Many camp owners wonder how to increase SEO on Google. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a delicate operation that sits at the crossroads of valuable web content, strong keywords, and numerous potential pages for traffic to find. Here are our top 3 tips for boosting your summer camp search rankings.
What is SEO?
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the practice of optimizing websites and content so they are more easily found by organic search engine results, resulting in an increase in organic website traffic. SEO can include activities such as optimizing title tags, headings, and meta descriptions, as well as using keywords strategically throughout content. It can also include link-building strategies, such as creating internal and external links on other websites.
- Optimize Your Content for Readability- Use an easy-to-read font and make sure to use headings, subheadings, and bullet points in your content so that search engines and users can quickly identify what your content is about.
2. Use Targeted Keywords- Choose the keywords you want to rank for and use them in your content, meta-tags, and URLs.
3. Create Interesting Content-Write content that is interesting, informative, and relevant to summer camp. Focus on sharing helpful tips and advice that make parents’ lives easier.
4. Get Active on Social Media-Social media is still an important part of SEO. Create accounts for your summer camp on popular platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and share content regularly.
5. Link Building-One of the most effective strategies for improving your search rankings is creating valuable backlinks to your website. Focus on getting quality links from relevant websites. You can also try broken link building, guest blogging, directory submission and more.
6. Build a Mobile-Friendly Website-Your website should be optimized for mobile devices so that users can easily find your website when they’re searching on their phones.
7. Improve Your Site Speed-Make sure your site loads quickly by optimizing images and Javascript files — this will also create a better user experience.
Bonus number 8! Create a Camps With Friends profile for your business, its free!
Some more great information to consider!
- Content is King
- Search engines crawl every page of your website for clues about how to categorize it, what topics are relevant, and how valuable it is to web searchers. Therefore, it pays to create a large collection of deliberate, valuable, topic-relevant pages. The most straightforward way to increase the number of pages Google indexes from your site is with a regularly updated summer camp blog. Content marketing can make an enormous difference in the SEO algorithms that decide the placement of your website in summer camp search results.
- Research has shown that publishing 16 blogs per month will earn your site 3.5x the traffic of 0-4 blogs per month. Google rewards freshness, so every update to your web domain helps to boost your placement on the search engine results page (SERP). One easy way to come up with potential blog topics is to brainstorm a list of FAQs related to your camp, and write a blog entry to answer each one.
- Blogs can be complemented by video content and both can be shared on social media or sent out in emails to drive even more traffic (great for maximizing SEO). By 2022, research suggests that online videos will constitute over 82% of all consumer internet traffic. That’s 15x higher than in 2017! Record visual tours of your camp or promotional videos about your programming.
- 2. Keywords Have a Sweet Spot
- While you’re pumping out fascinating and helpful content for your website, don’t forget to optimize your summer camp search keywords for strong search volume. What exactly is your target audience typing into Google when they’re hoping to find a camp like yours (or to discover the answer to a question you’ve addressed on your blog)?
- For example, in January of 2021, the Google extension “Keywords Everywhere” calculated the search volumes of each of the below phrases as follows:
- Colorado mountain camps (720 searches per month)
- music camps in Maine (70 searches per month)
- Christian summer camps near me (480 searches per month)
- summer vacation ideas for kids (210 searches per month)
- all girls summer camps (320 searches per month)
- First, use online keyword tools to research the performance of the phrases your camp parents are likely to type into search engines. Then develop content that utilizes strong-performing summer camp search keywords to tell Google your website is relevant. The sweet spot for search volumes is between about 300 and 1,000 searches per month, which is low enough that it’s possible to rank near the top of the SERP, but high enough to be worth your time (people really are searching for that term).
- 3. Go Wide
- Maximizing SEO for your individual camp website isn’t enough on its own. Why? There are loads of summer camp directories online. For example, the American Camp Association, the BetterCampFinder blog, and our own Camps With Friends mobile app all list thousands of active camps across the United States. Search engine optimization is not only about appearing higher in the search results, but also appearing within multiple possible results.
- Do some searching online to find as many of these sorts of directories as possible. Then...join every one of them! Many camp families use online camp directories as a first stop in their summer camp search, since all the relevant options are gathered in one place. If your goal is to show up in search rankings, it’s important that your camp is on the list, wherever parents are looking.
- The best directories will give parents the power to filter camps by activity, location, size, age group, activity, and other factors—so they’re more likely to find your camp while looking for relevant options near their homes. Spread the word far and wide rather than putting all your eggs in one basket.
- Looking for some great places to get found in a summer camp search? Call us up at Camps With Friends and get on our app for free!
What are the major trends expected in marketing in 2023?
1. AI-driven Automation: AI and automation are quickly becoming integral aspects of marketing. AI can provide valuable customer insights and automation can help marketers streamline their processes by targeting the right channels, audiences, and messages.
2. Social Media Advertising: Social media continues to be an important digital marketing channel. Marketers are increasingly using social media platforms for audience segmentation, optimization and automation. Marketers will need to keep up with the changing environment and react to the latest trends.
3. Connection with Consumers: Connecting to customers on a deeper level has become a must for success. Marketers have to leverage digital channels to understand customer needs and preferences, curate personalized messages and provide prompt customer service.
4. Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality Marketing: Companies are already experimenting with AR and VR as part of their marketing strategies. AR and VR can be used to create immersive experiences, demonstrate complex products, and revolutionize product demos.
5. Content Marketing: Content is key to building meaningful customer relationships. Content needs to be relevant, timely, and tailored to individual interests and needs. It needs to be innovative and easily digestible.
6. Understand the Impact of Mobile: Mobile marketing is growing more important every day. Companies need to optimize websites, emails and ads for mobile devices. This will include creating unique experiences for different devices, such as wearable devices.
7. Personalization: Personalization is, and will continue to be, incredibly important to marketing in 2023. Consumers now expect highly customized, personalized experiences in all areas of their lives, including interactions with brands. Personalization technology and data have become essential components for creating unique experiences that build loyalty and increase engagement. Companies who successfully leverage personalization will be able to reach the right target audience with the right message at the right time, providing more meaningful customer experiences and driving better conversions. Additionally, personalization allows marketers to understand exactly what their customer wants, leading to better results and customer retention.
what are some mistakes brands make when marketing online?
1. Not Having a Clear and Defined Target Audience: Many brands make the mistake of not clearly defining their target audience and end up marketing to everyone instead of focusing on their core target customers.
2. Not Optimizing Content for Mobile: With the prevalence of mobile users, it’s essential for brands to optimize their content, web design, and campaigns for mobile.
3. Ignoring Analytics: Brands who don’t track their analytics and gain insights into their customers won’t be able to fine tune their marketing strategies.
4. Not Investing in Paid Advertising: Brands who don’t take advantage of paid advertising opportunities are leaving huge amounts of potential customers on the table. Did you know you can now BOOST posts to new parents now on Camps With Friends?
5. Not Engaging with Customers: With the rise of social media, brands need to engage with their customers and seek out feedback on their products and services.
6. Not Having a Social Media Strategy: If a brand doesn’t have a defined social media strategy or a plan for how to use social media to reach their target audience, their efforts will be for naught.
7. Ignoring Video Content: Video content is becoming increasingly important and brands need to take advantage of this to reach their target audience.
8. Being Too Salesy: Brands need to focus on providing valuable content and having meaningful interactions with their customers, not just pushing their products.
