A New Tool in Your SCUBA Marketing Toolbox

This is the conclusion of the Changes series.

When I first launched New SCUBA Marketing, I was working a job I didn’t really enjoy and wanted to return to the diving industry. The site was a success and I landed a full time career within a few short months.

At that point, my desire to help the entire industry had to be reigned in so as to maintain a competitive advantage at work.

Two years later, I still love my job and the daily challenges it presents, but I’m also troubled by stories I see across the internet of dive industry professionals, manufacturers and dive centers still struggling.

I felt compelled to find a way to help the industry while keeping a career I love.

I realized the best way for me to do this would be to stop helping people.

The Future of New SCUBA Marketing

As mentioned earlier in the Changes series, I will post tips, techniques, tools and news that can help anyone in the dive industry to market themselves. However, just because someone gives me a hammer and nails doesn’t mean I can build a house. With that concept in mind, I’ll be able to share great information without giving everything away.

Since Saturday is my day off each week, that’s when you can expect a new post going forward.

Site Redesign

You may have noticed a while back that New SCUBA Marketing went through a redesign. There were 3 main reasons:

Improve load time
Clean up the mess
Move to a responsive theme

Numbers two and three helped with number one.

Try loading the site on your smartphone, tablet or laptop and notice how it resizes to work with whatever size screen you’re using. That’s all part of the responsive theme and doesn’t require a plugin. Sure, there are still some widgets that get cut off a bit on smartphone screens when in portrait mode, but the important stuff is all easily visible.

The biggest part of the new site is that it’s now running on the Pro Scuba Sites network.

Pro Scuba Sites

Pro Scuba Sites is a WordPress-based system for SCUBA enthusiasts to be able to setup their own web site without 99% of the work.

This was an idea I had when I first launched New SCUBA Marketing. When I was hired to my current position, it became one of those ideas that I never thought would come to fruition.

Then I was having drinks with a diver/WordPress friend and mentioned the idea. He asked if he could take it over. I happily transferred the domain and let him go to work.

I’ve been the beta tester of the system for a while, helping to make sure it meets my needs as someone who is very proficient with WordPress, but also easy enough to use for someone just starting out.

In the interest of full disclosure, in exchange for being a tester, I got two lifetime accounts and a free ad on their network. Since I barely have time for this site, I’m not sure what I’ll do with the second one.

The system is awesome.

It’s all the power of WordPress, but now I don’t have to do updates to plugins or the core files.

There’s even a couple of pretty cool dive industry specific special features they’ve built into the system. More on those in upcoming posts.

If you’ve been thinking you need a better website or want to get started blogging, get a Pro Scuba Site. They have an ad-supported free level and an affordable ad-free level that gets you some other cool bonus features. They also have some paid add-ons if you need some extra help with your site.

I get nothing if you sign up and my feelings won’t be hurt if you don’t, but if you’ve been following along and just needed that extra push to get started, this is the way to go. As the support forum gets up and running, you may even see me over there answering a question or two in my limited free time 🙂

Getting Direct Help

Since I live in Oregon, summer is very short and very busy. Add on work and I really have no free time. So from now on, if you have a question, I’ll first look at it to see if I can turn it into one of my weekly blog posts. If not, I’ll refer you to the people at Pro Scuba Sites.

This doesn’t mean you can’t email me with your questions or suggestions, but I may redirect you to another qualified individual. This is the best way I can still help the industry while maintaining my free time and my competitive advantage at work.

Guest Posting

You may see me guest post on Pro Scuba Sites. You may see them guest post over here. You’re welcome to guest post here if you have something unique to share. My goal is to get the people who get dive center online marketing to share their stories (as much as they can without hurting their employers) so the entire industry can benefit.

It’s Not You, It’s Me

Yeah, bad breakup line, I know. Since I live, eat, breathe and sleep SCUBA online marketing, I naturally want to share information and help those who want it. But it’s a conflict of interests for me to help too much, so I feel this is a reasonable compromise.

Now I need to go finish my checklist for the next phase of my big work SEO project 🙂

If you have any questions or feedback, please leave a comment below.