How to quickly build a classified ads portal?

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Creating a successful classified ads portal does not have to be a difficult and complicated task.

If you plan to launch a website that is supposed to present ads, it is worth using a ready-made solution as a template for Joomla. In this article, we will describe how to quickly and efficiently set up an advertising website using a template, and what kind of opportunities it gives.

Earn money on the website

Creating a website of this type is first of all an opportunity to generate a traffic on the website and the basis for earning money.

Presenting adverts and the ability to generate profits are two important elements guaranteed by DJ-Classifieds component.

This Joomla extension allows you to build comprehensive ad pages in an efficient and effective way. All templates from the "advertising portal" category are based on this component. It allows you to create a web page without advanced programming knowledge.

This solution gives you a full control over ads settings, no matter of what kind portal you want to build. This may be a similarity page to OLX or Ebay, a portal with job offers, car sales, local classifieds or real estate ads.

This is not all, it is worth paying attention to highly specialized portals or niche industries, which also offer considerable opportunities and a big chance of success.

Below we present two examples of web pages based on the DJ-Classifieds component. These are custom-made projects for our clients, they come from our portfolio:

• Rzeźnik.com - an industry portal with job offers for butchers.
• Citysale - a portal with lassified ads purposed for the Irish market.

Additional functions for the classifieds portal

It is worth adding that we can enrich the DJ-Classifieds extensions with selected commercial applications. At the moment, these apps are available:

• Subscription Plans - application allows you to create unlimited subscription plans for users.
• Search Alerts - the application allows you to get more users and return them anytime when they are are looking for something - they can manage and add saved searches in several places.
• AJAX App - the application allows you to filter ads without having to reloading the web page.
• Multi Categories App - an application that allows the user to add an adst to an unlimited number of additional categories at the same time.
• Bad Words - the app is great for filtering ads with selected words and automatically stop publishing them.
• Attachments App - the application allows users to add an attachment to any ads.
• Alta User Points App - the application introduces points for the user that can be granted for performing specific activities on the website.
• Ghost Ads App - allows you to keep ads on the site even if they are deleted by the user.
• Internal Messaging - let your users communicate without using emails.
• Coupons App - gives you the opportunity to create discount coupons for DJ-Classifieds.
• Invoices App - helps you integrate JoomlaThat Invoice Manager (JoomlaThat Invoice Manager) with the DJ-Classifieds.
• Offers - gives users possibility of offering their own prices for an item.

Template installation

Along with the purchased template, customers receive a copy of the demo version. If you want to get an exact 1:1 copy of the demo site (recommended), just use the included quickstart package. In this way, you’ll avoid configuring everything from scratch.

We encourage you to watch a video showing step by step the installation and explaining what to do. More information can be found in the installation section, which you can find here.

Various template versions

In many cases, there is more than one version of the demo page for a given template. Purchasing a template guarantees that you will get all available existing versions. For example, the JM Car Classifieds template offers an example for car classifieds websites with search module in header.

In case you want to configure the website yourself or you need to change the graphic design or layout, the package with the template for installation is included.

It contains folders with quickstart.zip, installation package of free extensions (modules, components, plugins), graphic design template (.PSD) and two installation files for the template.

Making changes

Making changes is easier than you expect because our templates are based on the EF4 functional framework, which is a powerful tool with a lot of useful settings to personalize the look of the web page.

Our Joomla templates for the advertising portal have a sufficient number of options, allowing you to modify the page according to your needs (eg. Color change, arrangement of modules or page layout). This is possible thanks to the EF4 framework, which includes such useful tools as Layout Builder or theme customizer.

Layout builder gives you the ability to customize the template layout for computers and mobile devices, and a Theme customizer makes it much easier to modify the template - you just need to select parameters from the list!

Website content

Installing the Quickstart package is a great starting point because you get a fully functional website and a work environment.

When it’s already done, the next step is to fill the page with content. In this matter, it is required to make changes, personalize the elements of the site depending to the type of our activity.

If you will find it problematic it’s recommended to contact us. In addition to containing a basic information, it's a good idea to fill the blog section with articles related to a given industry or issues related to the nature of our site, which greatly affects the position in the search engine results.

Using templates for Joomla, the issue of content filling is a quick and easy process to complete.

The manual guide is also included, and it contains information about the most important template functionalities and a collection of links directing to useful articles or extensions documentation.

Joomla extensions

Most of the extensions included in the templates are DJ-Extensions products, and the purchase of a template causes a free of charge for subscription to the components or modules used in it.

What's more, included extensions are fully configured with the given template. After Receiving a template designed for a specific purpose, such as the Advertising Portal, you no longer need to install any additional plugins or components, because those included in the package give you a lot of options.

Sometimes, it is required to expand the functionality of the website. If you decide to expend the site with new features, here are some extensions that we strongly recommend:

• Mega Menu - a multicolumn menu, with modules.
• Media Tools - a professional gallery that can be used for many purposes, as a slider, main gallery, photo gallery in the article - you can even insert and create galleries straight from the article.
• Suggester - a tool (commercial and free version available) that displays suggested content based on algorithm data
• Easy embed - allows you to insert videos in the article using only the url address leading to the YouTube video.

Time for your turn!

As you can see, creating a modern and professional classified ads is not complicated task. There is nothing to wait for. Now it’s the best time to start.

Discounts

For those interested in purchasing our templates, we have some interesting special offers. Every week we present three random templates, with a 30% discount.

Besides that, we offer another discount "Buy two, third you get for free" - buying two templates in our store, means that the third one is completely free!

We encourage you to add your email address to the newsletter or register on our website.

In the weekly newsletter (subscription), we include different discount coupons.

We also provide information about new templates and promotions in our store.

Good luck!

We offer a number of services, such as website installation, implementation of additional solutions, template color modifications, configuration of the contact form, preparation of the website structure and many others.

We have many years of experience in the website development, so we can also handle your website!

If you have any questions, please contact us.