Your Day Care Needs a Website
Written by Fiona H Lohrenz   
Wednesday, 25 June 2008
I'm a huge advocate of having a website and blog to support your day care business. My website was born at the same time as my day care and I have benefited from a lot of business that otherwise might not have found me. They might have overlooked my service in favor of a bigger, better, faster, shinier, more centrally located day care. Word Count: 508

Your day care business can benefit enormously from having a website and blog. I have connected with a lot of clients that otherwise might not have found me or might have overlooked my service in favor of one of the above. There are many bigger, faster, shinier, more centrally located days with bigger advertising budgets than mine.

People were impressed with my website; with the pictures, information and 'glimpse inside' that it offered. The Montessori curriculum, the beautiful, country setting and the fact that we are a family run business appealed to them. They felt like they knew us already thanks to the 'personal touch' effect of the website.

Communication with potential and existing clients is so much easier, as is marketing your day care when you have an online presence. It is not difficult to maintain or create a website and a professional look can be easily achieved. Your business can be marketed better by a regularly updated, vibrant website and blog than by other methods at less cost. Include lots of information about you and your day care ensure your site is easily navigated.

The early stages involved quite a bit of work ensuring all my keywords and tags were effective, submitting to online child care and business directories but the work paid off. Most Google and other search engine queries for day care in my area will have my business listed in the first few results.

Ensure you have pictures of your bright, airy playrooms, outdoor playgrounds and shots of the exterior of your day care. Help parents understand what your day care offers by incorporating details of important policies, your educational curriculum and what you charge. Downloads of your parent handbook and day care contract provides answers many telling questions for parents and puts their minds at rest.

Keep your existing and future clients up to speed and interested in your day care by adding a blog to your website. I am getting lots of positive comments and responses having recently begun my own blog - Wordpress makes it easy for even the most technically challenged to to this. Put pictures of you and your employees on a staff page and include a few details about each person. This way, you won't be such a stranger to your potential clients and they'll be much more inclined to consider your service.

Fiona Lohrenz drew on her 10 years experience of running a day care to found ChildCareOnly.com and produce a 'How to Start a Day Care Business' DVD guide: www.startchildcare.com Fiona can be reached at her website: http://www.childcareonly.com