Google Advertising

[Homebody]

OK, so I got my free google website setup and was looking to see how much it costs to advertise. It doesn't say how much it is per click, but has a monthly budget you can set. It has a minimum of $50 that I can select. Would I easily burn through that much money in one month? If you don't mind sharing, for those of you who use this service about how much on average do you spend per month for it? Thanks for any advice.

[MarinaVanessa]

I know you asked for help from people who use it but I wanted to chime in anyway ... I don't use it and I have never paid for advertising promotion. I did pay a small fee for web hosting (after upgrading from a free website) but my free website drew a lot of traffic even before I paid for it.

You can read here what I did and just skip to the parts that talk about internet advertising.
https://www.daycare.com/news/adverti...r-daycare.html

I do 0 advertising right now and haven't had to in years and I still get a minimum of 5-10 phone calls a week and 2 or 3 web forms (email) interested in a tour. It's mostly about updating your website on a regular basis after submitting it for listings on search engines. #3-#5.

Post your website address onto your business cards and network with other family child care providers. It's a little bit of "cheating" but handing out your card to provider's that want to see examples of websites or asking them for an opinion and to critique it will get you more hits and it'll boost your search listing in search engines. Get family to do it too. Post it on social media so your friends and fam can help by giving you feedback and they'll also help boost it. Take it a bit further and join a FB group for providers (a global or national one) and ask for feedback there too so you get that traffic too. You can even post your link here to get feedback from us .

[Mike]

I've done Google advertising for my other businesses a few times. It has never been worth it. It doesn't give you the cost per click until you set it up and choose your words or phrases. The last time I used it was for home renovations and I think the prices were something like this:
renovations - crazy, ~$10/click
the phrase "home renovations" was about $4/click
if I went more specific "home renovation mycity" it went to under a dollar a click

I did $50/month and also did $200/month once and I never got my money back.

[Homebody]

I know you asked for help from people who use it but I wanted to chime in anyway ... I don't use it and I have never paid for advertising promotion. I did pay a small fee for web hosting (after upgrading from a free website) but my free website drew a lot of traffic even before I paid for it.

You can read here what I did and just skip to the parts that talk about internet advertising.
https://www.daycare.com/news/adverti...r-daycare.html

I do 0 advertising right now and haven't had to in years and I still get a minimum of 5-10 phone calls a week and 2 or 3 web forms (email) interested in a tour. It's mostly about updating your website on a regular basis after submitting it for listings on search engines. #3-#5.

Post your website address onto your business cards and network with other family child care providers. It's a little bit of "cheating" but handing out your card to provider's that want to see examples of websites or asking them for an opinion and to critique it will get you more hits and it'll boost your search listing in search engines. Get family to do it too. Post it on social media so your friends and fam can help by giving you feedback and they'll also help boost it. Take it a bit further and join a FB group for providers (a global or national one) and ask for feedback there too so you get that traffic too. You can even post your link here to get feedback from us .

Thank you for the advice MarinaVanessa! I'm definitely going to look into getting my own personal website for daycare. And good idea about putting your policies on the website, that way parents can get a feel for what the daycare will be like. Is it a pretty easy process of setting one up?

[Homebody]

I've done Google advertising for my other businesses a few times. It has never been worth it. It doesn't give you the cost per click until you set it up and choose your words or phrases. The last time I used it was for home renovations and I think the prices were something like this:
renovations - crazy, ~$10/click
the phrase "home renovations" was about $4/click
if I went more specific "home renovation mycity" it went to under a dollar a click

I did $50/month and also did $200/month once and I never got my money back.

Thanks Mike for the info! I was a little hesitant about signing up for it because it did seem like it could get very pricey. No wonder it was so vague about how much each click costs with prices that high!

[MarinaVanessa]

Thank you for the advice MarinaVanessa! I'm definitely going to look into getting my own personal website for daycare. And good idea about putting your policies on the website, that way parents can get a feel for what the daycare will be like. Is it a pretty easy process of setting one up?

Yes it's easy! I use Webs.com and love the drag and drop site designer. I'm in the process of going to a Wordpress site which is more complicated but I've had my website for more than 8 years now with Webs.com and it has been great for me. I wanted more freedom with my layout which is the only reason why I'm switching. I've heard people use Wix.com too and like it. There are others too I'm sure.

You can sign up for their free ones which will probably limit the number of pages you can create but usually it's not an issue. Webs.com gives you 5 pages so if you create a Home, About, Program/FAQ, Parent and Contact page it's enough. Sometimes the free ones allow you to create it for free because they put advertising in a banner or ad somewhere on your pages. They're usually relevant to your profession and I didn't mind it so much, I switched to a paid subscription so I could add more pages which removed the ads.

You can try out a couple of free ones and see which one is easier for you to work with

[Michael]

I can emphasis it enough. Owning your website and domain name are a must in today's online marketing. Google is both a boon and a bane. They control a lot of the internet and will make you jump through hoops to stay relevant in your business. I've never advertised with them.

When you control your own content and domain name, you use the internet for your distribution just as Google does but you don't pay for it. Having an easy to remember address like SanFranciscoDaycare.com will self-promote your business. I actually had someone email me yesterday and I couldn't believe she had that address. I remembered it by memory for this post. So it is sticky to the mind and will be so to whomever she advertises her address to.

Once you have a website and address, it is important to promote them on websites that are highly indexed in search engines like Google, Bing and AOL. Doing so, raises your website's search profile and results. Advertising your listing on Daycare.com, Care.com, Craige List or other prominent and respected site will help your website reach more people if you link your website address in your advertising.

Just a little bit of money and some elbow grease can greatly help your business.

As a side note. Not all advertising will be beneficial to you because of many differing factors like geography, access to the internet and facility saturation. If you advertise on any site, give it 6 months to propagate before deciding to cancel or continue.

[MarinaVanessa]

I can emphasis it enough. Owning your website and domain name are a must in today's online marketing.

Up until now I didn't own my own domain name. I wish I had taken your advice early on when I first became a member here. My domain name is taken already and any deviations of it that I like.

So I will eventually be changing my daycare name and this time I have already secured my domain name in advance ::.
One of the reasons why I'm switching my name is because I want my domain name. So take it from me ... swoop up on your domain name when you have the chance. Michael knows what's up ::::::

[CityGarden]

I know you asked for help from people who use it but I wanted to chime in anyway ... I don't use it and I have never paid for advertising promotion. I did pay a small fee for web hosting (after upgrading from a free website) but my free website drew a lot of traffic even before I paid for it.

You can read here what I did and just skip to the parts that talk about internet advertising.
https://www.daycare.com/news/adverti...r-daycare.html

I do 0 advertising right now and haven't had to in years and I still get a minimum of 5-10 phone calls a week and 2 or 3 web forms (email) interested in a tour. It's mostly about updating your website on a regular basis after submitting it for listings on search engines. #3-#5.

Post your website address onto your business cards and network with other family child care providers. It's a little bit of "cheating" but handing out your card to provider's that want to see examples of websites or asking them for an opinion and to critique it will get you more hits and it'll boost your search listing in search engines. Get family to do it too. Post it on social media so your friends and fam can help by giving you feedback and they'll also help boost it. Take it a bit further and join a FB group for providers (a global or national one) and ask for feedback there too so you get that traffic too. You can even post your link here to get feedback from us .

I need to get my new site to get me these sorts of inquiries!!! I followed your article with my first site but then decided to rebrand/rename and started with a brand new site.... so I need to get it to show up in searches more.

That will be my goal this weekend. Follow your steps with the new site.

[CityGarden]

OK, so I got my free google website setup and was looking to see how much it costs to advertise. It doesn't say how much it is per click, but has a monthly budget you can set. It has a minimum of $50 that I can select. Would I easily burn through that much money in one month? If you don't mind sharing, for those of you who use this service about how much on average do you spend per month for it? Thanks for any advice.

I am not a fan of paying google or yelp for ads. I paid yelp and regret that....

[CityGarden]

I can emphasis it enough. Owning your website and domain name are a must in today's online marketing.

Up until now I didn't own my own domain name. I wish I had taken your advice early on when I first became a member here. My domain name is taken already and any deviations of it that I like.

So I will eventually be changing my daycare name and this time I have already secured my domain name in advance ::.
One of the reasons why I'm switching my name is because I want my domain name. So take it from me ... swoop up on your domain name when you have the chance. Michael knows what's up ::::::

Yes the same thing happened to me.... you can read my thread about it here:

https://www.daycare.com/forum/showthread.php?t=82451

[CityGarden]

It's not hard to set up a website website builders make it easy to set one up without knowing code at all. These four seem to be the most popular website builders:

Wix
Squarespace
Weebly
Godaddy

I have mine thru Squarespace. While I am comfortable and wanted in with wordpress I found I am such a perfectionist it was taking me too long.... so that is for another stage of my business.

[MarinaVanessa]

I need to get my new site to get me these sorts of inquiries!!! I followed your article with my first site but then decided to rebrand/rename and started with a brand new site.... so I need to get it to show up in searches more.

That will be my goal this weekend. Follow your steps with the new site.

Once you're done (or even as you are creating) post it here so we can check it out. We can give you creative criticism, spellcheck and boost your site.

The hardest part about leaving my website now and making a new one is leaving my progress behind. I get such good search placement and traffic right now that it makes me sad to leave it behind.

You and I will be making new sites at the same time

[Homebody]

Thank you for all the advice and info everybody. I'm not very computer savvy, so I wasn't sure how hard it would be for me to set up my own site. I think I will definitely look into it. Now as far as a domain name, do you know if it is required for you to use your real licensed daycare name that you registered with? My husband and I really didn't put much thought into our daycare name when we applied with the state and just used our names. So, it's not a real catchy name.

[Michael]

Do you know if it is required for you to use your real licensed daycare name that you registered with?

I don't see an issue with your domain name. You should be able to use whatever address you choose. As long as you use your business name on your domain name registration form you should be able to write it off as advertising.