Your Google profile does not say what ages you take, so parents scroll past
Plenty of daycare Google profiles list one category, no ages and no programs, so parents filter them out before calling. The mistake and the 30-minute fix.
A parent with an eight-month-old searches "infant daycare near me" and sees six centers on the map. Five of them say "Child care agency" and nothing else, so she calls the one whose profile actually mentions infants. If yours is one of the five, you never knew she was looking.
This is the mistake we see on more daycare profiles than any other. Not bad reviews. Not missing photos. The profile simply does not say who the center is for.
What the mistake looks like
Open your Google Business Profile the way a parent sees it, on a phone. Look for three things:
- The ages you serve. Infants, toddlers, preschool, pre-K, school-age.
- The programs you run. Full-time, part-time, before and after school, summer camp, drop-in.
- Whether you have room. Even a rough signal like "now enrolling toddlers for January."
Most profiles have none of the three. They have a name, a category, hours and a phone number. To a parent, that looks the same as every other dot on the map.
Parents do not shop daycares the way they shop pizza. They shop by age first. A center that takes children from six weeks is a different search from one that starts at age three. If your profile does not say which you are, Google has less to match on and the parent has no reason to tap.
Why it matters more for daycares than most businesses
The numbers in our data make it sharper. The median center has 6 Google reviews, and 58.6% have fewer than ten. Across 64,363 listings, reviews are not separating most centers from each other. When reviews are thin everywhere, the details on the profile are what a parent uses to decide who to call.
Also, 33.2% of centers have no website at all. For those centers, the Google profile is the entire online presence. If it does not say what ages you take, nothing does.
The fix, in about 30 minutes
Categories. Your primary category should match what most of your families search for. For most centers that is "Child care agency" or "Day care center." Then add secondary categories for everything else you actually do: "Preschool," "Kindergarten," "After school program," "Summer camp." Google lets you add several. Each one is another set of searches you can show up for. Only add what is true.
Services. In the services section, add one entry per age group and per program. Write a one-line description for each:
- "Infant care, 6 weeks to 12 months. Ratio of 1 teacher to 4 infants. Full-time only."
- "Toddler room, 12 to 24 months. Full and part-time."
- "Pre-K, ages 4 to 5. Kindergarten readiness curriculum."
- "After school, ages 5 to 10. Pickup from [school names]."
Naming the schools you pick up from matters. Parents search for them.
Business description. You get about 750 characters. Use the first sentence for ages and location: "Licensed child care center in [town] for children 6 weeks to 5 years, with after-school care for ages 5 to 10." Then hours, then one sentence on what makes you different.
A post about openings. Google posts are short updates that show on your profile. Write one when you have spots: "Now enrolling: two toddler spots for January. Tours Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Call or text to book." Update it when the openings change. A stale post from March tells parents nobody is paying attention.
Photos of each room. One photo of each classroom, empty and clean, labeled by age group in the caption. Do not post photos of children without written permission. Parents want to see the room their child will be in.
Then match the website
If you have a website, the home page should say the same thing in the first screen: ages, town, and a button to book a tour. The website guide has the full list. If you do not have a website, the profile fixes above matter twice as much.
How to check it worked
Google shows you the search terms people used to find your profile in the performance section. Look at it before you make the changes and again a month later. You should start seeing age-specific searches like "infant care" or "after school program" that were not there before.
Then watch the phone. The question you want to hear less often is "do you take babies?" because the profile already answered it. The question you want to hear more is "when can I come see the infant room?" The Google Business Profile guide covers the rest of the settings, and the benchmark report shows how your reviews compare to centers in your market.
If you want your profile and tour follow-up set up for you, the free 14-day trial covers any one service, no card: text or call (385) 213-2802.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, child care centers and daycares among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor