• Photos
  As in many industries online, pictures sell. A clean, frequently updated photo gallery of all the gamefish in your backyard is the surest way to make anglers salivate. Don’t forget to bring the camera on outings, you don’t want to miss that monster that your client just dragged in – and make sure to get their ear to ear grin in the shot too.
• Testimonials
  Clients in all businesses love to hear first hand how great their experience was working with you. Include lots of them. Getting testimonials is as easy as asking them to jot one down on a notecard on the ride back to the marina, or while you are fileting their catch.
• Fishing Reports
  This is where you get to prove that you are the expert. It can be done weekly or monthly, but beware, a fishing report section that hasn’t been updated since 2006 is a sure turn off.
• Blog
  Blogs can be a variation of the fishing reports above, but they can also be so much more. Blogging is an informal style of writing, which helps build trust and credibility. Also, search engines love blogs!
• Seasonal Activity by Species
  Do tarpon run in the Islamorada channels in April? When’s the best time for black grouper in Cabo? These are essential questions you should answer for your potential customers, and they will thank you with their wallets.
• Boat and Tackle Information
  Include a photo or two, as well as a description of your vessel(s). Mention things like whether or not a head is on board, length, shallow draft, and any other creature comforts available. Also, specify what kind of tackle and rigging is on board, and whether everything is provided for clients.
• Rates
  Whole day, half day, multi-day packages available? Be sure to mention whether or not fuel surcharges are included or extra. Oh, and don’t forget to mention that gratuity is appreciated!
• Online Booking
  This can be a simple or complex as you like. Whether it is a simple form sending the request via email, or an integrated solution with availability calendar and a secure credit card gateway – the idea is the same: Entice potential clients to some level of commitment as early and as often as you can.
• Weather
  Again, this can be as easy as placing a weather widget on your site or blog, or even embedding the surface temp. and small craft warnings. What is important, is that you’re clients will know what to expect. Tell them about the predictability of Florida afternoon thunderstorms, or the unpredictability of mountain weather systems.
• What to bring?
  Can we bring beer? Do I need my own cooler? Beyond beverages, remind clients of the value of sunscreen, bug repellant, and rain gear if applicable. Remember those before mentioned testimonials?
• Regulations/Seasons
  Is snook season open in May? A list of what gamefish are in season can be done by species or month, but a good idea would be to include what is in season and what’s hot at the top of the page.
• Video
  Cheap point and shoot cameras now offer fairly decent video quality. Combine this with services like Youtube, and you’ve got a tool for delivering excitment and a personal touch through the world wide web. Who doesn’t want to see a chick in a bikini land a 400 lb. marlin?
• Excursion Types
  Make sure to let clients know if you specialize in reef outings, backcountry, deep sea, or on the fly excursions.
• Contact
  Sounds obvious, but make sure that they can find your phone number or send you an email easily.
• Awards/Tournament Experience
  You’re not bragging, you’re applying for a job. If you’ve gone up against the best, and come out on top, make sure to showcase it.
• Captain Bio
  This gives a personal touch. The more you list, the better chance that some tidbit will form a personal connection, such as a common birthplace or favorite sports team.
• Lodging and Directions
  First, make sure they know how to get to the marina. Also, links and numbers for local hotels and lodging that are convenient to your dock. A personal touch could include price ranges and even reviews!

Other useful features:

• Travel info including airports, car rental, etc.
• Local restaurants
• “Things to do” – activities for days off the water

We’ll be adding tips and tricks to the fan page that help fishing guides & charters get the most business out of the web, including of course – Facebook.

Come join up if you haven’t already!

• Search Engine Optimization
• Custom NOAA weather report feed
• What’s Biting Calendar
• Content Management system including Fishing Reports Blog
• All the usual goodies for our fishing sites

Here are some screen shots from the new site:

Screenshot:

First, why SEO over other marketing such as PPC?

Pay-per-click advertising is all very well, but it means you have to pay for every visitor. SEO is about getting free traffic from the search engines. Over the course of two years or more, nothing has a better return on investment than SEO. Thus, if you plan on having a website that runs for more than two years, search engine optimization should be a key part of your online marketing strategy.

So what is the worst SEO mistake that a company can make?

The most common mistake that organizations make with regard to SEO is bringing their SEO consultants into the process too late. Many companies fail to give SEO its due consideration during a website’s design phase.

So there you have it, from one of the godfathers of search engine marketing.

Brandt goes on to list several key aspects to a successful SEO campaign that need attention during the design process, or what we like to call “On Page SEO.” Some crucial SEO techniques your design might forget are:

• Search Engine Friendly URLS
  www.abc.com/your-keyword.html vs. www.abc.com/page1.html
• Text Based Navigation Links
• Use of CSS instead of Javascript or Flash

For more in depth info. on the why a SEO consultant should be contacted during a website’s design phase, check out the whole article or give us a call for an informative chat.

But as primarily a SEO firm, we’ve been steering clients away from flash based websites for years due to the fact that Google, Yahoo!, and MSN couldn’t index their content. By content, I mean written text, images, and of course links among other website elements.

It appears the Game is Changing Once Again

Google announced that it has made vast improvements in crawling and indexing flash based content from menus to entire sites:

“In the past, web designers faced challenges if they chose to develop a site in Flash because the content they included was not indexable by search engines. They needed to make extra effort to ensure that their content was also presented in another way that search engines could find.”

- From the Official Google Blog

At present, Google is only able to index textual content in flash designs, but this is a vast improvement. More information on Google’s new functionality can be found at Google’s Webmaster Central.

Great, now I can have a beautiful flash based and rank it well too, right?

Not so fast. Hopefully this dream is not too distant in the future, but at present little is known about how effective conventional SEO strategies mesh with the new update to Google’s algorithm. Besides, without Yahoo! and MSN Live making similar announcements, website owners could be losing out as much as 30-40% of their search traffic.

We have just launched our new fishing report syndication service, which allows fishing guides and charter services to get their fishing report posted to twelve fishing report websites by simply sending an email. Find out how it works, builds traffic, and helps establish great search engine rankings by visiting our fishing report syndication section.

1. Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads
   Google Adsense is the grandaddy, but Yahoo and Microsoft offer PPC programs as well. Pay Per Click advertising works by displaying contextually relevant ads on your site, and allowing advertisers to bid on keywords. Once a visitor clicks on an ad on your website or blog, you get a percentage of the earnings.
2. Direct Placement
   A simple advertise here link or button where the ad will be placed can do the job.  This can be easy as an agreed dollar amount per month, or more complex such as setting up an ad-server to track impressions and click-throughs.
3. Sponsored Posts or Reviews
   Yes, you can paid to review products and services on your website or blog. Disclosure and ethics are a topic for another day, but if you’re interested check out: PayPerPost and SponsoredReviews
4. Text Link Ads
   Surprisingly, text link ads can be a big money maker due to their value in search engine optimization. And it’s really simple to do, just insert a link into an article, page, or and get a monthly fee.  See TextLinkAds and LinkWorth
5. Sell Products
   You can now sell products through your website that you never have to see, touch, or ship.  You don’t even have to handle credit cards.  Popular setups include selling some of Amazon.com’s millions of products through an Astore (do a search on fishing lures, there are tons of them), or selling everything from hunting or fishing related T-shirts, coffee cups, and mouse pads from CafePress.com
6. Affiliate Programs
   Affiliate programs work by you placing affiliate links or ads on your site.  If a visitor clicks on the ad and ends up buying something, you get a commission on the sale.  There are many, many general affiliate programs out there, but here are some Outdoor Industry related programs:
   - BassPro Shops
   - Cabelas
   - Associate Programs (Outdoors)
   - LandBigFish.com
7. Donations
   Doing good work, or have something really worth reading?  Simply create a paypal donations button.  Remember – if you don’t ask, you don’t get.
8. Newsletters
   Got a newsletter with a good circulation?  Add a sidebar or banner advertising for fishing or hunting related products.  Get advertisers by sticking an “advertise here” link on your sign up page or in the newsletter itself.

How much $$$?

Traffic amounts and the competitiveness of your site’s niche will largely dictate whether you’re making beer money or enough for a new boat.  But remember, there’s nothing wrong with beer money…

While diagnosing and fixing problems may or may not be easy, discovering a problem is very easy.

Enter BrowserShots.org to the rescue. BrowserShots allows you to check your web site’s appearance on literally dozens of browser and operating systems for free. You can then either view or download JPG images of how your site lays out in all of them. It usually takes 15-30 minutes to load them, but you can go do something else while it loads.

An example of AmericanVagabondPhotography.com in the Netscape Navigator browser on a Ubuntu Linux operating system. It’s not important that I don’t know what either of those are, what’s important is the site looks clean in whatever they are….

First, because many of these sites come up in major search engines for a variety of phrases, which can lead potential clients to your website. Second, it can help build your search engine rankings by giving you high quality, relevant inbound links to your charter or guide website. Most are free, and some require you to link back to their site from yours (reciprocal linking), but all offer web links as well as contact info pointed towards your business.