Craigslist; a listing site you might call “an oldie but a goodie.” Craigslist hasn’t changed much since its founding in the mid-1990s, with a barebones, HTML layout that looked dated almost as soon as it was launched. However, Craigslist remains one of the best sites to post available jobs, objects for sale, and of course, open rental listings, with millions of users logging on each month.
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The Challenge of Posting with Craigslist HTML
The thing that users love the most about Craigslist is also what makes it the most challenging for landlords. People come to Craigslist to search because they appreciate its simple interface and authentic feel. Listings are clear and upfront, without the fluff you’ll find on other job or apartment search sites. However, because the aesthetic of Craigslist remains bland and text-heavy, with only basic text and a handful of HTML tags allowed, it can be difficult for posters to make their listings stand out from the rest.
This is where Craigslist icons and Craigslist emojis come into play. Take a look at our guide first for a more in-depth look at how exactly to create your account and listing if you’re new to Craigslist.
How to Make Your Listing More Exciting with Craigslist Symbols
Adding Craigslist symbols to your listing is actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it. You can, of course, use basic text symbols within your headline such as dollar signs ($) and asterisks (*). However, in order to make your headline really stand out from the competition, you’ll want to make use of ASCII symbols.
ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange and is a universal character code used to communicate between computers. ASCII can be used to represent symbols, as well as letters and numbers when communicating online. Some common examples of ASCII symbols are hearts, stars, smiley faces, music notes, or any other Craigslist emojis.
Below are step-by-step instructions for how to add a Craigslist symbol to a new or existing listing.
How to Add Craigslist Symbols in 4 Easy Steps
Jazzing up your listing title with Craigslist icons takes just a few minutes. Here are the exact instructions:
- Find the ASCII-made icon or icon code you want to use. You can do this with a quick Google search, and we’ve provided additional resources below.
- Highlight the icon or code, and either right-click or use a keyboard command (Control – c for Windows, Command – c for Mac) to copy the icon to your computer’s clipboard.
- Open your Craigslist ad and find the “title” text box. Place your cursor where you’d like the icon to go, and paste using a right-click or keyboard command (Control – v for Windows, Command – v for Mac). You can paste the icon multiple times in a row, at the beginning and end, or wherever you think the Craigslist symbol would look best.
- Preview your listing to make sure everything looks how you want it to, then go ahead and hit publish.
There are a few more specific ways you can add symbols as well:
- On Google Chrome, right click on the textbox and select the emoji keyboard (usually the first option)
- On Firefox and Safari, select the “edit” menu from the top bar and click the “emoji and symbols” option at the bottom of the list
- On iPhone, you can simply use the emoji keyboard as it is built into the native keyboard in iOS
It’s as easy as that! If you don’t feel like searching for symbols to use online, we’ve provided a few resources you can make use of below.
Craigslist Symbols Shortcuts and Resources
Here are the Craigslist icons that we’ve found most useful for online rental listings:
★-
U+2600 -
U+2764 -
U+1F4AE 
☜-
♬ -
☎ -
☮ 
✉-
U+1F600;
In addition, here are a few more sites you can look through to find the perfect Craigslist symbol for your listing:
Warning: Do Not Overuse Craigslist Symbols
Though it can be tempting to go all out with your newfound emoji creativity, we would recommend sticking to just one or two Craigslist symbols per listing. Yes, tasteful symbol use is a great way to make bland headlines stand out from the crowd, but they’ve also been much overused by less-than-reputable posters. Adding a few too many exclamation points or crowding out the text with moneybag emojis will make users doubt the validity of your post. In short, too many Craigslist symbols look spammy so think of this in terms of quality over quantity.
We hope you found this brief guide to Craigslist symbols useful and that it will help you attract the perfect tenants to fill your vacancies. As always, TurboTenant also offers expert online marketing along with tenant screening services, so feel free to contact us if you have any questions about finding tenants on Craigslist.
