Business Marketing and Technology

I’ve been asked this question a few times and finally decided to write a detailed post about it .  There’s a lot of power in controlling the images that go into your Craigslist ad.  This can work a couple different ways:

A)  Your entire ad can be image-based (or a single image) that could look much more appealing than the standard text-based ads that users are used to looking at (stand out!)

B) Your ad can incorporate more than 4 images, and they can be placed ANYWHERE inside the ad – not just at the bottom.  This will be the focus of this article, and is great for (among other things) product listings, like cars, boats, homes, and other items where a small photo or two won’t do it justice.

To go about using images like this, you need to host them (upload them) elsewhere – Craigslist won’t handle it – then create an html image tag that displays that external image on your ad.  I’m going to use photobucket for this example, and I recommend you give them a try if you’re just starting out.

1) Upload your images photobucket.  Create an account if you don’t already have one, and follow the instructions to upload your photos.

2) Size and edit your images. Photobucket has an pretty standard set of editing tools available for free, and automatically resizes your photos from huge to normal. If you’d like to crop them or go even smaller, you can easily do that too.

3) Click ‘share’ on the photos you’ve uploaded and copy the code from the ‘Direct link for layout pages’ box.  It should look something like:

http://i782.photobucket.com/albums/yy107/tonykau/DSCN0506.jpg

4) Go to the new ad you’re writing in Craigslist  and paste that code in the composition box.

5) Using what’s called the “HTML image tag,” we’re going to tell Craigslist to display the image instead of the code we pasted in.  Surround that Direct Link with HTML code exactly like the following (copy/paste if you need to):

<img src="http://i782.photobucket.com/albums/yy107/tonykau/DSCN0506.jpg" />

6) Repeat for all the images you’d like to place in the ad – each image gets its own set of tags to wrap the Direct Link.  When you’re done, click preview (on Craigslist).  You should see the post with the full-size images in the body of your ad.

Good luck, and happy posting!

PS. As an added tip, upload at least 1 photo the ‘old’ way so that your ad shows up when users filter their search with ‘Img Only.’

Related posts:

1. The Ultimate Craigslist Posting Strategy
2. 5 Essential Tips for Creating Effective Craigslist Ads
3. How to Optimize your Craigslist Titles