Ever print business cards without your phone number on them?

I thought not. And yet it never ceases to amaze me how many camp websites forget to provide something as basic as a phone number. At Bunk1, I personally have reviewed hundreds of camp's websites. While many of these websites have been quite good at getting across the feel of camp, at least 19 out of 20 lack what for most camps ought to be bare minimal information.

The good news is that most of these omissions are easy fixes. So without further ado…

10 things your camp website ABSOLUTELY MUST have

NOTE: If you don't know quite how to add some of the features mentioned below to your website, don't panic. Fortunately, the camp market is mature enough that there are companies who specialize in camp websites and their prices are often surprisingly reasonable.

1. Contact information, front and center
Your (prospective) camp parents need to be able to reach you and the first place many look to is your website. This means you need your contact information (or a prominent, easy to find link to it) on your camp's website Home page. Your contact information should include:

• Address (off-season/mailing and camp address, if different)
• Phone number (off-season/mailing and camp numbers, if different)
• Email address

This information should be "above the fold" meaning it should be visible when the Home page first loads so someone visiting your website does not have to scroll down to find it.
TIP: Most people have their computer monitors set to 800x600 pixels so when you are checking to see if your contact information is above the fold, make sure your monitor is on that setting as well.

2. A camp photo tour
The web is visual so don't just tell people why they want to go to your camp. Show them.

Depending on the resources you have available, this section can be as basic as a static pages with pictures and text or an elaborate "virtual tour" with panoramic or 360 degree scenes with camp songs playing in the background. But there's no excuse to skip this section - even a simple yet artfully done photo layout can go a long way.

3. Session and enrollment information
Don't make prospective parents hunt for this information. Tell them what they need to know - when sessions begin, how much they cost, how to sign up, et. al. Sounds basic, I know, but many camps don't.

A single page with this information the bare necessity. Without too much extra effort you can post enrollment forms on your website so parents can print them, fill them out, and mail or fax them back to you. If you want to get a little more fancy, you can turn your camp forms into webforms that parents can fill out online and that send you an email with their data. If you use camp management software such as EZ Camp, you can even hook the webform directly into your database and eliminate some of the manual effort but this can get a little tricky.
TIP: Unless you are very tech savvy and have the time and money to spend, do NOT try to take payments for camp online yourself. Any time you ask for a credit card number, you need to assure your camp parents of a level of security that is beyond the resources of most camps. NEVER ask for a credit card number to be emailed to you - email is about as secure as a post card.

4. An FAQ page
Tired of answering the same questions over and over again? Guess what? You don't have to. Make a list of the top 10 (or 20 or 30) questions parents or prospective parents ask you and put those questions (along with their answers, of course) on your website. You'd be surprised what a difference this makes.

5. Directions to camp
Save yourself a lot of trouble. Text directions are OK; a map is better. When parents call for directions, let them know that directions are on the website - they typically don't want to copy directions down by hand any more than you want to (yet again) read off directions over the phone.

Ideally, set up your site to generate door to door directions by linking to map and directions websites such as MapQuest or MapBlast. This is a little difficult to do but looks very impressive to your camp parents.
TIP: Some camps choose not to post directions online because they are concerned that they'll fall into the wrong hands. Unfortunately, "the wrong hands" know how to use a map. Generally speaking, keeping this information off your website protects no one and inconveniences many.

6. 'Help wanted!'
Unless you have no problem staffing your camp, you need this section. Unfortunately this audience is exceptionally lazy so you need to make it as easy as possible for them. This section should list the jobs you want to fill, a short description, requirements (e.g. age), salary (at least a range) and a clearly marked "Click here to apply" link. Also, if you have a lot of jobs, organize this section well so they don't give up before finding the job they want.

If ever it was important to let someone apply online, this is it. Fax, mail - not going to cut it. These kids were raised on email and you'll lose them right off the bat if they can't apply online. At a bare minimum, let them email you their resume. Better yet, put together a webform for them to fill out so you can be assured of getting the basic information you need but keep it simple. Make it too long and they won't finish the application. Collect the bare minimum you need to know if you want to call them. You can request more information over the phone, if necessary.
TIP: Don't assume the applicants will remember to specify which jobs interest them. Build that information into the system.

7. Email to campers - so many ways to shoot yourself in the foot
Few camps want their campers to be sitting in front of a computer reading email but parents increasingly demand the convenience of email. What's a camp to do? The solution most camps have been forced into is accepting email, that they then print and hand out at mail call. This solution is far from ideal:

• Time: Each email needs to be read and printed. You have to determine which camper it is for (not easy when an email is sign only "Love, Mom") and look up which cabin that camper is in. Your office staff will hate you.
• Disappointment: With certain emails, there's just no way to know who the recipient is so the email just won't get to the camper. Not your fault but will that matter to the parent?
• Cost: Needless to say, paper is not cheap.
• Viruses: You've just exposed your camp computer to viruses from your entire camp community. Have fun!
• Bandwidth: Most camps are pretty isolated and consequently don't have high speed connections. That won't stop mommy from emailing a 4 Meg photo of Fluffy's new kittens. Your phone line will be tied up for hours.

If you want to accept email for campers at camp - and there's a lot of good reasons to do this - do it via webform. It's just as convenient as email plus you can specify what fields are required (e.g., camper name, cabin number) and save your office staff a lot of aggravation. Even better, webforms don't allow for attachments so viruses and bandwidth problems go away.
TIP: You can even charge for each note to defray the cost of providing this service. Since the alternative is buying a stamp, most parents are pretty understanding. Added benefits: when you charge for each note, parents are less likely to abuse this feature by sending 5+ notes a day and they put more thought into making each note a substantial letter rather than a short, hastily composed email. Doing this yourself is a bit complicated but there are camp service companies that make this a snap.

8. Pictures - the one way window into camp
Don't just tell parents how much fun their children are having - show them! Take pictures and post them to your website every few days. Nothing reassures parents like the smiling faces of their children staring back at them. A happy parent is less likely to call you for reassurance.

But be careful. Not everyone ought look through every window. If you are going to put pictures of campers online during the summer, I urge you to make this section password protected. Not just a single password for all parents because if that gets into the wrong hands you have to change the password for everyone and make sure all your camp parents get the new password. (Congratulations - you've just made a lot more work for yourself.) Each parent should have his or her own username and password so if one is compromised, you can cancel just that account.

Expect parents to ask if they can get copies of pictures. While you can tell them to simply hit 'print' to print out a copy of the picture they want, if you can get them photo-quality prints they'll love you even more.
TIP: Sounds complicated? It certainly is. Fortunately, there are companies that will do this for you. Some will even do it for free and may even offer you commissions on any photo sales!

9. Keep in touch - Message Boards
Just because summer is over, doesn't mean camp has to end. Let your campers (and staff) stay in touch using Message Boards to send each other messages no matter how far apart they live. The tighter you keep your camp community together, the more likely they are to return year after year.

These absolutely must be password protected on the user level. It's the law. COPPA, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, is very strict about the steps you need to take to make sure campers do not inadvertently reveal personally identifiable information to strangers.
(more information: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/kidsprivacy.htm)

10. How am I doing?
At the end of the day, your website is not about you. It's about your camp community. So how do you know if your website is meeting their needs if you don't ask? Get feedback specifically about the website. At a bare minimum, add some text "Comments or suggestions about this website? Email feedback@campname.com."

Better yet, think about what questions you'd like to ask parents about the website (e.g., Was the site ever down? Were the pages loading slowly? What features did parents especially like or dislike?). These questions become the basis for a survey that you can make into a webform. Put the survey on your camp website and/or email a link to it to your camp community. This will save you quite a bit of money over printing and mailing surveys.
TIP: To be useful, the survey data needs to be entered, tabulated, and analyzed. You can manually enter this data from the emails sent to you by the webform but you can save yourself a lot of effort by using commercially available survey software that automatically writes all completed survey webforms to a database and that has built in, easy to analysis tools.

As I said, most of the 'missing pieces' in this article are easy to add to your current camp website and there are companies who specialize providing these services to camps (often at surprisingly reasonable prices) so there really is no good reason not to make sure your camp website has all of the above features. It will enrich your camp community's experience immeasurably.

Andrew Ackerman is the Chief Operations Officer of Bunk1.com. Bunk1.com provides password protected Community features, full websites, staffing services to summer camps and maintains a widely used camp search engine. For more information regarding this article or Bunk1.com, please contact owners@Bunk1.com or call 1-888-465-CAMP.