No, that is not a typo in the title, but it did catch your attention, didn’t it? In the campground industry, most park owners choose a website design and hosting services provider with a track record and industry presence. Others choose to affiliate with a franchise, where they can benefit from corporate branding and marketing expertise that has been proven effective. Yet others choose to go it alone, taking the D-I-Y route with so-called “free websites” from companies like Wix, Weebly, Homestead, and Vistaprint.

Sometimes the do-it-yourself people are simply “hands on” business owners who feel uncomfortable with delegating responsibility. I often wonder if they also build the washers and dryers in their laundry, make the ice cream that is sold in their store, and provide each weekend’s entertainment, performing as a one-man-band every Saturday night. Other folks seem to resentfully think that professional services are overpriced, failing to acknowledge the legitimate costs and years of education, training and experience that are the foundations of those services. Finally, there are park owners who truly cannot afford to hire outside services for something that they would admittedly prefer not to do themselves.

This post is intended for the people in that last category, park owners who recognize that they need assistance in marketing their parks but believe that help is out of reach.

One of my company’s clients, based in New Hampshire, had wanted to replace the old website that we had built for them back in 2009, but a new mobile-friendly site was just not in their budget regardless of how creatively they juggled their finances. That changed about a month ago, when they received funding through a Micro Enterprise Community Development Block Grant that paid for most of the project. Funds were awarded by the New Hampshire Community Development Finance Authority to Grafton County, which then sub-awarded funds to the Northern Community Investment Corporation. Yes, it can be a complex process! The new website is already live, generating positive customer reviews and new business for our client’s park. Your park might also qualify as a beneficiary from this type of funding.

In our client’s instance, they were located adjacent to what has been identified as a REAP Zone. That acronym stands for Rural Economic Area Partnership Program, an area that the United States Department of Agriculture has identified as facing economic and community development issues. Many, if not most, campgrounds are located in rural areas. By definition, many of these locations are geographically isolated and face population loss and economic distress often due to declines in agriculture. According to the USDA, the REAP Initiative was intended to address such issues as stagnant or declining employment, constraints in economic activity and growth, and disconnection from markets, information and finance. Pilot zones were designated in parts of North Dakota, upstate New York, and the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont (which can also benefit parts of New Hampshire.) Despite the current political climate, agencies continue to develop similar programs for other disadvantaged regions across the country, including the more recent Promise Zone Initiative.

The key to qualification for the CBDG Micro Program is generally to be located in an economically challenged area, to have a number of employees within a specified range, and for your household to fall within specified income requirements. Not every small business qualifies, but many might be surprised to find that they do. With goals that include the expansion of employment opportunities, a variety of projects that help to strengthen or grow a business might be funded, including marketing assistance and even social media training.

To determine if grants are available in your area, you will need to do a bit of research, with the understanding that small businesses do not directly apply for such funding. You must identify the local non-profit economic development agency that will apply for funding on behalf of the local businesses in your area. Start by performing an online search for “(name of your county and state) economic development agencies” or “(name of your county and state) small business development center”. Then call that agency to find someone who will assist you in determining what programs might be available in your local area at this particular time. Depending upon the organization that will be administering the program, you may be required to complete a brief application form to determine eligibility, with the agency assisting you every step of the way, approving an outside vendor, and authorizing the commencement of work.

In addition to Community Development Block Grant resources, you may also contact the Cooperative Extension Service office at your local land grant college or university or even ask your local banker to put you in touch with an organization that can provide the financial assistance that you need. Without taking the initiative, you will have no idea what resources might be available, and there are literally staff members who are waiting to be of assistance in helping you to grow your business. To paraphrase a famous newspaper editorial, “Yes, Virginia, there is a free website.”

Here in my home state of Massachusetts, a problem in recent years involved elementary schools (already considered to be among the best in the country) that were concentrating too much effort on teaching students to pass the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment Test, commonly known as MCAS. More recently replaced by newer testing that is in line with the national Common Core Standards that have been adopted by most states, the problem with MCAS was that teachers had to devote far too much classroom time teaching students to score highly on tests rather than actually learning. I am not a teacher, but is seems to me that it is more important for students to learn effectively than to be taught to pass tests with the highest possible scores.

A similar issue takes place when companies that market their website services run bot-based tests that present audits of potential website errors, warnings and load speeds. There is no question that it is important to have a site that renders properly and loads quickly across a full range of browsers and devices; however, all speed tests have their limitations. To run an automated test that purports to present the final word on the quality of a website and the experience that it offers to visitors is a flawed concept at best and a competitive potshot at worst.

No bot can effectively measure the quality of the end-user experience because that is an inherently subjective process. There is a tradeoff between a site that is visually exciting and a site that loads instantly, and many of the “errors” that bots identify account for mere milliseconds in the scope of initial overall page load times. A site that consists of nothing but text will usually run a perfect score, but how many reservations do you think such a site might generate for a campground or outdoor resort? My advice is to avoid falling for the bait, particularly when it is offered by companies that fall short themselves when it comes to overall quality and integrity of design – factors that directly influence human-based decisions rather than bot-based tests.

Let me offer an analogy that relates to the family camping industry. Many parks have begun offering one of the many “wine and paint” sessions that have become popular in recent years. They all follow a similar formula, where an artist whose career has never caught fire leads a session where attendees drink just enough wine to encourage their creativity but not so much wine that they can’t find the end of the paintbrush with the bristles. The idea is for everybody to copy the painting that the session leader paints. The order of the day is uniformity, a lack of originality, and the building of self-esteem. If Pablo Picasso was still alive and attended one of these sessions, his work would be the laugh of the evening.

When it comes to websites, the single most important consideration is whether or not a site is mobile-friendly. A site that is not optimized for display on mobile devices – particularly smartphones – presents an impediment to the end-user experience. What is most important is how long it takes before a user is able to read and navigate your site. Whether some images might take a few seconds to load is not an impediment to that experience.

If you are wondering whether your website is up to par, ask for a human, personalized evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses. That will take some time and effort to prepare, but it will offer results that are based upon the actual experiences of human end-users, not the bots that will never contact you to make a reservation for Site 127 for the second week of August.

Times change, along with the ways that websites are viewed and the algorithms that determine how they are ranked in search results. The one thing that is consistent is the importance of working with a knowledgeable and reliable company with a trusted track record to stay on top of things and to represent the best interests of your company.