A TV site in the nation’s 35th largest market has a secret, and it will astonish you. Every month, Salt Lake’s KSL.com serves up 130 million… yes MILLION… page views from 1.4 million unique users. From a page view perspective, that puts KSL.com squarely at the top of the heap of local TV sites in the country. So how is this possible? KSL.com launched free classifieds using an off-the-shelf product in 2000, well before Craigslist gained a foothold. In 2006, they upgraded to their own technology — a clean, quick and user-friendly classifieds platform. Today, 75% of those 130 million page views are generated by free classifieds, and KSL.com ranks #8 in Nielsen-Netratings’ list of top news sites ranked by “sessions per person.” Just about everyone in Salt Lake goes to KSL.com to buy or sell just about anything.
Stephan Bergen, KSL.com’s director of online content, answered a few of our questions via email, which follow below…
Lost Remote: What makes your classifieds so successful?
Bergen: I believe most of our success come from getting into the game early. My predecessors fought hard to keep the free model, bucking the trend to charge for everything. At the time, we were one of very few sites that offered completely free classified listings. Our initial success came mostly by word of mouth, with limited on-air promotion. It literally became viral after a couple of years, as people had continual success with their ads. Now, you can walking into any gathering of people in our region, ask them if they have used ksl.com classifieds, and you will get close to a majority of them that have. We have also been successful because we control the product, not a third party. That enables us to adjust and tweak for market specific needs.
Lost Remote: How much does timing and the uniqueness of the market play into this? In most markets, Craigslist has an iron grip.
Bergen: Timing was everything. We had leadership that had vision enough to see the potential — although nobody could have ever predicted HOW successful it would become. It also took years to build the mass. This was not an overnight success. Ultimately, we were fortunate to get a foothold in the market before it became saturated with other “me toosâ€.
Lost Remote: Are all the classifieds free? Do you intend to charge for bigger-ticket items at some point?
Bergen: Yes. We are always evaluating different options in term of monetizing the product, but we have no plans to charge for basic listings (a basic listing includes all the text and photos). Much of our strategy is based on “the race to the bottomâ€. We feel that charging for listings would jeopardize that.
Lost Remote: So what’s next?
Bergen: As with any software related product, we are constantly tweaking and revising our core classified product — there are always new features and bugs to be worked on. As mentioned, we are also working on addition ways to monetize the classifieds, and we should have some of those options launched in the near future. Also, we are working on several projects in conjunction with our corporate New Media department. I can’t really say much in regards to specifics, but I will say that they are heavily community focused. I will be able to tell you more in the near future.