The two words doing no work
Nearly every nanny agency site contains the phrase "all our nannies are fully vetted". It is on the home page, in the header, sometimes in the logo strapline. It is also the phrase every competitor uses, which means it carries no information at all.
A family reads it and has to take it on faith. Then they open a marketplace where they could find someone themselves for nothing, and the only thing standing between them and that option is a claim they cannot check.
Your vetting process is the product. The website is where it either exists or does not.
Why this page is the one that earns the fee
An agency fee is bought for two things: the shortlist, and the checking. A family can search for themselves. What they cannot easily do is confirm that a stranger is who they say they are, speak properly to two previous employers, verify a childcare qualification, confirm paediatric first aid is current, and judge from an interview whether this person suits their household.
The page that describes all of that in order is the page that converts. Not because it is persuasive, but because it is specific, and specificity is what an anxious reader recognises as competence.
Write it as a sequence
Take your actual process and write it as numbered stages, in the order they happen.
Application and screening. What you require before you will meet somebody: minimum experience, qualifications, first aid, driving where relevant.
Identity. How you confirm the person is who they say they are, and that you see original documents rather than copies.
Right to work. Say that you confirm it, in general terms. The rules differ by country and change, so describe your practice and point at the relevant official body rather than paraphrasing law.
References. This is the stage families care about most and the one most sites skip past. Say how many, over what period, from whom, and that you speak to referees rather than accepting written letters. Say what you ask. A family who has ever taken a reference themselves knows the difference between a phone call and a PDF.
Background checking. Name the regime accurately for where you operate and no further. In England and Wales agencies commonly refer to enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service checks; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own equivalents; Ireland has Garda vetting; Australia runs Working with Children Checks that differ by state; the United States and Canada vary by state, province and provider. If you place candidates who have lived abroad, say how you handle overseas checks. Describe what your agency does and requires, and treat anything about legal obligation as a matter for the relevant authority rather than for your marketing copy.
Qualifications and training. What you verify and how, including how you check that paediatric first aid is current rather than merely held.
Interview. In person or by video, who conducts it, roughly how long, and what it covers, including scenario questions on safeguarding, illness, discipline and household boundaries.
Ongoing. Whether checks are renewed or reconfirmed, and at what interval, for candidates who stay on your books.
Say what you can show, and when
End the page with a short section on evidence. Families want to know what they will see and at what stage: which documents you show at interview or before a placement starts, what the candidate brings on the day, and what you keep on file.
This is far stronger than any claim, because it converts a promise into an appointment.
What not to publish
- Certificate images or reference numbers. Never. Not a DBS number, not a redacted scan, not a photograph of a first aid card. It is a privacy problem for your candidates and it looks careless.
- Named referees or their employers. Obvious, and it still happens in testimonials.
- Full names and home areas of candidates on public profiles. First name and a general area is enough for a public page.
- Legal assertions. "The law requires every nanny to have X" is the sort of sentence that ages badly and that you cannot control. Describe your standard instead.
- Children's photographs or names, in testimonials or anywhere else, including from your own clients.
Registration and safeguarding, framed carefully
Requirements around childcare registration, inspection and safeguarding differ by country and sometimes by region, and they change. Some places have a voluntary register a nanny can join, which matters to families because it can affect access to certain childcare funding schemes. Others regulate agencies rather than individuals. Some regulate neither.
The honest way to handle this on a website is to state what your agency does and what it requires of candidates, mention the scheme by its correct name where you are confident it applies to you, and link families to the official body for anything they need to rely on. Treat the page as orientation, not as legal advice, and say so in a line.
Put fragments of it everywhere else
The full page is for the family who reads everything. Most do not get that far, so lift the sequence into a short list of stages on the family route landing page, and put one line about references and checks near every enquiry button. Hold the stages as records so the same wording appears in all three places and changes once.
Where this sits
A vetting page written step by step, with evidence explained and nothing published that should not be, is a core part of a nanny and au pair agency website, and the same care about vetting and safeguarding copy runs through our other childcare and family websites. What each package includes is on pricing. You already do the work. The site is where a family gets to see it.