About Tidal Web

Tidal Web has been in business since 1997 helping small businesses build professional web sites for affordable prices. The company was formed out after a friend asked us if we could build him a website for his start-up business. Being fairly comfortable with computers and having a background in visual arts we decided to give it a try. Although our first try definitely looks dated now, it became an effective tool for our friend's business. That got us thinking that there had to be a lot of other people out there in the same situation as our friend. Small businesses and startup companies who knew they had to compete online but didn't have huge budgets or the knowledge to do it themselves.

During the internet explosion of the late 1990s, there were not many classes you could take or places to go to learn effective web design. So we decided that we would bury ourselves in reference books and manuals. What came out was a combination of my previous visual arts experience and technology expertise. Tidal Web had already found it's niche. Small businesses needed help getting online, creating online shopping sites and marketing them effectively. We quickly found that there were no shortage of businesses that needed our help.

We were among the first in the area to offer affordable e-commerce shopping systems to small business. Utilizing brand new products at the time such as Storefront, Cart 32 and Yahoo Store, we were able to help these businesses create a level playing field with other much larger companies. We quickly became leaders in the two industries of Paintball Sports and Surfing. We worked with equipment retailers and sporting facilities to enhance their businesses. We were the first company to take WRV (Wave Riding Vehicles) website into the world of e-commerce. Other surfing retailers quickly followed as we set the standard for the industry. A similar scenario happened in the Paintball industry. After working on a few playing field websites, we worked with a local wholesaler to take his business from just a couple local shops to a dominate online retailers. Other paintball sites soon followed wanting to work with Tidal Web, recognizing us as one of the major players in the industry. Through the same core values and innovative marketing we were able to replicate our success and once again add another name to the top of the online paintball retailers. Both companies were so successful that they had to build warehouses to stock enough supplies for their customers. Their businesses completely shifted their focus from selling locally to selling online globally.

The era of the CMS (content management system) came into its own in the early 2000s and Tidal Web was there again to help small business utilize this technology effectively. We were not satisfied with the CMS systems commercially available so we designed and built our own CMS called CONTeNT. The system had to stick to our two main rules. It had to be easy for someone with very limited computer experience to be able to use. It also had to limit itself to editing content, not the actual site. As a user and administrator of many CMS systems, I saw the frustration of the complexity that still exists today when using a content management system. The system we designed should let the user update the content and Tidal Web make the design and site look professional and compliant with standards. It has always been our belief that systems like Joomla and Drupal put way too much responsibility on the business owner. As a business owner, you want to keep your content fresh and relevant without incurring hourly expenses every time you want to make a change. Tidal Web understands that and built on that concept with the introduction of CONTeNT 2 in 2005. CONTeNT allows Tidal Web to design a custom look for your website and allow you to focus on your images, text and contact information. While this system served our customers and us well for many years, technology has moved on. In 2010 we introduced the CONTeNT 3 CMS system. This is a new lightweight CMS that does not rely on a database to generate dynamic pages and allows you to add text, images, documents and media quickly and intuitively.

The redesign of our website and addition of CONTeNT 3 brings Tidal Web into 2010. We are proud to say that the same core values are still in place since we started in 1997. Our goal is still to help small business compete online. We take a multi-faceted approach combining effective design, modern functionality and core value marketing. Contact Tidal Web today to see if we can help you with your online presence.