Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Start with clearly stating where your program is located on your home page.

Next - show the experience with photos (do you have them from previous years) and/or videos.

Now - tell the reader who your camp is clearly for (more than ages 4-11) - a profile of the personality of the camper that loves your program.

Finally, testimonials from both parents and kids about their experiences. What especially did they love - a class, an instructor, an fellow camper, ... ?

1) The website is friendly, but does not provide much value. "First, provide value" is the mantra of one of the top U.S. sales trainers, Jeffrey Gitomer, who publishes a weekly free E-Zine, Sales Caffeine. In your case, presumably "value" would be a section about children learning. Local resources for great children's books, a learnings series (e.g. on VideoTube or SlideShow) you particularly recommend, etc. You can do that as a one-shot on a Resources section of the website. Better is to have an electronic newsletter, perhaps one or two times a month -- but that does entail an awful lot of work to do it right.

2) "About us" is attractive. Something along those lines should be on the landing page. Specifically, the Internet gurus nowadays are heavily promoting having a short video front and center on the landing page. I do not think it is quite the magic bullet it is made out to be. But a one or two minute video of children having fun learning something could be a powerful message indeed -- on the homepage, dead center.

Network to find someone with the necessary film competence. To help you ask your volunteer film director better questions, see Andy Jenkins website https://www.thevideobosss.com/ He went to the New York film school (of NYU?). The videos he has on the website to promote his on-line instruction about shooting videos have a lot of solid content.

Regards,

JH
P.S. Normally I would agree that "free website made by xxx" is a major negative. I am vaguely familiar with Yola's services and in this case do not think mentioning her is damaging. "Yola" is a cute name, and some people may think she is just another volunteer (that computer savy 14 year old).

Aesthetics: use the wasted space at the top for phone, tagline, set expectations.

Geographically: I couldn't figure out if this is in the U.S. or Canada.
I didn't recognize the town names or the area code. I didn't find mention of state/county/region. if you'd make that clear on every page, it can help improve your chance of getting found in search engines.

How about some pictures of happy kids, clean facilities, fascinating activities.

Get rid of Scholarship page. It has no business being there if it's "under construction."

Do some SEO keyword research and build optimized pages around the most relevant, high volume phrases.

Hope that's helpful. Good luck!
-Roland

Please ditch Yola, buy a $10 domain name, and invest in a $75 per year hosting plan.

You need to put your information prominent on each page - I'd suggest in the top right field that has nothing in it; your address and phone number so no one has to search for it. Is the volunteer page there for specific people or anyone? You would do good to have at least one sentence talking about encouraging volunteering. For the summer camp page, you've gone right to the hours and the cost. There's no writeup to entice me to find out more. or to let me know what kind of activities you offer. Sell yourself and your product more; make me want to find out more.