The symptom
The website is live and looks warm. Google Analytics shows parents visiting, mostly in the evening. The office still opens to voicemails asking about fees, and viewings still come from the school gate and word of mouth rather than from the site. Parents who visit are not booking viewings or joining the waitlist from it. On childcare sites we review, the cause is on this list, usually several at once. Check them in order; the first three are the path from a parent's phone to a viewing.
1. Parents cannot see the rooms
The site has one exterior photo, a stock image of a child with paint on their hands and a gallery of eight thumbnails. A parent is deciding where their baby will spend the week and cannot picture it. They phone to ask, or they choose the nursery that showed them.
Fix: a page per room, photographed as it is, with the age range, the ratio, the key person approach and a line about a typical morning. The outdoor space photographed too. A day-in-the-life page. Consent handled for any child in shot.
2. Fees and funding are "contact us"
"How much is it, and can I use my funded hours" is the first question every parent has. A site that hides fees sends them to the phone or to the setting whose site answered.
Fix: one plain page: session types and times, fees per session or per day, what is included (meals, nappies, trips), how funded hours or subsidies apply in your country, extras, deposits and notice periods, and how to apply. Editable by you when fees change.
3. Booking a viewing is a contact form
A parent researching at 10pm wants to book Tuesday at ten. A contact form is a voicemail with extra steps, and the reply comes the next afternoon, after they booked elsewhere.
Fix: live viewing slots through Bookeo, Acuity or your nursery software's booking, one tap from the header on every page, with a confirmation carrying the address, parking and what to bring. A tappable phone number beside it for parents who prefer to talk.
4. The site takes four seconds on a phone
Childcare sites are photo-heavy and often on cheap hosting. Parents look during a night feed on mobile data. Count until the page appears.
Fix: images sized and compressed, the hero prioritised, galleries lazy-loaded, sliders removed, decent hosting with caching.
5. Inspection and vetting are a badge without a link
The inspection rating is a logo in the footer with no link to the report. Staff are first names and a smile. Nothing says how staff are vetted, what qualifications they hold or what the ratios are. Parents check these before anything else, and a site that makes them dig assumes they will not.
Fix: the rating linked to the report on the home page and every room page; an Our team page with qualifications, first aid and vetting stated; ratios per room; a Safeguarding page with the policy, the designated lead and how concerns are raised.
6. There is no page for what parents search
"Nursery [town]", "holiday club [town]", "baby sensory classes [town]", "after school club near [school]" are separate searches. One home page with a paragraph on each ranks for none.
Fix: a page per setting type and, where you serve several towns or schools, a page per area. A holiday club needs programme pages by week and age; a baby class needs classes by age band with the focus explained; a nursery needs its rooms.
7. The waitlist is an inbox
Parents fill in a form to join the waitlist and hear nothing. The list lives in an email folder that nobody reconciles with the register, so a place comes up in the toddler room and the family who asked in March is not called.
Fix: a Join the waitlist form that lands in Famly, Blossom or your system as a lead with the child's date of birth and the sessions wanted, an automatic acknowledgement saying what happens next, and a monthly review against occupancy.
8. Nobody knows what the site produces
Without viewing bookings, waitlist joins and calls counted by page, you cannot tell which of the seven above is the problem or whether the fixes worked.
Fix: events for viewing bookings, waitlist submissions and call taps by page; the enquiry source recorded in the nursery software; a monthly look.
The order
Items 1, 2 and 3 are the path from a parent's phone to a viewing; fix them and the calendar changes within weeks. Items 4 and 6 are visibility. Item 5 is why they choose you. Item 7 is whether you keep the family you already won. Item 8 is how you know.
Where this sits
This is the conversion checklist every childcare business website we build is tested against before launch, and the first half of a diagnosis on an existing one. Most childcare sites fail at least four; the room pages and the fees and funding page are the two fixes that change the morning voicemails fastest.