Nine pages
A childcare website needs nine pages. One is a template repeated per room, so a nursery with four rooms has twelve; a babysitting service or class provider needs fewer. Here is each page, what it must contain, and how to build in stages.
1. Home
Above the fold on a phone: the setting's name, what it is, where, the ages you take, and two buttons, Book a viewing and Join the waitlist. Then, in the order parents read: the inspection rating with date and report link, vetting and ratios in a line each; three or four room photographs linking to Our rooms; a row of staff faces linking to Our team; sessions and fees in brief linking to Fees and funding; A day with us in brief; reviews from parents with space reserved; the two buttons again and the Safeguarding link. One real photograph, prioritised. No slider.
2. Our rooms (one section or page per room)
Real photographs of each room and the outdoor space, taken in daylight, showing the room as it is used. Per room: age range, capacity, ratio, the person who leads it with a photo, what a typical session looks like, and Book a viewing. Rooms as records so a new room or a new lead is a form. For a holiday club this becomes the programme by week and age group; for a baby class business, the classes by age band with the focus explained.
3. A day with us
The day-in-the-life page: arrival, breakfast, free play, outdoor time, lunch, sleep, tea, collection, with a photo and two sentences at each stage, and the menu if you cook. This is the page parents describe to each other and the one most sites do not have.
4. Fees and funding
Sessions by age group in a table, what is included, deposits and notice periods, the funding schemes you accept and how they apply to your sessions, vouchers and payment routes, and how to apply. Built on session, fee and scheme records so September's changes are a form. Two buttons at the foot.
5. Book a viewing
A calendar of real viewing slots through your nursery software or a booking tool such as Acuity or Bookeo, one line of reassurance, the phone number. Nothing else on the page.
6. Join the waitlist
The waitlist form into Famly, Blossom, Kinderly or your CRM: parent contact, child's name and date of birth or due date, sessions wanted, start date, sibling, how they heard. Three sentences on how the list works. Thank-you message with the timeline.
7. Our team
Photo, first name, role, room and qualifications for everyone, organised by room, with first aid renewal years and the safeguarding lead and deputy named. Staff as records with renewal reminders.
8. Safeguarding
Written for parents: the commitment, the named lead, vetting named for your country, training, how concerns are handled, how a parent raises one including to the regulator, related policies in a paragraph each, and how you handle photographs of children. The full policy linked, not the page.
9. Contact and legal
Tappable phone with the hours someone answers, email, address with map and parking, opening hours, a minimal contact form to a monitored inbox, registration number with the regulator, company details, privacy notice covering children's details from forms, terms, accessibility statement. Legal items as plain pages linked from the footer.
Optional
- News or newsletters, if someone will write them; a page that stopped in 2023 is worse than none.
- Careers, when hiring, with the vetting process stated so candidates know.
- A parent portal link, if your software has an app; a button, not a page.
Leave off
Mission and Values as separate pages. A testimonials page; put reviews beside the buttons. Stock photographs. Identifiable children with names. Anything as a PDF.
Variations by setting
A nanny agency swaps rooms and viewings for two routes on the first screen, a vetting page, fees, a family enquiry form and a candidate registration. A babysitting service swaps them for sitter profiles with vetting stated, rates and surcharges, and online booking by date and time. A children's tutoring business has subjects and ages, how sessions work and progress reporting, and a trial booking. A party venue has packages by age, availability and booking, food and add-ons, and a parent FAQ. The reassure-then-book logic is the same.
Building in stages
Stage 1, launch: Home, Our rooms with photographs of every room, Fees and funding, Book a viewing, Join the waitlist, Our team, Safeguarding, Contact and legal. Complete, bookable, trusted.
Stage 2, first term: A day with us with photographs taken across a real week, reviews wired in, careers if hiring.
Stage 3, ongoing: a photograph a week from the rooms, fees updated in September, staff records updated as people join, the monthly test of both booking pages.
The inspection link, the two buttons on every page, the speed work, the tracking and the structured data are in from stage 1.
The structure underneath
Rooms, staff, sessions, fees, funding schemes and the inspection as records: the baby room shows its lead and ratio, the fees table shows the sessions the waitlist form offers, the home page shows the rating with its date. Adding a room or a person is a form, not a developer.
Where this sits
These nine pages are the list for every childcare website we build at a fixed price, with the records, the Famly or booking tool wiring, the photography plan, speed and tracking included. Settings arrive expecting a brochure and leave with a site that answers the parent's questions in the order they ask them and books the viewing at the end.