Google Search Insights for Camps

Google offers summer camps some great tools for learning more about what prospective parents are searching for. One tool, Google Trends, allows you to see what search terms are being searched for at certain times of the year. The image below shows last year’s trend for searches using the following terms: summer camp texas (red), summer camp maine (blue) and summer camp new york (yellow). Understanding Google Search Insights could help you boost your website’s traffic.

The trend lines show what most camps already know, which is that they receive most of their traffic from January through the end of July. The most search traffic comes through during the summer. Yet most camps aren’t focused on driving the right kinds of activity during the summer and easily miss out on this increase in attention and traffic to their website. Remember, it is also important to drive engagement during the off-season as well. Read our blog post here to learn why.

Google Trends also shows what areas of the country your traffic is coming from. Most state-specific searches show most traffic coming from the state itself, however for a search such as “best summer camp,” you can see most traffic coming from Massachusetts, Florida, New York, California, and Illinois. Being knowledgable about where and when your camp’s search traffic peaks can be a huge competitive advantage in buying keywords to drive traffic to your site.

If you are a camp director or staff member reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts on search marketing for your camp. Leave a comment or email me: blake@socialsummercamp.com.