Category: Custom Daycare Website Design

Why you need a careers page on your child care website

Many of our clients are taking advantage of adding a careers page to their website for several reasons such as:

  1. blog4The child care business can list their current job openings and their application process
  2. Interested applicants can submit an inquiry, upload their resume, and indicate what position they are interested in
  3. It streamlines the application process for the child care owner and reduces time answering phone calls and walk-ins.
  4. It’s free advertising for your job opportunities and people visiting your site can share it with others they know might be interested.
  5. Child care owners can share your Careers page on your Facebook page for even more exposure.

We regularly install these types of pages for our clients.  Here are a few you can review:

http://wacommunitychildcare.com/careers.html

http://oakleafkidsacademy.com/careers.html

Good luck and if you’re not already a client, we hope to be doing business with you soon!

Top 5 Questions About Mobile-Responsive Child Care Websites

If you aren’t already aware, having a mobile-responsive website is now more important than ever.  Your customers and potential customers expect your website to adapt and be user-friendly on their smart phones and tablets and more importantly, the search engines now consider that as part of how they rank websites.  Here are some FAQ’s our clients have about updating their website or creating a new one, that is mobile-friendly:

Question:  Is this going to be a separate mobile site? 
Answer:  No, when you have a mobile-responsive website, you don’t have to go through the expense and hassle of having 2 separate websites to manage.  You will still have just one website but it will be coded in a way that the format will automatically adjust / adapt for the user’s screen size – whether it be desktop, tablet, or phone.

eblast_googleQuestion:  Do I need to decide what content will show on phones/tablets?
Answer:  No.  All of your site content will still display on every page – just reformatted and optimized so that users don’t have to scroll left/right or pinch/zoom to see all of the content.

Question:  Will some parts of the website not work on phones/tablets? 
Answer:  Your entire website will be 100% mobile responsive.  That includes any slideshow features, photo galleries, videos, website forms, buttons, links, etc.

Question:  Do I really need a mobile-responsive website?
Answer: Absolutely!  More people now browse websites on their mobile devices than on desktops. You don’t want to inconvenience potential customers who expect your site to be mobile-friendly.

Question:  What will happen if I don’t optimize my site for mobile users?
Answer:  You will certainly lose more and more customers as a result over time, as your competitors provide a better website experience.

Multiple Languages & Auto Translator for your Child Care Website

Many of our clients need to target clients who speak languages other than English and in the past, this meant we had to create multiple pages with duplicate content in various languages. It was highly inefficient and time consuming to update content but that is no longer necessary with Google Translate.

7aNow, you can install this Google widget on any page of your website that needs to have the option to change the language.  Here is an example of a site we created with the widget installed:  http://creativecarecs.com.  This particular client only needed Spanish added so that’s the only option that appears when you click the down arrow by the Google menu.  However, Google allows you to select as many languages as you need.

Here’s the link to get started with Google Translate:  https://translate.google.com/manager/website/add 

You will need to add your website address, choose a style for the widget, the languages, and a few other options. On the last step, they will provide you with a script that will need to be added to your website where you want the widget to appear.  Send this to your web developer or if you have a CMS / backend system for your website, you may be able to install this yourself.

Good luck and if you’re not already a customer, we hope to be doing business with you soon!

 

How to effectively add a video to your child care website

blog3You may be considering if you should, and how you would, add a video to your daycare website.  First, it is an excellent way to add a professional touch and an interactive feel to your homepage and can really set your site apart from your competitors.  Here are a few of our clients who are doing it right:

http://creativecarecs.com
http://crawlers2scholars.com

Here’s the best way to add video to your website:

  1. If you don’t already have a social media video channel for your business, create one.  Most of my clients create a YouTube channel but you could also use a similar service like Vimeo.
  2. You’ll want to upload any and all videos to your channel and make sure to add your keywords to the videos as the search engines include videos in their search results. Title your videos well as the titles will appear on the video on your website.
  3. On the video settings, there is an area where you can copy the Video Embed code.  You can configure how large or small you want it but I think larger looks generally better and makes more of an impact.  Install this HTML code (or have your website company install) on your website. A few tips: Don’t set it to “autoplay” as this can be an annoyance to your visitors and set it so that it does not play suggested videos after it’s complete. I have found that most of the time, it displays some videos that you wouldn’t necessarily want playing on your website.

Good luck and if you’re not already a customer, we hope to be doing business with you soon!

Top features of our new and improved Photo Gallery

blog2We are so happy to announce that our integrated Photo Gallery was recently updated to address some valuable feedback from our customers.  Our customers wanted the ability to have multiple albums within their photo gallery, for the photo gallery to be mobile responsive, easier navigation through the photos and the ability to easily and quickly upload lots of photos at once to the back end system.

Here is a live client site with the new photo gallery installed:  http://milesofsmilesdaycare.com/photos.html

Our upgraded photo gallery is included in our Professional Child Care Website Setup Package but can also be added on to our other setup packages at an additional fee.

If you’re not already a customer, we hope to be working with you soon!

5 Signs Your Website is Overdue for an Update

You may have been putting off that website redesign for some time – thinking, “Well, maybe it’s not that bad” or “Maybe I am getting more business from my website than I think.”  If you haven’t had a fresh update to your website in more than a year or two, it’s probably overdue for an update and here are some signs that it’s time for that investment:

  1. Low site traffic and/or poor search engine rankings:  Check your site visitor stats and view the trends over the past 12 to 36 months to see if traffic is steady or falling off.  Also, check your site position on Google with some key search terms and if you’re not where you want to be, you need a web developer who can help you with SEO.innv
  2. Outdated content or design:  Web design trends change year after year and over the years, sites have evolved graphically, structurally, and in terms of user-friendliness.  Your site may be doing you more harm than good if the overall design is very outdated and could actually be driving people away from your business when they visit your site.
  3. Your site is not mobile-responsive: Your website needs to be mobile-friendly considering the fact that more and more people are visiting websites on smart phones or mobile devices than ever before. If your site is more than a year or two old, it probably isn’t mobile-responsive and Google has noticed. Make sure you don’t get penalized for not having a user-friendly website.
  4. Dead links or pages: Nothing can drive away a new potential customer faster than clicking on dead links on your site – especially on your homepage. Do a full site check and make sure you address any and all of these.
  5. Low or no interactivity on the site:  There are so many ways that you can incorporate features on your site that take your pages from boring to exciting. Consider a home page video introduction video or a few video client testimonials.  You could even have a Google interactive tour video added so that people can get a peek inside your facility without having to make an appointment.  If your business has an active Facebook page, add a Facebook widget showing the live feed right on your homepage.  Add a feature that allows people to navigate through slides on your homepage that features your latest announcements or benefits of choosing your business.

I hope this post has been helpful in making the decision to update your website and as always, if we can be of any assistance, don’t hesitate to contact us at info@websitesfordaycares.com.

Are you taking advantage of free advertising with Google Places?

If you haven’t added your local business to Google’s local map tool (called “Google Places”) do it today!  You are missing out on your business showing up in the local results that appear at the very top when someone searches for a local business.  Here is a one-sheet flyer on all the benefits of Google Places.  Unlike the way Google indexes and ranks websites automatically, your business won’t get added to Google Places unless you submit your website to them.  So, here’s how you do it:

  1. Google-Places-1Go to www.Google.com/places and click the link to add your new business. You can add lots of details regarding your business so take advantage of all of the available fields so that your listing stands out from the rest.
  2. You will have to wait for a letter to be mailed to your physical address to confirm your location.  This letter will contain a confirmation code that you will need to enter back on Google’s website.
  3. Once your listing is confirmed (typically takes a week or two), you should start to see your business appear when someone searches for your type of business in their local area.
  4. Don’t forget to add an embedded Google map to the contact page of your website AND be sure to take advantage of Google+ reviews as those appear alongside your business listing!

You don’t get many free business advertising opportunities but this is one that could send you lots of organic (and free) internet traffic your way so don’t delay!

How to incorporate a Google Calendar with your daycare website

Our clients ask us very often: “I want to add a live, interactive calendar to my site that lets people view our upcoming events and important dates.  What’s the best way to do that?”

Answer:  “Google Calendar!”

google+calendarFirst, here’s a sample site with the Google Calendar installed:
http://jmackids.com/schedules.html

The beauty of this tool (other than it being free!) is that you manage your Google Calendar from your desktop / mobile device and the website updates automatically.  You don’t have to go to your website after you update your calendar – it’s instant.  Nice!

To install, just create your Google Calendar and on the left, beside your calendar name, you’ll see an option to “Share this calendar.”  On the next screen, click on the “Calendar details” tab at the top and you’ll see the iframe script there in the “Embed this Calendar” section.  (You can customize the color, size, etc in that spot too.)

Take that code and login to your website CMS.  Click where you want it and hit the HTML button.  Paste in that iFrame code and then preview the page to see if you need to do any resizing.

Don’t forget, you can always contact us for support!