Turnkey Classifieds Solution
If you’re looking to start a classified ads site you’re likely to be interested in using a turnkey classifieds solution to power your web business or as a PHP platform for adding custom functionality because developing a custom script from scratch will take a lot of time and money; in addition, you’ll have to fix a bunch of bugs and glitches, which are common for websites built from scratch. That is why people who don’t want to spend a lot of time and money and lack web experience prefer turnkey solutions for their sites.
Before choosing a turnkey solution for your classifieds business, you need to have a clear understanding of what a turnkey solution means. In this post, we would like to go over some of the fundamental aspects of a turnkey classifieds solution.
In our understanding, a turnkey classifieds solution is ready-to-use classified ads software that allows you to launch a fully functioning site with minimum efforts in a matter of a few hours. It possesses a full range of features, modules and options needed for a ready-to-use site. A full-fledged turnkey classifieds solution must have the following options:
Installation
Simple and user-friendly Installation Wizard helps you get your software up and running both on your local or global server. The installation takes you through a number of steps, during which, the server configuration will be checked, basic data of the site owner will be entered, default settings selected, database imported and configuration files generated. The entire process takes no longer than 10 minutes.
Features
Turnkey classifieds software must be packed with features giving you the ability to easily build your site the way you want it by managing numerous settings right from admin panel of your site. Profusion of features along with themes also implies easy and flexible configuration that allows you to create close clones of such famous classifieds giants as Craiglist, Zillow, Gumtree etc.
Plugins
Let’s be honest and admit that a turnkey solution can never 100% meet all of your expectations. There will always be a feature or a couple missing. A good turnkey solution offers well-developed add-ons that can boost your site functionality. Even if you have some specific features and functions, which are not common for most classifieds concepts, a turkey solution must offer customization services performed by the people who had developed the script. Being able to reach out to developers who know all the ins and outs about the script and having them customize your site and tailor it to your preferences is an essential aspect of a turnkey solution.
HTML5 and CSS3 Compliance
A turnkey classifieds solution must comply with the latest HTML5 and CSS3 standards and come with mobile ready templates allowing your users to view the site with all mobile devices and from all platforms. Aside from HTML5 and CSS3 compliance, the latest trends in design increasingly rely on Sass as it greatly enhances the template structure. There is a number of benefits speaking in favor of using Sass in templates, which we will not dwell on in this post. What we want to stress again though is that using Sass Preprocessor and styles is the latest trend in design and a good turnkey solution needs to comply with it.
SEO/SMO
Turnkey classifieds solution must equip you with extensive SEO tools like generating meta descriptions, keywords and listing titles with field values, a sitemap module for indexing links by Google and Yahoo and many others. Presence in social networks is also a must nowadays so you could generate more publicity in social networks and attract more users to your site.
Multilingual
A turnkey classifieds script implies that users speaking other popular languages will be able to access and feel comfortable on your site. A good script comes with most popular languages spoken in different parts of the globe, furthermore, you need to have the ability translate the site into any language right from admin panel in a user friendly Language Manager. The last but certainly not the least, a turnkey solution should also cater to RTL language users and offer them native RTL environment when all of the web elements are mirrored from right to left both in the web and a mobile version of a site.
Security
Web security is one of the fundamental aspects of a turnkey classifieds solution and it can never be overrated. A turnkey classifieds solution is literally supposed to be a fortress that can never be seized with all the security measures in place, among them are: sql injection prevention, user session protection, directories, data encryption, brute force protection, writable directories access control, uploaded file validation. You don’t need to know what those web terms mean, but one thing you can be sure of is that your data and users are safe with our classified ads software.
Mobile Apps
If you want to elevate users’ experience, you can offer them native mobile apps for Android and iOS environments. Furthermore, mobile apps are no longer considered as a way of keeping users connected to your site until they get around their PC. According to credible sources, users are increasingly relying on the mobile phones even when they are close to desktop computers. With this in mind, a turnkey classifieds solution needs to offer your users convenient ways of browsing your site through the apps.
Regular Updates
When choosing a turnkey classifieds solution you need to be sure that the script is updated and upgraded regularly to meet needs and challenges of ever-changing web environment and works flawlessly in newest systems and platforms. We all know that there is always room for perfection and our turnkey classifieds software is striving to make a step closer to it with every new update.
Prompt Support
Support may be essential in early stages, especially when you are starting to configure and set up your site. It is essential that you get support from the in-house team, which develops the script and knows all of its ins and outs. The in-house support team helps you configure your site and bring it in line with your and your users’ expectations. When time is of the essence and users are generating income on your site, you need to be sure that all urgent issues relating to your site maintenance are dealt with in a timely fashion by the support team that is always available. Conversely, if you purchase a script and the company that is selling it to you offers no support, that means you’ll have to look for third-party developers, who may be reluctant to work with the script that they’re not familiar with.
Concluding Thoughts
We have covered what we believe are the fundamental aspects of a turnkey classifieds solution although we admit that you may have your own ideas regarding what a true turnkey solution means for you. Nevertheless, we hope that we are more or less on the same page and share similar views.
We believe that we have the right to call our software a solid and reliable turnkey classifieds software, which possesses all of the above characteristics. Again, what we are saying is not just another bold statement or a marketing trick to attract new customers; we genuinely believe that we offer you a working turnkey solution because it has stood the test of time and helped at least hundreds of customers to launch their classifieds sites.
Since the day we rolled out our software to the market, which was far back in 2007, and up until now we have been polishing and honing it, trying to achieve perfection with each update. What is most important for us though is for our customers to use our script and say that ‘it is a turnkey solution’, which allowed me to start from scratch and achieve success, and we hope that you will be one of those customers.