Despite the fact that much more advanced, feature-rich services, websites, and apps exist, Craigslist is still the go-to place for buying and selling products and services locally. While Craigslist itself maintains its simple operation, easy user experience, and limited interface, posting on Craigslist effectively can be somewhat difficult.
So, if your Craigslist ads aren’t getting the attention that you think they deserve, or you are just new to selling things online and want to know the best way to post on Craigslist, then you are in the right place.
The best time to post on Craigslist varies depending on what you are posting. If you are posting a service ad, the best time to post on Craigslist is daily before the sun comes up. For sale ads and car ads also need to be posted three times a day to make sure your post stays in the spotlight. Make sure to switch up your posting title and description and to use multiple email accounts to get around Craigslist’s posting limits. When it comes to garage sales, the best time to post on Craigslist is early in the morning on the weekend, and as you would expect, the best time to post a job on Craigslist is in the morning, Monday through Friday.
In this article, we will explain the best time to post on Craigslist for a given category. We will also give you some tips on how to increase your post’s overall performance.
The Best Day Of The Week To Post On Craigslist
The timing that you use when posting on Craigslist has a dramatic effect on how well your ad performs. If you post a great ad during the wrong time, you won’t get good results. The same thing can happen if you post the ad at the best time, but you fail to include some critical components in the Craigslist posting.
There are several different competing theories when it comes to the best day to post on Craigslist. The weekends are the busiest days on Craigslist overall, with peak traffic occurring on Sunday. Monday is the busiest weekday on Craigslist, and daily activity on Craigslist slowly tapers as Friday approaches.
The problem with this assessment is that it covers all posts on Craigslist. For example: Craiglist may be busiest on Sunday, but that is the worst time to post a job listing. When it comes to the best time to post on Craigslist, the type of post needs to be considered
Best Practices For Posting On Craigslist
While timing is extremely important when posting on Craigslist, it’s not everything. It’s important for every post to have at least one image, no matter what.
Whether it’s a job posting, an item for sale, or even a job offer, your post must have an image. If your post does not have an image associated with it, it’s a lot easier to scroll right past it
Make sure to not write anything in all capital letters because that is common for scammers to do. Also, never write massive blocks of texts. Instead, make sure to break up your description into easy-to-read paragraphs.
Best Time To Post Services Ads
The best time to post a service ad on craigslist is early in the morning. If you post your ad before the sun comes up you will get better results. This applies to both weekends and weekdays.
When people are searching on Google, they usually don’t go past the first page. That is less true for Craigslist, as people are known to go several pages deep into a search when they are looking for something. With that being said, if you post your service ad early in the morning before most people wake up, they will see your post first when they get on Craigslist.
When To Post For Sale Ads
When it comes to posting items for sale on craigslist, the best time to post actually occurs three times per day. The first time is early in the morning before the sun comes up.
This is so your ad is the first on the list. The second time you need to post it is right before lunch. Around 11am. This will make your post first on the list for people browsing Craigslist on their lunch break. The third time you need to post your ad is 4pm. That way, when everyone gets off work and browses Craigslist, your post will be first on the list.
How To Get Around Craiglist’s Posting Limits
Craigslist has some built in mechanisms that prevent users from posting the same ad over and over again. Technically, you are not supposed to repost the ad at all. The way to get around this automated limitation is to slightly reword your post’s description and a different title each time.
Doing this trick will make it so you can post the same ad more than ones without any issues. It’s important to not abuse this hack. If you overdo it, it will eventually annoy people. Once enough of them flag your post, Craigslist will delete it. If that happens too many times, you could even have your Craigslist account suspended.
Use Multiple Email Accounts
The best time to post on Craigslist happens multiple times per day. The problem is, Craigslist has recently started limiting the maximum number of posts for a given account. The solution to this problem is to make multiple Craigslist accounts using multiple email addresses.
If you make 3 to 5 Craigslist accounts and rotate to the next account for each post, you will be able to take full advantage of the best time to post on Craigslist.
Best Time To Sell A Car On Craigslist
When it comes to the best time to post a car for sale on Craigslist, the same thing applies to posting other for sale ads on craigslist. It’s the big three, 4AM, 11AM, and 4PM. In addition to that, when it comes to posting cars for sale on Craigslist, it’s good to put a heavy focus on the weekends.
While this applies to selling any product on Craigslist, it’s particularly important when posting cars for sale. Rember, if customers see your posts often enough, it eventually adds legitimacy to them. It also makes it easier for a potential customer to remember your post if they have seen it multiple times.
When To Post Garage Sale Ads
It’s almost useless to post a garage sale ad during the week. The weekend, however, is prime for garage sales on Craigslist. It also makes sense to post on Friday as an announcement to the weekend yard sale. The best time to post a garage sale on Craigslist is early in the morning on Saturday.
Best Time To Post Jobs On Craigslist
Job ads cost the most to post. In fact, when Craiglist first started, job ads were the only posts that cost money on Craigslist. The best time to post a job on Craigslist is between 8AM and 10AM on weekdays.
Posting jobs on Craigslist during the weekend is totally ineffective, but you will get far better results if you post job listings on weekdays, as that is when most people are looking for jobs.
Guess And Check
It takes time, patience, trial, and plenty of error before you can really get the hang of the best time to post on Craigslist. The truth of the matter is that Craigslist is a nationwide website. So, what works in one area for a given product won’t necessarily work in another.
With this in mind, it’s good to do some experiments to see what works and what doesn’t. It may take some time, but most posts don’t cost anything, so it won’t cost you any money to find out.
Conclusion
Even in 2022, with all of the new apps and services available, Craigslist is still one of the most popular websites to buy or sell local products and services. Knowing when to post on Craigslist is critical, as it can help make your ad more effective.
As long as you use best practices when posting on Craigslist and post your ad at the best times, your ads are going to do well.
When it comes to posting a service ad, the best to post on Craigslist is early in the morning every day. If you are posting a product or vehicle for sale, however, you need to not only post in the morning, but also after lunch and right after the end of the work day. As far as garage sales go, the best time to post on Craigslist is in the morning on Saturday and Sunday. If you want to get the most out of your job posting on Craigslist, make sure to post it in the morning during the work week, and remember to add variations to your posts and use multiple email accounts to avoid Craiglist’s posting limits.
We hope this article helped you find out the best time to post on Craigslist. Thank you for reading!