Creating your own Childminder site

Part 1. Working out what you want to tell people

So you want to promote your business and present a professional image to your customers? You can create hand written cards for shop windows or even place a small ad in a local paper, but in this age the internet is where most working parents will start to look for childcare, so make sure you create the right impression.

Before you begin by diving into your website, make a list of what things you want to tell people who visit it. Things to think about might be:

• Name of your business, e.g. “Cheery Childminder”. This is your brand name. When people hear about you they will search for this on the net.  You should make sure you stick to the name you choose so choose carefully as this is going to be your site name too.

• Have you got a logo or design that you use normally? Will you need to create one? Can you use a digital picture from your own photo collection?

• You and the service you offer. Do you offer special needs care? Outings? Your last Ofsted/SMCA grade. Think about what people might be searching for when they open Google. Most people will search for “special needs childcare in Sussex” as it will give better results than simply typing “childcare in Sussex”. This is where you sell the business and will make up the main home page for your site. If people are not impressed they won’t click the “contact me” button.  The content you need to provide should be easy to read and not too busy on the page. It is faster to hit the back button and the next search result than to read through loads of tiny badly coloured text.

• Fees. Do you want to add them now or wait till someone calls you and asks?

• Don’t forget your contact details and maybe a map of where you are located in relation to local schools.

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