As the internet landscape changes, Cooper Boating shifts gears to build a stronger web community – cruise into our new site

We’ve been working for months on our make over. We've enhanced our look and in many cases totally rebuilt and developed new interactive applications for our boating community.

There were a great number of things we wanted to do with our new web site.We have an incredible amount of information stored in our databases. We've created some exciting new applications and implemented many new ways of using the information that will benefit our growing boating community.

We hope you are as excited about this launch as we are and look forward to your feedback. Here's a glimpse at some of the changes:

A New Branded Look

First we wanted to re brand our look to something that would complement our capabilities plus showcase the beauty of the world class boating area we all take for granted here in British Columbia.

The creative team at WebStager.com worked with us and came through with an awesome design along with a robust back end so any of us at Cooper Boating can make immediate changes. We have ready access to all the content including images and video via our cool new 'Point and Click' CMS (Content Management System).

Our New Content Management System

A Powerful ‘Point And Click’ Back End System

These days keeping content fresh and alive is paramount to connecting with our community not to mention a key to search engine visibility.

We wanted a back end interface that any of our staff could easily update. We also wanted to be able to make all our content updates ourselves without having to rely on our web developer's schedule.

We've got both bases covered with our 'Point and Click' WebStager CMS. Powered by a simple interface, any part of our site can be accessed simply by clicking on a section, updating text, images or videos.

Now any one of our designated Cooper Boating staff can quickly update, text, images, and even video with little or no web site knowledge using the WebStager ‘Point and Click CMS’ (content management system).

It's now such an effortless process to keep our site content up to date that it will become part of our everyday tasks.

WebStager's Point & Click CMS is really a time and cost saver for us!

Embracing Social Media - Broadcasting to Facebook, Twitter, RSS and our own News Feeds.

The social media craze has affected our Cooper Boating user base in new and creative ways. Our members are connecting with one another to use various Cooper Boating services – like our Friday night racing with JibSet – one of Cooper Boating’s companies on Facebook.

Using Facebook members are coordinating their activities, even connecting with others if someone dropped out at the last minute.

We were convinced that social media was the way to go. As we were educated on the current state of social media it became quickly obvious that there were many social sites and what's more we should be on as many as possible - not just Facebook in order to attract the most visability and the highest rankings in the search engines and maximum social value.

That's when we realized that Social Media is definitely not free. It can cost time. Tons of it. It could take hours of your time to update all your 'spots' then you have to turn around and do it all over again.

'Broadcast' Blogging

Our new site had to embrace social media in a few different ways. It also had to incorporate automation tools. Social Media Automation Tools that is.

We’ve integrated WebStager’s broadcasting blogs to spread our message far and wide at the touch of a button. They've been working on this technology for years. There are several processes and programs all working together to perform a single outcome. Automate the daunting task of Social Media updates while attracting search engines. Result - saving enormous amounts of time in Social Media Updates combined with Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

With a single blog entry all of our social ‘spots’ like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. are all automatically updated.

Simultaneously our new web site’s News Feeds and RSS feeds are updated as well. Anyone wanting updates on their own Internet properties can copy our widget code onto their own web site or blog.

As we update our blogs all of our site's news feeds are simultaneously updated. Others have the option to receive an immediate email or SMS alert on their mobile phone.

Our social message is spread far and wide while our blog technology carries our message to the search engines which amplifies our real time social media efforts all while simultaneously  increasing our page and traffic ranking.

By automating our social media efforts we can spend more time on boating!

“Everything Boating” Knowledge Bank.

Since many of us here at Cooper Boating maintain a wealth of knowledge about boating, we thought we'd like to share it with our community.

Working with our development them we came up with a way to engage the syndication features of the broadcast blogs and harness the power with 'Boating Knowledge' by using the same bloging technology as the engine that powers our new knowledge bank.

We developed an application that allows authors to create content while creating content 'tags' while the piece is created.

The knowledge bank 'tags' over time are complied into a knowledge bank index.

Syndication tools and or widgets will allow other sites to carry our content while immediately receive our knowledge bank updates on their web sites as we create them.

Cooper community members will benefit from the growing wealth of boating knowledge.

3 New Quick Searches To Enhance Our Community

Reading all the articles on Internet Marketing trends, all the experts agree that online databases need to deliver more detailed information to meet the demands of a more sophisticated community.

We think we've done it with our new Quick Search Features!

Time is short these days. The last thing everyone wants to do is spend all their time looking for things. That’s why we came up with the quick search boxes on the home page of our new site!

Quick Search – Boats

We’ve taken the hassle out of locating a boat and getting you on your way. Now you can quickly locate a sail or power boat in one of our 3 points of departure – Vancouver, Sidney or Powell River. A couple of clicks and you can begin your adventure.

Quick Learn – Quick Courses.

Did you know that Cooper Boating is Canada’s largest boating school? Our broad range of courses have long been a corner stone of Cooper Boating’s community.  We’ve enhanced the format of our courses and are introducing new ways to quickly find and enroll in them using our new site.

Using the quick search feature now end users can effortlessly find course offerings based on their boating education goals – FUNdamental Courses, Coastal Cruising or Ultimate Adventures. Each course offering speaks to the things we’ve learned that our community is after. We’ve also added a social aspect to the course selection by showing in real time the number of ‘spots’ available per course.

Now Searching Events Is Simple

Quick Search - Events.

We hold events as an active part of the Cooper Boating community. In the past delivering information and providing easy access was limited at best.

We added quick search functions and an intuitive calendar system for members to quickly scan the database for events that month, then quickly access the site for more details.

We've even added syndication features that will allow members to share an event with people in these social circles.

We’ve added separate pages for our satellite locations – Powell River – our gateway to the Desolation Sound and Sidney – our gateway to south Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands.

We wanted to start building unique identities for these popular locations. As time goes on look for more information and features from these idyllic departure points.

There are many more features that we know you'll like:

• A new collaborative gallery
• Our favorite video updates
• Up to date weather forecasts for our 3 Cooper Boating locations
• and more.