This first year I wanted to take things slow and not have full capacity but now that I am almost a year in I want to really grow my enrollment and then work toward building a wait list.

Any suggestions of ways and places to market?

So far I have gotten two clients from listing on Facebook BST groups, one client from Care.com and one client from a referral of a current family, I am not sure how my last one found me.

I have a solid website that I am really happy with but no Facebook page (as all of my clients do not want their children posted online which makes it difficult to keep an active FB page).

Marketing so far has been the area I feel the least comfortable with.

One item I can do is figure out how to get more traffic to my website (open to suggestions on this) but what other ways can I market my program so people know to even visit my website?

Thanks in advance.

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I'm not a Facebook fan either, but a couple weeks ago I decided to make a page for my woodworking, because a person with another store in the mall said to. I made it and she "liked" it and now 2 weeks later, I have several likes and followers, and have already had 3 contacts because of Facebook. I don't care for it, and in my opinion, it shouldn't be a serious business thing and definitely not mandatory, but we have to go with the times.

For your website, if someone searches for daycare yourcity will they find it in the listings? I went to check the one from last year, but you must have changed it.

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I use FB but do not have a dedicated page because only one out of five parents signed the waiver. I list post of BST groups on there and mommy groups on there which has secured two clients. I am also considering doing some FB ADs but am not sure they are worth the expense.

Actually I just tried this and no they do not find me.... that way. They used to with the old name but I needed to change the name for a couple reasons so created a new site not attached to the old one. I did feel I got more traffic to my old site but am not sure what I did differently. I feel hidden - what do I need to do differently?

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I would say do the dedicated page, but don't put pictures of the kids. Pictures help, but you just have to not include kids in them. Problem is where people go to find a business. Remember the days when a successful business HAD to be listed in the yellow pages? Practically nobody uses them now. Instead, you had to have a website that people could find. That's still true now, but Facebook is becoming the most common place people go to when looking.

Does your current site have the main words people will search for in the content? In the title and meta tags? Do your pages have keyword tags? Those things don't make a huge difference, and not right away, but they are the easiest things to make a difference. Also age and links. How long was the old site active, were there other sites that had links to it, and did it have links to other relevant but non-competing websites?

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If you do make a facebook page, find local ones that potential clients would be going to and make useful posts on them. Like any pages that may have any interest in yours and as they like you back, their friends will be able to see yours.

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Try Daycare Bear. Its free. I just set up a listing this weekend and had my first response after only two days.

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what is a reason for this recommendation?
If parents give a permission to use kids picture so why not?
90% of my parents give the permission.My Facebook page and website have a ton of kids photos&videos. On the most of them the kids are busy and don't look at my camera.

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I have this guideline as well. Not within my licensing rules but just personally.

I don't feel comfortable posting anyone's child's photo on the internet. Secure or not. Written permission or not.

Doesn't matter to me as I feel it's kind of a violation of the child's right to privacy. I think that if parents can't sign away their child's rights, they certainly can't provide permission for their image to be posted online anywhere either.

I don't know....it just doesn't sit right with me.
I DO have photos of kids on my website but they aren't kids I know and are just images taken from free sites.

I know you mentioned the kids not looking at the camera but it's still just really not something I feel okay with. But that might just be me.

If your state allows it and you have the parent's permission, then it's all good.

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