates they have posted
- Export ad financial data to an accounting system such as Quickbooks or Xero
- Limit the number of days ads stay online before they expire
- Offer free ads to certain levels of members or by providing a discount code
Features for those who create listings
- Ad posters can request a password to log back in to their ad listings portal
- Posters can edit or remove ads within their ad collection group
- Ad posters can upload an image file or logo to draw attention to their listing
- Listers can see how many views and clicks their ads have
- Ad posters can add a membership, create a profile, and be listed in a directory if you choose to use those features of the MembershipWorks plugin
How to Create Weebly Classified Ads?
It’s easy to create a Weebly classified ads website with MembershipWorks. Here are the basic steps involved:
- Be sure you are on the right type of Weebly account. This plugin should not be used with Weebly + Square Online Store websites. Learn more.
- Sign up for a MembershipWorks account.
- If you are collecting funds for ads or memberships, set up your payment gateway in MembershipWorks.
- If you require membership to add or view the ads, set up your membership levels. Note that MembershipWorks memberships are different and separate from Weebly memberships. To avoid confusing members with two separate logins, you should choose MembershipWorks to manage your members if you are using our classifieds plugin.
- Next, go to Jobs/Other Boards and create a new Classified Board.
The Classifieds board form template is pre-populated with the fields that are useful to most organizations, but you can add, edit and remove fields to suit your needs. You can also create tags so that those posting ads can categorize or tag their ads. You can set things up so that those reading the ads can use these tags to quickly find the ads that would meet their needs. - From the board’s Dashboard > Embed button, you can copy and paste code snippets to paste into a Weebly Embed Code element. You’ll have three separate snippets that you’ll place on three new pages that will need to be built for:
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- Viewing ads
- Posting ads
- Managing ads
Once you have the classifieds up and running, your administrators can easily log in to approve, edit, or remove listings. Those who post announcements can also log in to edit or cancel their listings as well.
To allow nonmembers to log in and edit their listings, be sure to check the option under your Classified board’s Settings > Creating Listings > Checkout actions for “if user does not have account, add user to these labels/folders (at least 1 folder required)”. You will need to pick a folder where nonmembers can be added. Some organizations create a new folder within the plugin just for this purpose. It’s also a good idea to customize your confirmation emails with links back to your manage listings page so that listers know where to go to modify their listings.
How To Put Ads on Your Weebly Site
Build a new page to house ads
You’ll need to create a new page for Viewing ads. You can choose a basic page layout to showcase your ads.
Add Weebly Elements
- From MembershipWorks, go to Jobs/Other Boards.
- Click on the board you set up for your classifieds ads (note you can have more than one classifieds ads boards). If you haven’t set up a board yet, you can click on “+ New Jobs/Classifieds/Other Board” and choose the default settings for “Classifieds.”
- On your board’s Dashboard, click on the “Embed” tab.
- Copy the code for “View listings snippet:”
- In Weebly on your new page, drag the Embed Code element onto the page. It’s a good idea to place it as close to the top of the page as possible. Don’t force users to scroll to the bottom of a page to view listings.
- Paste the code you copied from MembershipWorks into the window. Watch the video to see how to use the Embed Code element in Weebly (:27 seconds in to :43 seconds).
- Repeat the process of building pages and adding in snippets for posting ads and viewing ads.
- Don’t forget to publish each of your pages and test them out by viewing them as a website visitor.
Classified Ads Plugin for Your Website
Adding a classified ads plugin is a good idea for a variety of nonprofits, associations, groups, clubs, businesses, and even chambers of commerce. Here are example of how various groups might use classified ads on their websites as a member benefit:
- Chamber of commerce – Classifieds provide a place for members to buy and sell equipment, furniture, etc. to each other. This can be a member-only benefit to encourage members to join so that they can post listings.
- Pickleball club or tennis club – Members could post used equipment listings and apparel.
- Association – A trade association for contractors could allow members to post listings for building-related equipment.
- Nonprofit – A nonprofit cooperative for farmers could have a classifieds section on their website to sell tractors, seeders, bailers, vehicles, etc.
How to Make Money with a Classified Ads Website?
Most classified ad websites charge for listings to be placed. But some sites do it differently. They instead offer paid memberships to view and/or post to the classifieds section. An advantage of MembershipWorks’ Classified Ads plugin is that it offers detailed access controls that can apply to ad posters and/or ad viewers. This provides maximum flexibility in how you want to make money with classified ads. You can pick the arrangement that works best for your organization.
MembershipWorks also offers other types of boards where you can charge for job postings and announcements. Or you can offer these for free as a member benefit. These features and many others are included with the classifieds feature at no extra charge.
Free Places to Advertise Your Website
Make plans to promote classified ad sales once you add classifieds to your website. But before you promote listing sales, create some initial ad listings. You may have friends or colleagues who have items to sell. You can give them a discount code to add in their listings for free. It’s a good idea to have these “seed” listings so that someone’s first visit to the listings site isn’t a disappointment.
You don’t have to pay for advertising to get noticed; it doesn’t cost a thing to write up an announcement and distribute it. Here are some tips:
- Post it on social media channels
- Email members (if you have a member-based organization)
- Create a YouTube video promoting your classifieds or a “how to” video for potential advertisers to see how to create their ad listing. Although posting an ad is pretty self explanatory, some people like to watch videos to be talked through the process.
- If you have a communications committee, task them with individual outreach in the form of text, email or phone calls to alert members about this new feature.
- If you have other communications channels such as a list serve, forum, bulletin board, or bulk texting capability, send out your announcement that way as well.
- If there is a LinkedIn or Facebook group tied to your industry, you can promote your classifieds site there as well. Just be sure you aren’t violating group rules by doing so.
Weebly Classified Ads Frequently Asked Questions
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