Marketing for Childcare

What marketing works for childcare centres?

The marketing that works for childcare is local and specific: a strong Google Business Profile for each centre, accurate directory listings, a website that answers fee and subsidy questions, and an easy way to book a tour. Parents shortlist centres close to home or work, so being visible within a few kilometres matters more than reaching a whole city.

Google Ads search volume data for Australia (via DataForSEO, October 2025 to September 2026) shows how parents search:

Search term	Average monthly searches	What it tells you
childcare near me	49,500	The Maps pack is the main battleground
daycare near me	22,200	Parents use both words, so your profile and pages should too
ccs calculator	9,900	Cost is checked before or alongside centre choice
childcare subsidy	6,600, peaking at 18,100 in January 2026	Policy changes create sudden spikes in questions

Unlike accounting or retail, childcare demand is fairly flat across the year. “Childcare near me” sat at 40,500–49,500 searches in every month of that period, with a dip in December. That means marketing should follow your occupancy, not the calendar.

Channel	What it does	Speed
Google Business Profile per centre	Puts you in the Maps pack for ‘near me’ searches	6–12 weeks to improve
Directories (Starting Blocks, Care for Kids, Toddle)	Where parents compare ratings, fees and reviews	Immediate once updated
Website centre and CCS pages	Answers questions and converts to tours	6–12 weeks to rank
Google Ads	Fills specific vacancies fast	Days
Word of mouth and referrals	Siblings, local families, community groups	Ongoing
Facebook community groups	Local parents asking for recommendations	Ongoing, advice only

Why should childcare marketing follow occupancy?

Because empty places cost money every day and they’re rarely spread evenly. Most centres have a full kindy room and gaps in the nursery on Mondays and Fridays, or the reverse. Marketing should push the specific rooms and days with vacancies, and stop when they fill.

That changes what you say. “Places available” is vague. “Nursery places available Mondays and Fridays, book a tour this week” gives a parent a reason to act, and lets you measure whether the campaign worked. If a room has a waitlist, stop advertising it and use the waitlist to plan the next intake.

Practical steps:

• Review occupancy by room and day each month. That list drives your ads, Business Profile posts and the “current vacancies” section of your website.
• Plan for known drops. Children moving to school at the end of the year leave gaps in the kindy room from January. Marketing for those places should start in spring, not February.
• Use the waitlist. Families on a waitlist for another room or another centre in your group are your warmest leads. Keep in touch with them.

How do parents search for and compare childcare?

Parents start with Google and Maps, then compare shortlisted centres on directories and centre websites. They look at location, fees, the NQS rating, reviews, photos of the rooms and, finally, the feel of the place on a tour. Your job is to be present and consistent at each step.

Three directories matter in Australia:

• Starting Blocks (startingblocks.gov.au) is run by ACECQA. Its Find Child Care tool lets families compare quality ratings, fees and service information and save a shortlist. Make sure your service information is current, because this is the government site parents trust.
• Care for Kids (careforkids.com.au) lets families find, compare and contact centres, nannies, family day care and after-school care.
• Toddle (toddle.com.au) lets families search, compare and apply to visit centres.

Keep your centre name, address, phone, hours and photos the same on every listing and on your Business Profile. Inconsistent details confuse parents and weaken the signals Google uses to rank you in Maps. Route directory enquiries to the same person who handles phone and website enquiries, so nothing waits three days for a reply.

What Child Care Subsidy questions should your website answer?

Your website should explain, in plain English, how the Child Care Subsidy (CCS) reduces your fees, how many subsidised hours families get, and what the gap fee might be. Cost is the question behind most enquiries, and the centre that answers it clearly gets the tour.

The key facts, from Services Australia and the Department of Education at the time of writing (October 2026):

• CCS percentage depends on family income. Families earning up to $88,520 get 90%. The percentage falls by 1% for every $5,000 above that, reaching 0% at $538,520. Families with more than one child aged 5 or under may get a higher rate.
• It applies to the lower of your fee or the hourly rate cap. If your hourly fee is above the cap, families pay the difference on top of the normal gap.
• The 3 Day Guarantee. From 5 January 2026, every CCS-eligible family gets at least 72 hours of subsidised care per fortnight, regardless of work or study hours. Families can get up to 100 hours per child per fortnight if they meet certain criteria, such as more than 48 hours of recognised activity a fortnight.
• The gap is paid electronically. Since 1 July 2023, gap fee payments must be paid electronically.

The 3 Day Guarantee shows why this page matters. Searches for “childcare subsidy” hit 18,100 in January 2026, nearly three times the usual level, as families tried to work out what the change meant for them. Centres with a clear, current CCS page were answering those questions; centres without one were losing the click to a government site.

Put on your CCS page	Avoid
Your daily fee and session length, by room	Hiding fees until the tour
A worked example of the gap at one or two income levels, labelled as an estimate	Promising a specific out-of-pocket cost to every family
A link to the Starting Blocks CCS calculator	Copying subsidy rules without a date, so they go stale
A note that families should confirm their entitlement with Services Australia	Giving individual eligibility advice over email

Income thresholds change each financial year, so put a “last checked” date on the page and review it every July. This is a plain-English summary, not advice on any family’s entitlement.

How should you use your NQS rating in marketing?

Use it prominently and accurately. Your National Quality Standard rating is the most objective trust signal you have, and parents can see it on Starting Blocks anyway. Show your overall rating, and if you’re strong in particular quality areas, say which ones.

How the ratings work, from ACECQA:

Rating	What it means
Excellent	Awarded by ACECQA to services rated Exceeding in all quality areas that apply for it
Exceeding National Quality Standard	Goes beyond the NQS in at least 4 of the 7 quality areas, with at least two of these being quality areas 1, 5, 6 or 7
Meeting National Quality Standard	Provides quality education and care in all 7 quality areas
Working Towards National Quality Standard	Provides a safe program, with one or more areas identified for improvement
Significant Improvement Required	Doesn’t meet a quality area or a section of the legislation, with significant risk to children

Rules to follow:

• Display your rating certificate at the service. ACECQA says ratings must be displayed at the service at all times. Services not yet assessed display a Provisional rating.
• The logo is optional. Services rated Working Towards, Meeting or Exceeding can request the NQS rating logo through the national registers. It doesn’t replace the certificate.
• Don’t overstate it. ACECQA notes it’s an offence under the National Regulations to give a false or misleading statement about your NQS rating (regulation 72). For a group, each centre has its own rating, so don’t put one centre’s Exceeding rating on a page about another.

This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice.

How do you rank each centre in Google Maps?

Give every centre its own Google Business Profile and its own page on your website, then build reviews for each one. Maps ranks individual locations, so a group with one listing and one “Locations” page is invisible for most of its centres.

For each centre:

• Categories. Pick the primary category that matches what parents search for and what you are, such as a day care or child care category, and add secondary categories like “Preschool” only if you run a funded kindy or preschool program.
• Hours. Accurate opening and closing times matter to working parents. Update public holiday hours in advance.
• Photos. Real, recent photos of rooms, outdoor areas and the kitchen. Avoid identifiable children unless you have documented parent consent.
• Tour booking. Add a booking link so parents can request a tour straight from Maps.
• Centre page. Each centre page should cover rooms and age groups, the NQS rating for that centre, vacancies, the local area (nearby schools, parks, transport) and staff.

Reviews come from current families. Ask after a settling-in period or at a natural moment like the end of term, and reply to every review without sharing details about a child. For the full local search picture, see our local SEO service.

How do you track enrolment enquiries and tours?

Track every enquiry through four stages: enquiry, tour booked, tour attended and enrolment start. Record the source (Maps, website, directory, ads, word of mouth), the centre and the room. Without this, you can’t tell which marketing filled your nursery and which just generated phone calls.

A simple setup works for most centres: call tracking numbers on the website and Business Profile, a form that asks for the child’s age and preferred days, and a shared spreadsheet or your childcare management software’s enquiry module. Review it monthly alongside occupancy.

Item	Typical Australian market range
SEO, single centre in a low-competition area	$800–$1,500 per month
SEO, single centre in a competitive metro area	$1,500–$3,000 per month
SEO, multi-centre group	$3,000–$6,000+ per month
Google Ads management (ad spend separate)	$500–$1,500 per month
Small-business website, template to custom	$1,000–$3,000 template, $3,000–$15,000 custom

These are market ranges, not our quote. Worked maths for a hypothetical centre in Townsville: if one full-time place is worth, say, $25,000 a year in fee revenue (including subsidy), filling two empty nursery places for a year covers most of the budgets above. Compare scopes on our SEO pricing page. Work is month-to-month, with no lock-in, and our Google Ads service can fill a specific vacancy while SEO builds.

Want to see how each of your centres shows up in Maps and on the directories? Get a free childcare marketing audit.