Summer Camps and Search Engine Optimization

In recent years there has been a focus on growing Western North Carolina’s economy. Healthcare, tourism, and technology are the industries getting the most attention for Asheville’s growth. The Asheville Convention and Visitors Bureau markets and advertises Asheville resulting in approximately 3.13 million visitors each year. Organizations such as Asheville Ventures and The Collider position Asheville as the next Silicon Valley. Mission Health continues to be one of the largest employers in the region.

A significant portion of Western North Carolina’s economy are contributed from summer camps. There are 40 camps in Buncombe, Henderson, Jackson, and Transylvania Counties and an economic impact of over $360 million. Summer camps earn the majority of their revenue over an eight to ten week period. The rest of the year camps spend preparing for the summer.

I explore how much if any search engine optimization work North Carolina summer camps invest in.

IntroductionTraditionally, summer camps have relied on trade shows, referrals, print advertising, campus visits and home shows to recruit staff and register campers. I believe North Carolina summer camps can invest more in search marketing.

Summer Camp Search VolumesDuring the offseason, summer camps have two primary needs: registering campers and recruiting summer staff. Both target audiences will be using online search engines to find summer camps. According to Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and Google Keyword Planner, search volumes are in the tens of thousands for summer camp keyword. The two major keyword themes are for counselors and campers. Search volumes are low during summer--when camps are in session--and increase through the offseason peaking in May.

MethodologyI compared top ranking summer camps in four different states. I wanted to discover if state markets are more or less competitive in search rankings. I compared North Carolina, Maine, Texas, and New York. I recorded the summer camps as they ranked organically on the first page of Google.

Because Google ranks these camps high in the search rankings, I researched the websites. Only four summer camp websites ranked on the first page except for Texas Summer Camps SERP, which had five summer camps ranking on page one. Google ranked camp directories or aggregate lists for [STATE] Summer Camp.

DataUsing Ahrefs, I measured each URL’s total backlinks, linking domains, Ahrefs URL Rating, and Facebook likes (see Appendix A for a full table). Based on these findings, it appears New York and Texas have more competitive markets. The top ranking North Carolina summer camps have more evidence of SEO work than the Maine camps, but there is a significant gap of SEO evidence for New York and North Carolina

In general, Texas summer camps have the most evidence of SEO work. The average amount of linking domains is 176. Ahrefs shows how strong each backlink is on a logarithmic scale (1-100). The average Ahref URL rank for Texas summer camps is the highest of the four at 34.6.

Camp Olympia has the highest amount of total backlinks at 51,299. Those backlinks only come from 144 domains. Camp Pine Cove in Texas has the most linking domains with 415 domains. The highest amount of total backlinks per camp per state is Camp Timber Lake at 4730, Camp Kippewa at 2118, and Green River Preserve at 5113.

I used Facebook likes as a proxy for social media success. While evidence suggests Facebook is no longer a social media monolith, it still stands out as the most popular social media platform. If a summer camp plans to use social media for marketing, it is safe to assume Facebook is an essential cog.

AnalysisThe top Texas and New York summer camps have significantly higher SEO rankings than the leading summer camps in Maine and North Carolina. Ahrefs found more backlinks and linking domains for the camps in Texas and New York, which suggests that there are more linking opportunities for camps in North Carolina to pursue. Because SEO for summer camps in North Carolina appears less competitive, a summer camp incorporating SEO could feasibly see a quick return on investment.

Caveats and LimitationsThis is an anecdotal study. I did not focus on long tail keywords that provide higher conversion rates. I only compared four states that are traditionally known for having a large amount of summer camps. A future study can expand on states and camps measured and use tools different tools to gain a wider perspective on SEO work.

I did not account for the camper and staff capacity for each camp. A camp with 1000 campers each session has an inherently larger audience than a camp with 300 campers each session.

Interviewing camp directors would provide a qualitative analysis to successful camp marketing work that would provide a deeper insight into this topic.

Expanding SEO in the Marketing BudgetIt is generally assumed companies should allocate 10% of revenue to marketing. In order to find effective marketing channels, the cost to acquire customers and customer lifetime value are important metrics. Cost to acquire a customer is calculated by dividing the marketing expense by the number of customers acquired. Lifetime value of a customer is a prediction of the net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.

The researched camps offered different rates and different length of sessions. I compared two week session rates because it was the most consistent session length. For the camps that did not offer a two week session, I divided the rate by the total weeks offered in the session to get an estimated weekly rate. I multiplied that number by two. See Appendix B for a full list of rates.

According to the researched camps, the average revenue per camper is $3,125 (the range was $1,070 to $4,975). If we assume campers return to camp for three summers, the lifetime value of one camper is on average $9,376. If we assume a 10% marketing budget, a camp should be willing to spend almost $1,000 to recruit one camper.

If a camp offers two week sessions over eight weeks, it has four sessions to produce revenue. If a camp has a camper capacity of 500, a full summer capacity is 2000 campers and a summer revenue over $6 million.

A custom website priced at $30,000 and a monthly SEO budget at $2,000 ($54,000 total) would be 8.6% of the yearly marketing budget and 0.86% of the gross revenue. If a camp converts 2 new camper registrations a month (1.2% of its total capacity), the SEO cost to acquire each camper would be $2,250 (0.36% of assumed marketing budget).

A camp would spend around $2,000 to earn almost $10,000 in revenue.

ConclusionBecause summer camps earn the majority of their revenue in one season, the off season is an essential period to recruit staff and campers. Summer camps should market through several channels to reach their target markets.

There is an opportunity for a summer camp. The businesses ranking in the top three places of a search results earn the vast majority of search traffic. As more businesses compete for valuable keywords, the more harder it becomes to improve a site’s rankings. Because it appears summer camps in North Carolina underutilize search engine optimization techniques, there is a less competitive market compared with other states. A summer camp will invest less time and money in an SEO campaign now than in a few years when more camps adopt similar strategies.