1. A home page plus a driving directions / contact information page (including links to your website) on our website.
2. Your home page searchable by geographic location, brands you carry, types of items you sell, and articles you contribute.
3. Your shop will be listed as a featured shop on our start page on a rotating basis.
4. Opportunity to feature different products on your home page.
5. And, of course, increased high quality traffic to your site.

Policies:

1. We pledge to re-invest 50% or more of membership fees in print and / or internet advertising.
2. We will limit member shops to no more than 2 dozen full service kayak shops, with as many as a dozen specialty shops (paddles only, kayak kits, etc.) in addition. We believe this is essential to promoting loyalty and maintaining a familiar & comfortable feel to the website. Kayak outfitters providing trips will be listed separately.
3. Although we own a kayak shop that will be a member of KayakShops.com, our shop will not receive any preferential treatment in terms of listings or prominence on this site.
4. Articles submitted to us will become permanent on this website. However, you retain copyright rights and may publish the article elsewhere. (We, of course, will not use the article elsewhere without your permission).
5. Our goal is to make this website a collective and cooperative effort. Member input is welcome and appreciated. We aim to be as responsive as possible.

Strategies

A website is only as good as the traffic it generates. To that end, we will generate traffic to www.kayakshops.com and to your site through the following means:

1. Search engine rankings -- we're pretty savvy in terms of getting good search engine ratings. (One of our sites is ranked number 6 on Google under "sea kayaks." Another site is ranked number 1 on Google under "kayak tours Maine"). We'll work hard to get good rankings for this site.
2. Pay per click listings such as those provided by Google and Overture. A sizeable portion of your annual membership will be used for these services -- which will bring additional traffic to the site.
3. Print advertising: We will advertise in national publications such as Canoe and Kayak Magazine and Sea Kayaker Magazine.
4. Discounts to charter members. Since a critical mass of kayak shops is essential to the site getting off the ground, we are providing low rates to the first 5 specialty shops that become members.
5. Link exchanges: We aim to get linked on as many paddling sites as possible. Please link to us!

Details:

1. The first 5 specialty shops to join us will have their membership fee reduced from $40.00 to $20.00. (Note: This will list your shop until January 1, 2005.) The fee is reduced to $0.00 if your provide one a short article on a kayak-related topic of your choice.
2. The site will go online with 5 or more shops by January 1, 2004 (if for any reason we are not able to do this, we will offer full refunds to members).
3. Fees can be paid by check (made out to Water Walker) or by credit card.

For more information, please contact me ray@kayakshops.com