Thankfully, creating a stunning website for daycare businesses doesn’t have to be a daunting task. In this guide, we’ll cover 10 essential tips for crafting a website for daycare that truly pops for prospective customers. By focusing on these strategies, you can ensure your daycare business stands out online, attracting more families seeking quality childcare solutions.
1. Use a Website Builder
One of the best ways to make your website look professional is to use a website builder. Website builders are far less expensive than hiring a professional designer, and they can make it straightforward to design a website in a few hours or less with no need to do any code. Many website builders come with templates to get your site started, and you can easily customize the images, text, logos, and more to make your site your own.
There’s no one-size-fits-all website builder that will work for every daycare business. However, we’ve reviewed dozens of top builders to help you find the one that best suits your needs. If you want the freedom to create a highly custom design, for example, you can try Wix. If you want to get a visitor-friendly site off the ground as quickly as possible, GoDaddy can help.
Many website builders offer free trials, so you can start designing your site right away and only pay for the service if you’re happy with the result.
2. Stay Organized and Streamlined
Many daycare owners want to tell parents everything about their services. But putting too much information on your website might not be good. It can make your website look too busy or hard to use. This can be off-putting for parents who just want to find information easily.
Before you start making your website, it’s important to think about what you really need to tell parents. You should focus on things like how they can contact you, how much your daycare costs, and what fun activities you have for the kids.
When you’re setting up your website, try to keep the main menu simple. If your website has more than 4-5 pages, you might want to put extra pages at the bottom of your site, not at the top or in the main menu.
On your pages, try to organize your information well. Use boxes or special sections to make everything clear. If you’re using a website builder like Zyro, you can even see which parts of your site people look at the most. Looking at daycare website examples can help you see how to set up your site in a simple and clear way.
3. Focus on Mobile
Chances are, busy parents are visiting your website from their smartphone while they’re on the go. So, it’s critical that your daycare’s website looks just as good on a small, vertically-oriented screen as it does when you’re designing it on your computer.
Nearly all the best website builders offer mobile-responsive templates, which let your site automatically adapt to smartphones and tablets. However, that alone isn’t a guarantee that your site will look good on mobile devices. Look for platforms that let you preview and edit your mobile site before you publish, like Wix and Squarespace.
4. Explain What Makes Your Daycare Stand Out
Parents have a lot of choices when it comes to picking a daycare for their children. So, you need to succinctly explain why parents should choose your daycare over your competitors.
That explanation can come in the form of short, catchy copy on your homepage or a dedicated page covering the benefits of your daycare programs. Use bullet points and headings to make sure busy parents can read your key points in seconds. Many website builder templates have pre-made standout elements that work well for conveying this type of information.
5. Start a Blog
Starting a blog on your daycare business website has a range of benefits. For one thing, it offers another way to show off all that your daycare has to offer. You can highlight your educator-to-child ratio, any unique resources you offer children who attend, or even some of the activities that you do with children throughout the week.
Another reason to start a blog is that it’s great for your website’s SEO. Blog posts are likely to hit keywords related to daycare naturally, boosting your site in searches for daycare centers in your area. As you add posts to your site, search engines like Google also register that your website is being continuously updated and rank you higher in search results.
Most top website builders, including platforms like Site123 and 1&1 IONOS, make it easy to add a blog to your site. Keep a special eye out for drag-and-drop design tools for adding images, videos, and more to your blog posts, as not all website builders include these options to customize your blog.
6. Help Parents Take the Next Step
To convert website visitors into customers, it’s important to make it as easy as possible for parents to take the next step. Prominently display your contact information so parents can call or email with questions. Invite them to visit your daycare in-person so that they can see what’s great about it for themselves.
You may also want to consider enabling online bookings so that parents can schedule a visit or even make a reservation for daycare without leaving your website. Website builders like GoDaddy, HostGator, and Squarespace all make it easy to add an online calendar to your website so your business can accept bookings.
7. Upgrade Your Hosting
Nothing ruins a website experience like slow-loading pages. Slow loading times make your business look unprofessional and can lead busy parents to leave your site altogether. Typically, slow loading is the result of poor website hosting rather than anything to do with your site’s design.
The good news is that many website builders include high-quality web hosting with every plan. However, if you build your website with a platform like WordPress.org, it’s up to you to choose a website host. We’ve reviewed the best hosting services to help you find the fastest options for your business. Some of these, like Hostinger and Network Solutions, even include access to website builders at no extra cost.
8. Proudly Display Reviews and Testimonials
There are few marketing tactics more effective at reeling in new clients than displaying social proof of how good your daycare really is. If you have glowing reviews on sites like Google or Trustpilot, be sure to feature them prominently on your website.
You can display your star rating from these sites, which offers a quick signal to visitors that your daycare is high quality. In addition, website builders like Wix and Weebly let you add block quotes, which is a great way to display short testimonials from parents.
Don’t be afraid to get creative when adding reviews to your website, either. For example, if one of the children in your daycare has something to say about their favorite activity, you can include their testimonial alongside reviews from parents.
9. Be Transparent about Pricing
The cost of daycare is one of the biggest factors that parents take into account when choosing where to send their kids each day. So, it’s important to be up-front and transparent about your pricing. The harder it is for parents to figure out if your daycare falls within their price range, the more likely they are to give up and check out another daycare’s website.
The easiest way to display pricing is with a dedicated pricing page. If you have a standard set of prices or packages, simply list each one and explain what’s included. You can also nudge parents towards the plan that works best for them and your business. For example, include a “Best Value” or “Most Popular” tag on your best-selling daycare packages.
If you don’t have set pricing, you can still offer parents an estimate of how much your daycare will cost. Give a few examples of different daycare options and the cost for each. Or give a “Starting From” price along with a list of additional services that parents can add for their children.
10. Invest in Photos and Videos
The best way to advertise your daycare business to parents is to show rather than tell. That means using photos, videos, and other multimedia throughout your website. When your images tell a positive story about your daycare, parents are likely to be more engaged with your business and more likely to drop by for an in-person visit.
In fact, photos and videos are so important for showing off your business that they’re worth investing in. Consider hiring a photographer or a videographer to come into your daycare for a few hours to capture some of your most popular activities in action. (Of course, you’ll need to make sure that parents consent to have their children photographed ahead of time.)
High-quality photos not only make your business look more professional but can also better capture the educational and fun elements of your daycare that parents are most interested in seeing.
Conclusion
Creating a stunning website for your daycare business is essential to attracting new parents. With these 10 tips, you can take your website from average to exceptional. Check out our list of the 10 best website builders to get started creating your site today!
