Category: Daycare Websites

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!

Mobile Responsive Child Care Website Design

You may or may not have heard the term “mobile responsive” but if you haven’t (and you have a website) you should read this article to find out more.

First, mobile-responsive just means that your website is setup to automatically reformat to fit any screen size (on a computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone.)  It means you don’t have to squeeze, expand, scroll left-right to be able to read a website on a mobile device (and we all know how much we hate to do that.)

mobilerespoWithout going into a lot of explanation, let’s just say that Google thinks this is now a pretty important aspect of what makes a quality website so that means it should be important to you too.  (Unless you don’t care about those silly website rankings.)  Bottom line: you don’t want your website to be pushed down in the rankings because your site isn’t optimized for mobile users.

Websites for Daycares now builds all new websites in mobile-responsive format and if you have any questions about this topic, feel free to drop us a line or call us at 979-848-8266.

Here are a few examples of recent sites we built that are mobile-responsive.  Open them in your browser window and resize the window to watch the content rearrange for optimal viewing.

www.perfectbeginningschildcare.com.au

www.boldspringsacademy.com

www.kiddieuinc.com

www.childrenscastle.org

Have you installed Google Analytics?

If you have a business website, you have surely pondered: How many unique people visit my site every day?  Every month?  Every year?  What pages on my site are getting the most hits and which ones are getting the least?  How are people finding my site?  What keywords are they using on the search engines?  How long, on average, are they staying on my site?  What pages have the highest bounce rate?

google-analyticsThese are all answers that you need to know in order to continually improve your website presence and increase traffic to your site over time.  The better website experience you provide to your viewers, the more time they will spend on your site.  The more time they spend on your site, the more Google notices.

Installing Google Analytics on your site is very easy.

First, you need to create an account with Google if you don’t already have one and sign in here:  http://www.google.com/analytics/.

Next, click on the Admin tab at the top of your screen.

Under the Property column, click on Tracking Info.  Then Tracking Code.

You’ll see a script on the next screen that you should copy and paste into an email to your webmaster.  Ask him or her to insert it into every page of the website.

Once it’s installed, you can revisit your Analytics control panel to verify that it’s been installed.  You should start receiving data on your visitors within a few days.

On a side note, if you plan to use other marketing channels like Google Adwords or other campaign management conversion tools, you may want to consider asking your Webmaster to install your Analytics tracking code via Google Tag Manager.  It probably isn’t necessary for 95% of the people reading this article but if you’re in that small bucket, go that route.

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!

I launched my new website yesterday – why isn’t it showing up on Google?

Patient not ImpatientIf you launched a brand new site to a brand new domain recently, you are in for a bit of a waiting period with Google’s search engine.  Simply put, your new website simply doesn’t have enough authority to rank well yet for your keywords.  Google needs some time to verify that your site is not malicious and that there is relevant content on your site.  This delay doesn’t apply to our client’s that come to us with an existing site or domain that is at least a year old.  This is for the client that has no existing website or domain and is just starting out.  Be prepared for a 3 month, 6 month, possibly even a year delay to start seeing your site show up in the search results for your keyword phrases.

First, know that Websites for Daycares always optimizes our client sites with the client’s most important keyword phrases so there’s nothing “wrong” with your website.  We wish we could magically control Google’s algorithm to get your site out of the Google sandbox faster but this is unfortunately a penalty all new sites have to pay initially.  I hate telling my clients in this situation about this delay but the good news is that there are some things you can do to move things along more quickly.

1. Submit your local business to Google Maps / Places and do the same for Bing and don’t forget to incorporate your keywords with your listing!  They will send you something in the mail to confirm your physical location and once your listing is confirmed (may take a few weeks) this will help you get more exposure and hits to your site because your location will appear on their local results searches.

2. Look for established websites in your community that could offer you a link to your site from their site.  Look at your local chamber of commerce, getting an advertising link on your local news website, or submitting an article to a local magazine that will include a link to your site.  Do not get links from low-quality sites or pay for links from spam-filled directories.  This will hurt your site in the long run, not help it.

3.  Utilize social media!  Get that Facebook page created for your business and ask your local friends to like and share your new page.  Create posts on your new Facebook page and include a link to your website wherever possible.  For example, you could create a post letting people know you updated your school calendar and link people to that page right on the post.  The more visitors and hits you get to your site, the more likely you are to get out of the sandbox early.

Most important:  don’t give up and be patient – your site will start working for you very soon. You might also consider advertising (pay-per-click ads) with Google until you are getting more organic traffic in the coming months.  Set your daily or weekly budgets for clicks and this will help you get a jump-start on your site traffic.

Are you utilizing online reviews for your child care business?

Whether you have been in business for 5 months or 5 years, it is important that you share positive customer feedback with potential new customers.  Your website may include a Testimonials or Reviews page but your website visitors are going to know that you put those there and may not trust the reviews.  The best approach is to get your happy customers to talk about your business on 3rd party, social media sites.

???????????????????????At a minimum, you should be asking customers to review you on Google+ and Yelp.  Your reviews on these 2 websites will have a direct result on your search engine results because they rank very highly for local business and mobile searches.  If you have 10 or 15 5-star ratings with these sites, your listing is going to stand out on their search results against those with few or none.  Make sure you have a business profile page setup with both of these sites and customize it to the maximum extent possible.  Add a banner photo on Google+ and include details about your business.  Remember, most people will see this page or results before they find the link to your site so include the highlights and link to your website, of course.

Share the link to both sites with your customer base and also include it in your email signature, website, and social media pages.  It’s important to keep the reviews fresh and up-to-date so try to actively keep this a priority.

Once you have some established reviews on both sites, take advantage of the website widgets that you can add to your website.  This will allow your website visitors to read your reviews on those sites and also allow current customers another way to leave your business feedback.

If you utilize these sites and actively pursue positive feedback from your customers, your business will receive more traffic and conversions and ultimately more business!

Should you have any questions or need assistance friends, please contact me. I’m here to help you and as always, I would love to hear from you!