In the eyes of advertisers and businessmen, the classified ads site is for selling stuff, for posting ads about for-rent items, and for advertising various services. (The Dabawenyo Business Directory, in contrast, is for long-term business listings of companies and individuals engaged in business.)

And for buyers, or for people looking to hire professionals or rent things, the Dabawenyo Classifieds site aims to be the best classified ads service on the Web. Running on WordPress 3.0 with multi-site capability, Dabawenyo.biz members need to sign up only once and they will be able to use both the Directory and the Classifieds sites. (Not yet a member? Sign up for a free account now.)

Just like its partner site, Dabawenyo Classifieds is limited to the Davao Region, accepting only Davao-based ad listings. This makes it a more focused service, and thus (hopefully!) a more useful buy-sell-rent tool for Davaoeños.

For an overview of how to use the site, please read our User’s Guide. If you have questions or concerns, or if you find a bug, do let us know and we’ll respond to you ASAP.

Please help spread the word! You can tweet this post (via the Twitter button below), and you can “like” the Dabawenyo.biz page on Facebook.

• Submission of Listings by members (Dabawenyo.biz registered users) — for free!
• Listing page for each submission, with the following info:
  • Contact details
  • Operating hours
  • Pictures (maximum of 4 per listing)
  • Description
  • Location map via Google Maps®
  • Contact form for each listing (the listing owner directly receives messages sent by readers via this form)
  • ‘Posted by’ tab showing some info about the listing owner
  • Tagging (for SEO value)
  • Online bookmarking feature
  • Page views counter
  • Feedback system via WordPress comments
  • Rating by stars (get your friends to give your page some stars!)
• SSL encryption for listing submission
• Twitter live feed displaying tweets with the “davao” keyword (sidebar, front page)
• … and more to come soon!

If you’ve got an idea for some more features for Dabawenyo.biz, it’s more than welcome. We could sure use some feedback from you!

This online resource is open to all businesses in Davao City, Digos, the Island Garden City of Samal, Panabo, Tagum… all cities & towns in the four provinces that make up Region 11: Davao (a.k.a. Davao del Norte), Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley. (Davao City, by the way, is the de facto capital of the Region, but is not part of any province.)

The Business Directory is for companies — even individuals who are engaged in business as freelancers or consultants — to get their businesses listed, and thereby promoted online. You can post all the information you want to advertise your company online, including pictures and logos.

There is no charge for posting to the business directory, and you will be able to manage your listings via your own dashboard. All you need to do now is to register for a free account and you’re good to go.

Since this is a brand-new site, there are sure to be some areas that will need improvement. For example, you might want to see a new sub-category under For Sale, or you might want your city to be included in the drop-down list. Whatever it is, please feel free to drop a line if you have any suggestion in mind. It will be much appreciated!

The purpose of Dabawenyo.biz is simple: to promote commerce in the Davao Region via the Internet. Please subscribe to the site’s RSS feed and use the social bookmarking links below to help spread the word. Thank you!