Daycares and nurseries provide an essential service in any community. They allow parents to go to work and secure their family’s financial future while knowing that their children are looked after with loving care. However, daycares and nurseries cannot just open the door and wait parents to come bustling in to enlist their kids. What you need to stay successful in this business is a smart local search strategy for daycares and nurseries.
Why Should You Build a Local Search Marketing Strategy?
One of the obvious reasons for this choice is that parents are looking for daycares and nurseries as close to home as possible. And due to the rising popularity of digital assistants like Google Assistant, Apple Siri or Microsoft Cortana, that use AI and machine learning to understand questions, search engines have also upgraded their algorithms to rank businesses by proximity to the user’s location.
Thus when a parent is searching for “daycare near me”, Google will perform a complex search that involves:
- The proximity of businesses to the user’s location;
- The degree of relevance to the search intent;
- The reputation of the businesses.
These are the three golden criteria that help companies rank higher for local searches and on Google Maps. And this is why you need a solid local search strategy for daycares and nurseries.
What Are the Key Elements of a Great Local Search Strategy for Daycares and Nurseries?
To find the best match to a user’s query, Google relies on several sources:
- Google My Business listing
- NAP citations (company listings in business directories)
- Customers’ rating and reviews
- Backlinks to the website of the business.
Having established these, here is what you need to do to build an effective local search strategy for daycares and nurseries:
1. Claim Your Google My Business Listing
We have a step by step guide to creating your GMB listing in this article. The process is easy, free and does not take a lot of time. Even if you are very busy, you should take the time to complete this step.
Without a GMB listing, more than 25% chances of ranking for local searches are lost. According to a MOZ infographic, the GMB listing represents 25.12% of the overall criteria Google uses to establish the top 3 local search results, also known as the Local Pack.
2. Build Your Keyword Strategy with a Local Intent
Even if you have recently completed your keyword search and have picked the relevant ones, go back and do it again. Or, at least, supplement the existing keywords with a local tail.
As you know long tail (explanatory, detailed) keywords are your biggest chance to rank, as the short and general purpose terms are already beyond your bidding capacity. Here’s a new twist to this rule: add local tails to the keywords. These are phrases like:
- Near me
- In X ZIP code
- In X city
- Close to X neighbourhood/district.
This is exactly how parents search for a daycare for their children and, thus, you get more chances to have your website listed in the Local Pack.
3. Build a Local Link Strategy
Daycares and nurseries have loads of opportunities to create a backlink strategy with a local intent. Did you take the children in your care to visit a museum? Write about the event and link back to the museum web page. Did you get involved in a community event? Ask the organisers to add a link to your website.
These are simple and effective ways to boost both your local search marketing efforts and the good reputation of your nursery.
4. Share Lots of Videos and Photos
Apart from location, parents want to know that they can trust a daycare with their child. And since an image is worth 1,000 worth, share as many photos and videos of activities at your nursery. This is one of the best forms of advertising you can invest in.
Where should you post these photos? The answer is everywhere you can. This means your website, your social media pages, your Google My Business listing as well as on blogs where you share guest posts.
5. Collect Testimonials
Last but not least, ask the parents of enrolled children to leave a rating and review about your nursery, preferably on your Google My Business listing. The reason for this is that the presentation box of your business for local searches includes the rating as well as a few customer reviews.
And this concludes our recommendations for an effective local search strategy for daycares and nurseries. Good luck!