Hi everyone
I am new to here. I like this forum so far. I have an auction online. people list and sale for free. I am not sure how to market the site. I donot have a huge budget for ads too. Any though can be helpful.

Hi there,
the first place to start would be promoting through forums. You should put your URL in your signature on this and other forums. That will help with getting backlinks to your site and a better page rank.

You should also work on getting a good rank in search engines by adding quality content to your site, and trying to get other sites to link to yours, or to conduct link exchanges.

If you have a budget, then you can start thinking about pay per click ads and paid advertising on related websites.

good luck.

I don't mean to deflate you, but frankly I wouldn't start an online auction generally. The only way you can possibly compete with the likes of Ebay is if you get into a niche that is either being under served, or not served at all, by Ebay. For example, when Ebay banned guns, it created an opportunity for others to create a marketplace. Craigslist isn't an auction,but is another example of a service growing in niches that are under served by Ebay.

I agree with Peter. Only way you could ever possibly compete with Ebay is to offer everything free of charge

Thx for your visit and reply. You are all talking about the fact. Now, it maybe not the right time to operating a brand new auction site now. But, my site already there from 2002. I will keep working on it. However, good marketing is what the site require now. Any thogu would be thankful.
My site is down for transfer to a new server. it will be up soon. i will post my url here when it done.

hi everyone,
Just finish moving our site to new server. I would like to invite everyone to take a look.

Any though.

I am thinking post my ads on local news paper and local university news paper. in the market place or category. Did anyone use this to ads their online business? does this ways is good?

It would be very difficult to make this business a profitable enterprise. It's impossible to compete with the likes of Ebay. However, one way to make it work would be to become a highly specialized auction service. Focus on specific collectibles, art, or the like. In which case I would find marketing sources that focus on your specialty.

I agree, you can't compete with Ebay but you can certainly use them. Promote a local service that will inventory items and then create auctions for them on Ebay. You can then setup your own site that would provide Ebay affiliate links to your customers and other listigs in the area.