The first shop that got us started in this venture is none other than Rocket Frog Divers in Costa Rica. The site of where I did my divemaster internship program, Rocket Frog Divers had a website which was not giving off the right image. It was a shop that was far more advanced than any others in the area. After speaking with the owner, who indicated he was getting next to no business off of his website, we hatched up a plan. I would start a second website (http://www.scuba-dive-costa-rica.com) and develop it advertising his dive shop. He was a bit skeptical about the benefit to this for his shop so we worked out a deal where he paid nothing upfront and would simply pay a commission based upon the booking it received. I developed the page and installed analytics on both the new and old site to monitor traffic and conversions. I went to work building the new website, ranking the website, and building links from other sites to this new website. His original website (rocketfrogdivers.com) remained active for a very short period of time after our launch of the new site, as it became evident that not only was this new website getting a lot more traffic, it was also converting the traffic that it did get into customers a lot better. Following the success of the new site which was created, he decided he would like to forward his old domain to the new domain in order to take advantage of the conversions that were taking place.
The bottom line? In the first year of the site being live, there were around 400 dive group registration forms filled out. Each with usually atleast 2 or more divers. An email list of 600 scuba divers created (and growing every day), facebook group growth from just over 1000 to over 2500 (and growing every day), and a business that is now on path to successes he never thought possible.
We have developed a working relationship based upon trust and common interest in his dive shop succeeding that makes me very confident to say that this website and arrangement will continue for years to come and make both of us very happy with the deal we struck.
