Website? Who Needs a Website?

This past Friday, a buddy invited me to take advantage of some open spaces he had on a multi-day charter. Not wanting to waste any of his time pestering him for details about where to go, when to meet, etc., I asked him for the name of the dive charter operator. After he told me, I typed the name and the key word scuba into Google and…

…it was as though this dive operation didn’t exist. I found plenty of dive store websites which spoke glowingly of the fun they had going out with this charter operation — but it wasn’t until I got down to the tenth Google entry that I found their website. I had to wonder how many others have gone looking for this website and not had the patience to find it hidden among the other entries.

The fact is, for a significant number of your potential customers, if you don’t have a website (or your website is not an effective one), you may as well not exist. And, if you’ve never had an effective website, you have no way of knowing how much money you’ve lost because you didn’t have one. (You’ll just wonder why it is your competitors always seem to have better luck than you do.)

Stores that have effective websites report that it is second only to word-of-mouth as a source of new customers. And, even when prospective customers hear about you from friends, their first reaction is frequently to check out your website before investing the time to call you or visit in person.

A good website, however, can do a lot more for dive stores than just attract new customers. For example:

• It can serve as a single repository for everything both customers and staff need to know about you, your store and the products and services you offer.
• Working in concert with your e-mail and direct-mail promotions, it can help you promote everything from continuing education to travel and equipment sales.
• It does a lot to establish your image, compared to other dive stores. If your website looks more amateurish than the other guy’s, the other guy is going to be perceived as the more professional and reliable business — regardless of whether that comparison is fair or not.

What makes a good dive store website is a topic for another (very in-depth) article, but we can sum up a few key points here. The best dive store websites:

• Are easy to find (i.e., easy-to-remember URL, ranks high in Google, etc.).
• Are organized by department (i.e., news, equipment, training, travel, etc.).
• Are clean, well-organized and easy to navigate (i.e., you can find whatever you need in two clicks or less).
• Are attractive and professional looking, but don’t rely on a lot of gimmicks (i.e., no Flash intro pages, JavaScript navigation or bloated graphics).
• Are constantly updated. (Nothing screams “Amateur!” more than still having last year’s training or travel dates on your site.)

If you want to see an example of a website that meets these criteria, visit Underseas.com.

I’ll check my e-mail “Real Soon Now” »

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