Please follow this link to the new advertising page.
Dive-Into-The-Net is an exploratory vehicle designed to lead visitors through the diving possibilities of Ontario as thoroughly as possible. A primary consideration in developing this site was to put the customer and business together. Advertising on this site is to be integrated into the presentation of each page, so that it becomes an essential stop for each visitor, rather than an encumbrance to the visitor.
Advertising is not confined to dive shops. Clubs, charter services, training facilities, hotels, restaurants, marinas, equipment suppliers, etc. may post advertisements here. The rates are highly flexible and will depend on the complexity of the page you wish designed. The rates will also vary with the nature of your business.
If you are a geographic business, such as a dive shop, your page is integrated into specific maps, as well as the site indexes. If your business is not site specific, (an example would be a regulator manufacturer) then you can choose an option of sponsoring a page in the site so your home page is more obvious. Dive clubs can be posted both on the maps and on a specific page designed to help divers find support services. If your dive club is affiliated with a school or university and is non-profit contact me and a link to your home page on the university's server will be provided at no charge.
Contact me and we can discuss your needs and I can present a proposal for you, along with a price for development and maintenance of your site. There will be no charge or obligation for the quote, and you will not receive a hard sell. In fact, I've turned some customers away. I will only design a web page for you if I believe your business can honestly use such a service.
I also have a series of brochures available to familiarize yourself with the Internet, and my services. If you are uncomfortable making quick decisions I can arrange to mail or fax you these documents so you can examine them at your leisure.
If you are among several businesses in a local area that may be interested in my service we can arrange a group meeting where I can personally sit down with you. The design and set up fee will have a group discount under these circumstances.
Currently the plans are to expand Dive-Into-The-Net to encompass the rest of Canada. I am compiling a database of maps and dive sites to prepare the site. If I receive enough interest from businesses in any specific province then I will move up the schedule to release the next sites.
The Internet knows no boundaries. If you provide diving services anywhere in the world, the same design used in this site can be expanded to suit your specific needs.
If you wish to learn how to program for the Internet, fine. However, if you wish to save money it won't work. The cost for the software, and hours invested for you to learn how to design your own page would not be worth it. Plus, you would still have to pay an Internet provider to host your page. Hire someone to do a proper job.
You could hire someone to provide you with a simple home page for as little as $100 a year. Plenty of amateur page designers are out there. Typically they throw together a very simple site based on a form. They post it on their own web site. This type of advertising is about as effective as placing a poster on someone's refrigerator. Unless someone actually goes into that persons home no one will notice your home page. The Internet is not television, people have to actively search for the information. Unless they know the name of your business, they won't find it.
Searches by topic have almost become impossible. In April of 1996 the word SCUBA generated 60,000 responses. By January 1997, the same search generated 160,000 searches and the number is growing. It doesn't matter what the topic is, the amount of information is growing so fast that a single business has precious little chance of making their web page ever show up in this mess.
Again, the problem becomes very simple. Unless the person knows what they are looking for, they can't find it. If they know about your business already, chances are they are not new customers. So how do you attract new customers who are completely unaware of your business?
The most common mistake is to try and make the web pages so "cool" that everyone wants to visit it. The site becomes filled with pretty pictures, neat graphics, Java scripts but very little information. However, the internet audience is not a TV audience, they are paying for the connection time and they want results. They don't wish to be trapped at the computer waiting 20 minutes for the impressive graphics to download. For you this type of web page would be costly and very likely attract the kind of web surfer who wants to be entertained by 'cool' pages but is not terribly interested in the business being promoted.
My approach is to consolidate web pages on a single topic into one vast warehouse. Potential customers are after information; information in large, well-presented, useful quantities. When you join one of my sites you will not only have your own business's home page, but a vast support service surrounding it to make your site have a global context. This is not something you could afford individually, but in a group co-operative it becomes very affordable.
That is akin to saying that stores in shopping malls are at a disadvantage because their competitors are across the hall. Shopping centres have killed the downtown cores because of the convenience and variety and numbers they offer. There is a distinct advantage to businesses cooperating for new business rather than competing for existing markets. Your business will stand or fall depending on your service, not on your advertising. What I offer is a way for numerous businesses to harness their advertising dollars together to achieve far more than they could individually. An excellent example of cooperative advertising is the campaigns for milk. No single dairy farmer could possibly afford the cost of the commercials to promote milk sales.
As the pages for each region develop they become progressively more attractive to the potential customer. With each new business that appears on a given page, the customer has more to choose from, and has an easier time planning an excursion to that area, so the potential business for you increases. With individual web pages, the customer base becomes divided among numerous internet sites.
For further information on other services I offer Click here.
You can contact me at
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