Childcare Provider Tips

Childcare.co.uk is the UK's largest online childcare advertising platform, trusted by over 3 million members.

Create a free account!

It's completely free to advertise on Childcare.co.uk, so if you haven't yet created an account then Register Free now!

Complete your profile

Your Childcare.co.uk profile is your advert to parents and your opportunity to sell yourself, so make sure you spend some time thinking about what you are going to say about yourself to make you stand out. You will have the opportunity to tell parents about yourself and the childcare services you offer. You can read our free childcare provider guide on Writing your Profile which will give you more detailed tips on what to say in your profile.

Add tags to your profile

Tags allow you to tick boxes in your profile to provide a summary of your services. There are tags for things like 'Ofsted Registered', 'DBS Check', 'Special Needs Experience' and to state you offer funded places for '2 Year Old Free Childcare' and '3 and 4 Year Old Free Childcare'.

As well as being used for the 'My Summary' section of your profile, tags are also used when members search using our Advanced Search page, so it's really important to add all the appropriate tags otherwise you will not appear on all the relevant searches that parents make.

Ask families for reviews

When looking for childcare, parents really like to read reviews from other parents. Make sure you ask every parent you have worked for to leave you a review on your profile. It's completely free for parents to leave reviews.

The more positive reviews you have, the more confident a parent will be in contacting you and using your services.

Childcare providers without reviews often set off alarm bells with parents and they are likely to choose an alternative highly rated provider.

We also show profiles with reviews higher up each search results page. Profiles with positive reviews are TEN times more likely to be viewed than profiles without reviews.

Upload your documents

It's completely free for childcare providers to upload their documents to our secure digital vault. You should upload documents such as your DBS Check, first aid certificate and Ofsted Registration certificate.

Once you've uploaded a document it will be verified by our team and we'll show details of the verified documents you have uploaded on your profile.

We also show additional icons in the search results to indicate which members have uploaded verified documents. Profiles with uploaded documents are FIVE times more likely to be viewed than profiles without documents.

Don't worry, we won't allow any member to view your documents unless you choose to specifically invite them to do so. All documents stored are watermarked and highly encrypted for security reasons.

Add your detailed availability

Childcare providers can now specify exactly when they are available by day of week and time of day. It's really important that you complete your detailed availability, so if a parent is, for example, searching for a childminder who has spaces on a Thursday afternoon, then you will appear in those search results.

You can complete your detailed availability from the My Profile page.

Link your profile to local schools

If you are a childminder that offers a pick-up or drop-off service at local schools then you can now link your profile to the local school.

We have thousands of families every month searching for school pick-up and drop-off services and once you've linked to a school, your profile will also show on the profile of the school.

To link your profile to a school to show you offer a drop-off or pick-up service you must login then search for schools near your postcode. Then view the profile of the school you wish to link to and follow the on-screen instructions.

Add a photo of yourself to your profile

Childcare provider profiles containing photos are FIVE times more likely to be viewed than profiles without photos. Add a photo of yourself to your profile to increase the chances of your profile being viewed.

Photos of yourself gain more views than profiles with generic photos of your setting. Remember, childcare provider photos must not contain children for child protection reasons.

If you have added a photo and are a gold member then you are more likely to be randomly featured right at the top of the search results.

Login regularly

The default search results are ordered by the date and time of last login so that we show the most recently active members first. To ensure you stay towards the top of the search results you should login daily.

Upgrade to gold membership to be featured at the top of the search results

There are lots of gold membership benefits but one great advantage is that gold members are randomly featured right at the top of each search results page. Gold members get TEN times more profile views than free members.

Gold members can also have a profile screen name of up to 20 characters whereas free members can only have a screen name of up to 8 characters.

Other gold member benefits include free online training, tastecard, Kids Pass and Creative Steps magazine. Plus gold members also can access over 500 free online information guides are resources. Childminder and nanny gold members can also apply for free public liability insurance.

Contact parents before they contact you

Our service is very popular and parents have a large choice of childcare providers. There are likely to be several other childcare providers in your area offering the same or similar services.

Don't sit back and hope that parents will contact you. Make sure you login regularly to check for new parents seeking childcare in your area and contact them as soon as you can, before another childcare provider has an opportunity to get in first.

You can contact parents via our safe and secure messaging system or even text or call them directly, if they have chosen to add their direct contact details to their profile.

When sending a message to introduce yourself, make sure your messages are well written and grammatically correct. Parents are put off by bad spelling and slang terms.

Your introductory messages should detail why you would make a great childcare provider for their child and inform the parents more about your experience and qualifications.

Don't send short messages saying things like 'Do you still need childcare?' or 'I have spaces, view my profile' - such messages are likely to yield poor results.

Don't give up

Not every message you send will receive a response and some parents might not even bother to read it. Don't forget you are a salesperson for your business and it takes time, determination and persistence for salespeople to yield results. The most successful childcare providers using our service, make logging into our website and checking for new local parents part of their daily routine.

Be Safe

Make sure you read our Safety Centre for advice on how to stay safe when using our service.

Good luck!

If you need any help with any aspect of our service then you can contact us 365 days a year and we will respond quickly.