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CAMP
SEARCH ENGINES: IF YOU BUILD IT… SO WHAT?
By Andrew Ackerman
and Ari Ackerman
(Reprinted in ACA Keystone Regional Section Newsletter, Winter 2000; OCAsional News, March 2001; et. al.)
'"If you
build it, they will come" may have worked for Kevin Costner
but don't count on it working for you.
Think
of it this way: Would you open a store and not tell anyone
about it? Of course not. And yet some camps will put tens
of thousands of dollars into building a web site without a
thought as to how to lead people to it. Heck, they haven't
even put a sign on the door.
Now this
may not always be as foolish as I just made it sound. If,
for instance, you built a site primarily for parents of campers
already at your camp to come to during the summer to look
at pictures of their little angels playing kickball, then
throwing a flier or two into the packets you send out to your
camp's parents should be more than enough; if they know the
store's address and they want what you have to sell, they'll
find it with or without a sign.
But if
you are hoping to use your site to get new campers to come
to your camp, you've got a little more work to do before your
camp's site can start to work for you.
PUTTING
A SIGN ON YOUR DOOR: REGISTERING WITH SEARCH ENGINES & DIRECTORIES
If you've
ever gone on Excite (et. al.) to look for a cheap supplier
of basketballs or the lyrics to "Louis, Louis," you've used
a search engine. If you've ever used Yahoo to find a bus company
or to look up the GDP of Botswana, you've used a directory.
The difference between search engines and directories is a
bit technical but, fortunately for us, doesn't really matter.
What matters is that these are where people go when they don't
know where to find something. Like a camp for their children,
for instance.
So how
do you make sure that when a parent searches for a "day camp
in New Jersey with soccer and ceramics," your camp is listed
in the search results? The only sure way is to register your
site.
When you
register your site, you are telling the search engine / directory,
"Check me out." Someone (a live person for a directory, a
program called a "spider" for a search engine) will check
out your site and decide how high to list your site relative
to all the other sites for "day camps" in "New Jersey" with
"soccer" and "ceramics." I put those words in quotes because
those are what are referred to as "keywords." By and large,
the more of the keywords used in a search that are associated
with your site, the higher up your camp will be on the search
results list.
(Actually,
the algorithms search engines and directories use to determine
ranking are very complex, closely held secrets. There are
ways to design a site to take advantage of these algorithms
but a thorough discussion of this topic is beyond what we
can get into here. Let's just say that people make a good
living trying to outwit search engines and directories - and
that search engines and directories aren't too thrilled about
being outwitted; if they catch you, they can make sure your
site *never* gets listed. Proceed at your own risk.)
However,
if the search engine or directory doesn't know your page exists,
you aren't even in the game.
Fortunately,
it's not too difficult to register your site. Go to the search
engine or directory and look for a link that says "register
your web site" or "submit a page" or words to that effect.
Click on that link. At a minimum, you will be asked to enter
your camp's website's address. You may also be asked to supply
an email address (in case the search engine or directory needs
to contact you), to choose a category (e.g., "Summer Camps"),
to enter a short description, etc. Each search engine and
directory is different, but the instructions are usually pretty
clear. Some quick rules of thumb:
- Fill
in all the optional information requested. It only helps
your site get listed
- Only
submit your home page and only do that once per site. Drowning
a search engine or directory with multiple registrations
will not improve your ranking one bit and will piss them
off. They will blackball your site. Bad idea
- Check
back each month. If your camp's site is not coming up or
stops coming up in a search engine or directory's search
results, resubmit your web site. (Tip: Don't search on "summer
camp" to test a search engine or directory - try searching
for your camp's full name. If it doesn't come up for that,
it's not in their database).
THE
YELLOW PAGES: GENERAL, ALL PURPOSE SEARCH ENGINES & DIRECTORIES
General,
all purpose, search engines and directories are like the yellow
pages: most everyone uses them at one point or another. You've
got to be in the book.
In theory,
you could register with all search engines and directories.
It is free, after all. But there are literally hundreds, if
not thousands, of search engines and directories out there.
Simply keeping track of them - much less registering with
them all! - is impossible. That said, most people use one
of a few key sites. If you ask me, here are a few key general,
all purpose, search engines / directories:
AN
AD IN PARENTING MAGAZINE: CAMP-SPECIFIC SEARCH ENGINES & DIRECTORIES
The problem
with the yellow pages is that it's not always the first place
parents think to look when thinking about summer camp. Now
Parenting Magazine is much more likely to be a place they
turn for advice about choosing a summer camp. (Note: I'm not
endorsing any particular publication - I don't even know if
Parenting Magazine exists - this is purely illustrative.)
Good place for an ad, no?
While
many parents will go to the same search engine or directory
when looking for a camp as they do when looking for fishing
tackle, some parents will go to search engine or directory
specifically devoted to summer camps. These search engines
or directories are often one (free) part of a larger, camp-related
business. These businesses aren't altruists; they hope to
make money one way or another (e.g., by selling advertising
and/or camp-related supplies).
But that
doesn't mean that these sites don't offer a valuable service
to parents and if parents are going to use their search engines,
you want to be sure to be in their databases. Fortunately,
registering with these sites, while often more involved than
registering with a general, all purpose, search engine or
directory, is typically free (though some may try to sell
you banner ads or other services).
So far,
no one camp-related web site has emerged as "THE" place to
go for information about camps. A few of the more established
sites with search engines are:
PRINTING
YOUR OWN MAGAZINE: WHY BUILDING YOUR OWN SEARCH ENGINE IS
NOT A GOOD IDEA
I should
probably be a bit more politically correct about this but
not at the expense of making this point. Some camp owners,
either as individuals or in small groups, have asked me if
they should be building web sites with camp search engines,
and I can't stress this enough: DON'T DO IT. It's a waste
of time and money.
Why do
I say this? After all, you might think, "Hey! If I'm building
the search engine, I can be certain I get ranked high on the
search results list!" If it only were that easy…
The biggest
problem is this: A search engine that gives unfair advantage
to one (or a handful) of sites will not be seen by parents
as objective; they'll see right through you and won't touch
your search engine. Even if your search engine is fair, the
very fact that you've built it will cause parents to suspect
that it's biased and they won't use it.
Plus,
it's so unnecessary. If you want to buy an ad, do you start
up a whole new magazine? Of course not. There are plenty of
search engines out there and more are emerging every day.
As long as you are listed in the popular ones, you're golden.
Why spend all that money building, maintaining, and marketing
a search engine when someone else will do it for you… and
do it for free, at that?
Still
not convinced? You might be thinking, "It can't hurt - how
much can it possibly cost, anyway? Even if only a few people
use it-" Stop right there. Remember how we started this article?
Building it is not enough - you have to convince people to
use your search engine instead of someone else's. And that
kind of marketing costs money - lot's of money. Care to go
head to head with Yahoo or Excite? I thought not.
Of course,
getting a parent to your camp's web site is just the first
step. Getting them to register their child is the real trick.
But that's a topic for a whole new article…
Ari
Ackerman is the Founder & CEO and Andrew Ackerman is the Chief
Operations Officer of Bunk1.com. Bunk1.com provides free websites,
online camp stores, and password protected chat rooms and
message boards to summer camps. For more information regarding
this article or Bunk1.com, please contact info@bunk1.com
or call 1-888-465-CAMP.
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