Are you making the most out of your Careforkids.com.au profile?

CareforKids.com.au is Australia's most comprehensive child care resource and every year more than 3 million parents visit our site to research childcare services and learn more about the early childhood education and care sector.

Our website offers parents a unique collection and comprehensive range of articles, resources and services, but primarily they come to research, source and secure child care services for their children. With this in mind, it's important to put your best foot forward and make sure you and your childcare centre is doing everything you can to grab attention and stand out from your competitors.

An effective way to achieve this is to keep your CareforKids.com.au listing looking the best it can and to include up-to-date information across all the fields.

Here's our 10-step guide to updating and enhancing your childcare centre listing:

• Check all the contact details on your listing, and make sure all contact options are covered and the details are correct and relevant.
• Include the current Director's name or the name of a contact person, it makes your profile seem personal and more authentic.
• Ensure your vacancy information is up-to-date, this makes it quicker and easier to fill vacancies and means families looking for care won't contact you unnecessarily.
• Always update your fee information at the beginning of the year; there is nothing as exasperating as out-of-date and incorrect fee information.
• Make sure you are familiar with the free CareforKids.com.au waitlist system and direct parents who contact you to use it to streamline the process.
• Encourage existing parents in your service to review you, our star rating system is a valuable resource for prospective parents and the more ratings you have the more helpful your profile will be.  Not to mention, a prospective family considering your centre would find the review valuable and more personal.
• Be sure to include your NQS rating if you have been reviewed and update it if you have been reviewed more than once or if your national quality framework standard rating has changed.
• For Premium and Enterprise subscribers, include good quality photos, which are recent and illustrate the range of facilities on offer and give an idea of space. It's important to ensure the photos are an honest representation of your service as parents will be suspicious if the reality and pictures don't line up. You can also include a photo of your centre's educators in the facility. Children learn best when they are able to take an active role in their environment, and quality photos of your facility and teachers give parents a clear picture of their learning environment and the people that will be providing them care.
• Premium and Enterprise subscribers should also do a thorough review of other listing elements, including uploading a recent logo, ensuring all service inclusions (from your curriculum to other learning tools you develop for children in your centre) and unique selling points are listed and that all the service’s social profiles are accessible via the listing.

Do some research, and check out the listings of your competitors, other childcare centres or day care services you admire and respect. Remember imitation is the best form of flattery so if you see something you like then make sure you include it in your childcare service profile