PRowl Communications Launches Niagara Business Directory

PRowl Communications Launches all-NEW Niagara Business Directory as kick-off to 10 years of operating ConnectingNiagara.com. 

History

In October of 2011, PRowl Communications launched ConnectingNiagara.com as a means to bring people, business and the community together. The online site offers local news, information, human interest stories, a very widely used events calendar (pre-pandemic), recipes, recalls and more.  The site is driven via social media keeping local Niagara residents informed.  It was a big undertaking at the time and continues to thrive, despite our on-again, off-again postings.  In the beginning a business directory was created as well, however it was a manual process, next to impossible to keep up.  We eventually gave up on it about five years ago, hiding it from the website.   

Calendar of Events

A few years back, the Calendar of Events was updated to a more user-friendly, mobile responsive view for those checking for events on their phones (this was a pet-peeve) of those trying to use the calendar prior to the upgrade.  This upgrade also allows individuals, groups and businesses to add their events easily themselves by submitting a form.  Once the form is submitted, our office is notified, we approve it and the event is live. Adding events to the calendar is ALWAYS FREE. We do not charge for the events calendar and never will. Our only stipulation is the events must be local to Niagara Region.  With pandemic regulations relaxing somewhat, events are starting to come in once again.  

Niagara Business Directory

Since the business directory was taken down, we were still getting repeated requests for additions to the directory (we forgot to take the button down) when we removed the directory itself. In the past year, we have been getting 2-3 requests per day, After a great deal of research, we finally came up with a directory we like, is user friendly for businesses and is self-managed by the businesses with little- to no participation on our part.  Over the past three months we have been building out the directory which is now ready to launch.  

Of course, we expect a few bugs here and there, and probably more than a few tweaks to the categories, sub-categories and sub-sub-categories once businesses start adding or claiming their business on the site. 

The Niagara Business Directory has many features but most importantly, it is there to offer local businesses an added location to promote their business - even on the free version of listings, a link to the business website is offered along with a description, location and contact information of the business.  

On the paid versions, a multitude of extra features are available including: 

• Classifieds
• Coupons
• Products
• Photo Albums
• Videos 
• Discussion Form
• Ability to add articles
• At the Diamond Level - properties for real estate agents 
• and more... 

Because we didn't want to launch with nothing in the system, we did add 1000 businesses from Welland (these businesses can claim their listing and build from there - choosing either the FREE Emerald Level or upgrading to one of the paid options). To add your business it is simple -- just visit the JOIN page, select Emerald for FREE listing, or one of the other options and build your profile.  If a category you require is not available, let us know - we will add it... If you have questions, email us, we will gladly assist.   

The full feature sheet is available below.  

Our social media team will be promoting the site and individual businesses as we move along...  (even more exposure for your business). 

Visit Niagara Business Directory