The Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK childcare providers has just been published. Learn how 6 of the largest UK childcare providers perform across the digital space.
The latest Q3 2024 benchmarking report for UK Childcare providers has just been published. It covers 6 large national childcare providers, including Bright Horizons, Childbase, Thrive Childcare and Education, Kids Planet, Monkey Puzzle Day Nurseries and Little Pioneers.
The research gives an inside track on who is winning the biggest share of voice online, and quantifies the gaps, risks and missed opportunities for other childcare providers to win brand exposure locally, build organic visibility, and generate online enquiries. The report highlights quick wins that will improve enquiries from your online strategy and identifies the barriers that may be reducing your site’s ability to optimise digital performance.
To see a preview and contents page of the Q3 report, click here. To get a copy of the full report and the key takeaways, please complete the enquiry form or schedule a call.
For a glance into just 6 of the metrics, we evaluated these top 6 childcare providers on, check out our quick-look table below;
Continue reading for further detail on this quarter's top and poorest-performing childcare providers, or request a copy of the report for the full review.
The 70+ pages of research benchmarks each site based on 50+ metrics and indicators of successful digital strategy, including organic visibility, domain authority, paid media ads, conversion performance, technical performance, site speed, universal search, content, social ads, accessibility, and mobile performance.
Some of the leading players in the space are high spenders on paid media channels such as Google, Bing & Facebook - but have a poor or sub-optimal conversion improvement strategy. Without an optimised, sophisticated conversion strategy that maximises the conversion rate, the return on investment is unsustainable or will underperform. Scaling spend on paid media is not achievable unless the conversion rate delivers optimal performance in the sector. Some in the space have paid media spend levels from 30k+ per month but dedicate minimal resources and budgets to conversion testing. Given the cost per clicks on ad networks will continue to rise, we recommend spending at least 10% of your paid media budget on ongoing conversion optimisation testing schedules to ensure your paid media ROI maintains long-term viability, competitive advantage, and sustainability.
Savvy digital marketers know that having a technically sound website is an essential component of a successful fully integrated digital strategy - plus a site capable of maximising conversion performance. Childcare providers won't have content which faces frequent changes, such as product pages, so brands in this sector should be able to effectively maintain technical website compliance.
Thrive Childcare and Education reported 29 4xx errors, and it should assess and update any broken internal links so consumers don’t mistrust the brand or become frustrated with the website and switch to a competitor instead.
When 62% of consumers are less likely to convert if they have a negative mobile site experience, ensuring that your site is quick and easy to load makes a significant improvement on your overall conversion rates. Building trust is crucial for brands within the childcare sector, so these providers will want to ensure their site is fast, and gives an excellent impression of their services at every touch point.
In our previous report, Bright Horizons flagged the slowest mobile site speed. This quarter, the mobile site speed ranged between 47 and 22, with Kids Planet reported the slowest speed. Bright Horizons has increased its speed to 41, and this enables the brand to build a closer relationship with its audience.
Domain authority is an essential metric for measuring the effectiveness of SEO performance and helps create a reliable overall gauge of how effective your site is at achieving organic traffic, i.e. ‘free’ traffic that isn’t gained through sponsored ads. An effective digital PR strategy can help any childcare provider achieve high-value backlinks.
A ‘good’ DA really comes down to how your competitors are performing, however it’s generally considered average between 40 and 50, good between 50 and 60, and excellent above 60. The DA for this quarter ranged between 62 and 23, with Thrive Childcare and Education flagging the lowest DA score. This childcare provider also reported the fewest backlinks, and it should utilise a PR strategy to help increase its DA score.
A strong organic performance is strategically important as it ensures your site ranks above competitors for key, transactional keywords. When 93% of your customers won’t go past the first page of Google, your absence or lack of targeting for essential keywords will cost you conversions. Though many sectors we specialise in are seeing the impact of the cost-of-living crisis, and battling for a smaller pool of potential customers, childcare is an essential service for many families, limiting the potential for users to turn elsewhere for alternative solutions.
Three providers reported a loss in organic traffic on mobile, while only 1 received a decline in organic traffic on desktop. This data means that all childcare providers should take steps to make their website more mobile-friendly so that they’re not losing traffic due to slow site speeds and an unresponsive website.
Google Universal Search Results is an evolving opportunity to make your pages visible on a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Universal results often appear before traditional listings and are eye-catching for users. Universal search results refer to rankings on a SERP that are not the traditional ‘blue line’ Google link, and a site can appear for universal search results without being strong in standard rankings. For childcare providers, who want to build trust, 'reviews' and 'image pack' results are a great way to tell (and show) parents more about their nurseries.
Bright Horizons remains at the top of the leaderboard with the most Universal Search appearances (4,768), with the majority of these coming from ‘images’. On the other hand, Thrive Childcare and Education reported the fewest Universal Search appearances (395). All brands reported zero appearances for ‘reviews’ and should reach out to past customers to help increase appearances for this category.
Longtail keywords are often considered high intent and potentially more likely to convert as a searcher is being more specific. Optimising for longtail keywords also puts your content strategy in a strong position to rank for brand new search terms as they enter Google’s index. Longtail keywords for nurseries may reflect prospective parents looking for specific details about the locations, such as for information about food menus and outdoor facilities, or they could be focused on fee information and funding.
Bright Horizons secured the most longtail keyword appearances for position 3 (657) and positions 4–10 (1,246). Thrive Childcare and Education reported the fewest longtail keyword appearances and should assess its keyword strategy to ensure it’s using phrases that it’s target audience types into search engines.
With the number of Facebook users in the United Kingdom (UK) hitting over 44 million users in 2023, it is not surprising that companies have jumped at the opportunity to advertise on the social media platform. Facebook’s UK digital advertising revenue has been estimated to have breached 2.6b GB pounds in 2019. Childcare providers can use Facebook ads to target specific areas where they have more places available, and advertise any upcoming open days that can provide in-person opportunities to convert.
We’ve included examples of Thrive Childcare and Education’s sponsored posts. This UK childcare provider included lists to make the text more scannable, but it should
When it comes to social media and on-site content strategies, it is important to release content that has a longer shelf life. An article is considered 'Evergreen' if it has maintained its relevancy to an audience for longer. It's great for your brand engagement, but great for Google too, who will recognise content which achieves traffic over a long period of time. Childcare providers can look to creating shareable content about child development, nutrition, and education as a simple way to get high levels of engagement and build trust in their brand.
Bright Horizons has the most Facebook Likes (47,700) and the most Instagram followers (13,400). It’s important that childcare providers also focus on creating content that’s selfless and adds value to its followers’ lives.
20% of people in the UK have a disability – 2 million of which are people living with sight loss. In addition, 1 in 12 men and 1 in 200 women have some degree of colour vision deficiency. When websites are not designed to meet these needs, brands lose customer interest as they turn elsewhere. For childcare providers needing to build trust, they must ensure accessibility is one of their foremost considerations when developing their site.
Little Pioneers is the childcare provider with the most accessibility alerts (75), and it should address very small text and suspicious link text to improve readability for those using a screen reader.
To get a copy of the full report, please complete the enquiry form. If you want to talk to us about accelerating your digital performance, please call us on 01543 410014 or schedule a call with Mike Movassaghi.