How to run this
Pick up your phone, turn the wifi off so you are on mobile data, and open your own site as if you had never seen it. Run each test twice: once as a family, once as a candidate. Every test takes under a minute. Be strict, because a parent with three tabs open will be.
1. Two routes
The test: on the first screen, without scrolling, can you tell where a family goes and where a nanny goes?
Pass: two labelled blocks side by side at the top. Families here, nannies and au pairs here. Each opens into its own pages with its own language, and each ends at its own form. The navigation carries the same split.
Fail: one hero image and a single Contact button. A dropdown that hides the split. A paragraph that mentions both audiences and serves neither.
Fix: rebuild the first screen around the choice. This is usually the cheapest and largest improvement available to an agency site, and it takes an afternoon.
2. Vetting, explained in order
The test: from the family route, find out what you actually do to check a nanny. Time it.
Pass: a page that goes step by step. Identity confirmed. References taken up and spoken to rather than filed. Background checking carried out and named accurately for the country you operate in, described as what your agency does rather than as a statement of the law. Qualifications and paediatric first aid verified, with how currency is checked. What the interview covers. What you can show a family on request, and at what point.
Fail: the phrase "fully vetted" on its own. Images of certificates or reference numbers on a public page, which you should never publish. Claims about a check regime you are not certain applies where you operate.
Fix: write it once, carefully, in your own words, and have someone who has never worked in the sector read it back to you. This page is the reason a family pays an agency fee rather than scrolling a marketplace, so it deserves a real afternoon. Where you are unsure of the current rules in your country, describe your process and point families at the relevant official body rather than paraphrasing regulation.
3. Fees, stated
The test: find out what using you costs, without filling in a form.
Pass: a fees page with the basis of the placement fee, what it includes, the replacement period if you offer one, how permanent and temporary placements differ, and any registration or ongoing fee. Numbers where they are fixed, the basis where they vary.
Fail: "contact us for our fee schedule". A membership wall in front of every number. A figure so hedged it tells a family nothing.
Fix: hold the fee lines as editable records so you change them yourself in January, and repeat the headline basis on the family route page.
4. The family enquiry form
The test: send yourself an enquiry as a family needing a live-out nanny for two children from September.
Pass: the form asks children and ages, hours and days, live-in or live-out, location, start date, budget band, and gives room for anything unusual about the household. Conditional sections mean you only see what applies. It submits on a phone in one hand, it confirms on screen, it emails a confirmation saying what happens next, and it lands in your CRM as a record.
Fail: name, email, message. A form that asks a family everything including live-in questions they do not need. A submission that disappears into a shared mailbox with no acknowledgement.
Fix: rebuild it around the questions your consultants ask on the first call. Then state a reply window on the page and meet it.
5. Candidate registration
The test: register as a nanny, from your phone, with a CV in your files.
Pass: CV upload that works on a phone, availability, areas covered, age groups, qualifications, paediatric first aid, driving, and the candidate's right-to-work position asked neutrally. It creates a record in your CRM and tells the candidate when they will hear back.
Fail: an email address to send a CV to. An upload that fails silently in the Instagram in-app browser. A form asking for passports, visas or certificate scans, which should never travel through a public web form. Collect those at registration through whatever secure route your agency uses, and say on the page that you do.
Fix: test the upload on a real handset, then test it again from your own Instagram profile link.
6. Proof, policies and speed
The test: find a real person who works at the agency, a family who has used you, and how fast the page loads from cold on mobile data.
Pass: team profiles with photographs and names. Testimonials from both families and nannies, first names only, no child named or pictured. Areas named as real places. A privacy page that says plainly what you hold, why and for how long, which matters more here than in most trades. First screen in a few seconds.
Fail: stock photographs of families. A testimonials page nobody opens. "We cover the local area." A privacy policy copied from a template that does not describe what your forms actually collect.
Fix: move the proof next to the buttons, name the places, and get the imagery weight down.
Scoring
Six passes is a site doing its job. Four or five and you are losing family enquiries you never hear about. Three or fewer and your consultants are doing work the site should be doing.
Where this sits
The six above are the standard build for a nanny and au pair agency website, and the same checklist thinking runs through our other childcare and family websites. What each package covers is on pricing. Run the tests this evening and fix the first one that fails.