Hello everyone,

Today is our second “How To” on creating your own classifieds website with Yclas. The ultimate way of realizing an online marketplace without having any technical knowledge. Last time we showed you how easy it is to sign up for Yclas and create the basics of your page. In this post, we will demonstrate how to change your theme, create categories and post your first advertisement.

If you missed our first blog post, check it here. So let us start with the continuation of our classifieds website.

2026 Update: The Same Three Steps in Today's Yclas Panel

This walkthrough was first published in 2022, and the admin panel has been redesigned since then. The three steps are the same, but some names and menus have changed. Use this map while you follow the screenshots below:

The Categories page also has a few tools the original post doesn't cover:

• Import from a spreadsheet: upload a CSV of categories instead of typing them. An example file is linked on the page. Listings and users can also be imported from CSV, under Tools.
• Hide from the home page: hidden categories still work but don't show on the home page. This keeps the home page tidy when you have many categories.
• Icons and subcategories: categories can be nested into subcategories, and each can have its own icon, which Nova shows as tiles on the home page.
• Locations and custom fields (Listings > Locations and Listings > Custom Fields): add countries, regions and towns, and fields such as frame size or condition, before your first listings go live.

Plan categories before you create them

Each category gets its own page and a readable web address made from its name. Google's SEO Starter Guide (updated 10 December 2025) recommends grouping related pages and using words in URLs that are useful to people, because parts of the URL can appear as breadcrumbs in search results. In practice:

• Name categories the way buyers search ("Road bikes", not "Category 2"). The address is made from the name when you create the category, and changing it later breaks links that point to the old address.
• Start with a few top-level categories, each with real listings, rather than dozens of empty pages. A visitor who opens an empty category usually leaves.
• Add subcategories only when a parent category gets crowded.

If you are starting from scratch, Yclas has a 15-day free trial. After the trial, the Starter plan is $69/month, with a current offer of $19/month for the first 6 months on new sites. See pricing.

Step 1 - Change Theme

First, we want to change the theme of our classifieds website. In our panel screen, we go to “Appearance” and then to “Themes”.

Here we can see that we currently have the Ocean Free theme selected.  

We want to change the theme to “Responsive”. Using this theme we have a completely responsive web design, which will adapt the layout and looks based on the device of the user. So on the computer, tablet, and phone, you will have an optimal display. Also check our post about trends in classified websites, which explains more about responsive websites.

Activate the “Responsive” theme by clicking on the blue “Activate” button.

We will then see the following message, saying that our chosen theme has been configured successfully.

Let's have a look at what our website now looks like. Click on the “Go to Your Website” link on the right top side of the screen. Then we will go to our site and see it with the newly installed theme.

The theme has indeed been installed successfully, but the page is still very empty, as we don’t have any categories or advertisements.

Step 2 - Add categories

Let's create a few categories to which we can later add our advertisements. We go back to our panel and click on “Classifieds” and then “Categories” in the menu on the left. We will see the following page.

On the right side, we find the “quick category creator”. In the input field, we can enter several category names and create them all at once by clicking on the blue “ Send” button.

Let's fill out several categories. After each name, we only have to press “enter” to confirm. When we have all the categories that we want to add, we click the “Send” button.

After having clicked the “Send” button we will find our categories displayed on the left side. However, we want to create two main categories and add subcategories to these. The main categories are “Bicycles” and “Furniture”. To create a subcategory, we simply select one of the categories and drag it under the main category. Check this little video to see how it works: VIDEO

Once we have ordered all the categories it will look like this.

Click on the “Go to My Website” link on the top left, to see the result. On our homepage, we will now see the categories that we just created!

Step 3 - Post Your First Advertisement

Now we have the first categories we want to add an advertisement. We are going to create one for a bicycle.

Click on “Complete bicycles” and you will go to the page for complete bicycles. As you can see the page is still empty. Let's make our first ad by clicking on “Publish new advertisement”.

We will see the following page where we can fill out the details of your advertisement.

After having filled out the form and selected a picture we press the blue “Publish new” button on the bottom of the page. 

we will see the message that our advertisement has been published successfully.

We click on the top menu on “Bicycles” and then “Complete bicycles”. We will see the page below with your just-created advertisement!

We now already have a working classifieds website! We can add more advertisements and start selling today!

Next time another “How To” explains other possibilities of Yclas, showing the endless possibilities that our software has.