Southwest Colorado and Albania are a world apart, but perhaps not so different when it comes to the World Wide Web.
Derek Alvarez, a recent arrival in Cortez, noticed some similarities after living in a beach town in southern Albania close to Greece.
Cortez and the Albanian town of Saranda depend on tourism revenue, but both are lacking much of a presence on the Internet because many of their businesses don’t bother with websites, said Alvarez.
Without websites, the merchants do not show up in Google and other search engines, which is bad for business because so many consumers, especially out-of-town tourists, use their smart phones to locate restaurants, services and shops.
There is such a dearth of Internet information on Cortez that Alvarez, 32, said he had trouble finding things to do when he moved to town last October.
Alvarez, 32, said he is so used to Googling that he never thinks to look in the yellow pages for information.
Seeing an opportunity, Alvarez and his wife Monique, a native of Cortez, have started a website, Cortezcolorado.net, with information and links on area businesses, local attractions and happenings, as well as providing an outlet for employment and for-sale ads.
But the web site is not going to venture into personal or dating advertisements.
“We’re going to stay away from that,” Alvarez said.
So far, they have posted basic information on 400 businesses. For customers willing to pay $100, they will create “mini web sites” about their businesses.
Alvarez, a professional web designer who has worked in Tucson, San Diego and Albania, said he and his wife specialize in getting their customers to show up at the top of search engine lists, a service known as search engine optimization.
The website is a month old, but it’s now averaging about 70 hits a day.
The city of Cortez is also in the process of expanding its website to include more information for out-of-towners, but City Manager Shane Hale said he does not view the Alvarez’s website as competition.
Unlike their web site,the city’s web-site won’t be “a business directory,” Hale said.
Hale believes in more the merrier.
“This city could use more well-designed web sites,” he said.
jhaug@durangoherald.com