Critics Wanted - What don't you like about my childcare website

[nannynick]

My Babysitting Website has had a little revamp over the past couple of days.
I would love you to tell me what you Dislike about my site... for example, was there something you would want to see, but didn't find? Do you think the colour scheme is horrible? Do you think it contains too much information, or too little information?

Come on, be as nasty as you like... tell me what you dislike. Many thanks.

i think its great and wish you were in cardiff!

looks nice and professional now

i am echoing 2 niggles further down

1. evening meal. i do think thats a bit restrictive. I dunno what the solution is, but...would it be impossible to take sandwiches and eat them once the kids were in bed?

2. I think you need to explain that you work as a nanny during the day, I know you do but couldn't find it mentioned on the site.

on the brochure bit it says to contact you for a quote for the weekend then on the cost bit it says 150? Is this not a contridiction?

I think I MIGHT agree with hatwoman here

just because looking after kids is a rather personal thing and I'd want to know a bit about the person doing it

its tricky-we "know" you off here anyway. i am trying to read it as a person who knows nothing about you

also, and i am sorry to say this...I think male nannies are fantastic and would go out of my way to employ one, I think we are losing the plot regarding men and childcare

BUT

a lot of my friends think differently and would have an instant knee jerk reaction against a male babysitter which would need to be overcome. Or not. But I do think its there and a paragraph about yourself might help, sorry. Or you could just say && to anyone so narrow minded, which would be fine.

I think I may pull the brochure and replace it with an About Me page (or series of pages, in similar way to Testimonials).
What do you think? Would that be better?

yes it think that would be good for parents to know maybe even hobbies that you like to do aside from childcare.

Run it by us before you stick it on if you want.

hobbies? What are those? Is posting on Mumsnet counted as a hobby

I think it would be wrong to pull the brochure - I often print off PDFs and stick them in the Really Useful file. It's not as easy - or as neat - to print off a series of pages.

If you go down the route of About Me being a webpage/s, may I suggest that you include a button to 'Download my brochure as a PDF' and put a link to Adobe Reader for those who may not already have it? Cover two bases then.

The brochure has a few typos, btw. Not sure if these have all been pointed out.

Ok, I have created the first of the About Me pages. It is not linked into the site yet, so the only way to see it is to click here. Let me know what you think?

I have tried adding audio... is that good, bad, terrible etc? Do you even see the play button (think you need Javascript enabled plus have Flash installed)

think £10p/hr outside london is a bit steep!! i work as a nanny and get £6.50 p/hr.
Also i guess you dont have to mention your sexuality on there just as anyone else wouldnt have to(im assuming youre gay if a male nanny)

oops that sounded awful

No I'm not gay. Pricing is always going to be an issue, though as I mentioned on another thread, if you work out how much a parent pays for a babysitter via Sitters, once membership fee and booking fees have been added, I am reasonably competitive. Also I have no shortage of work... perhaps you should think about raising your rates, as parents these days will pay a premium for quality childcare.

Did you take a look at my new About Me page? Would love your comments about that. Have only written one page so far... will add more in due course.

Allgonebellyup - is that your daytime rate? If so, it's very normal to increase for babysitting work/unsocial hours. I'm a childminder and charge £3.80 an hour but there's NO WAY you'd see me babysitting for that rate!

Sorry, pressed send too early. Nick - I like that and wonder if one day I can nick the idea?

yes thats good but a bit more maybe why you like to work with children and if you have children, what you want to do. A Degree? Further Education..

I agree with JellyJelly - was a bit of a rushed reply earlier.

I think it's nice to hear a voice and really like the audio bit - at the end of the day, people don't HAVE to click on it as it's all written there - so it's great to have both options!

This is my thoughts on what I'd like to know:

Mention you nanny during the day
IF you have qualifications, mention them like Jelly said
Maybe give an idea of how many families you have on your books
How many children you've babysat in one go

You obviously don't want it TOO long as people may not want to go to the end of it, just need to mention key details imo.

This reminds me, my own about me page needs updating, especially the pic!

Couple of spellings to be corrected:

Word spread amongst the parents

Should Peddle be Pedal?

Still love the idea though

As you have all been so great with helping me redesign my website, I have decided to try to give something back to the Mumsnet community.

See this thread over in Site Stuff - How can I contribute financially to Mumsnet?

Paying for advertising up front is beyond my means, but paying a referral fee for quality customers I think could work. Let me know your thoughts - over at Site Stuff

I like chocolate.

sorry Nick, about my previous comment

I like the new section!
Few more typos (or 'types' as I call them )

I wouldn't put an apostrophe in "30's" or "80's", plenty of people do - not sure which is more accepted
"pre-school's" doesn't need one
"parents divorce" should be "parents' divorce"
"handicaped" should be "handicapped"
Your tenses change in "The year is 1989 and I was living with my mother, step-father and sisters in Fleet, North Hampshire"

Hope you don't mind me nit picking, you probably hadn't proof read it yourself yet but I'd hate not to mention them and for them to slip through.

Hi nick! No time to skim other messages but I don't like the picture in the logo - the other photos are the really sophisticated professional sort, and the clip-artish picture really lets that down!

Having said that, I'm just organising someone doing a logo for my website and I was planning on asking a similar thing to what you have, however logo is one that I can't change lol as I didn't design it!

The about me pages... I preferred the brochure, sorry!

If you do have an about me page, then I don't think you need nearly as much detail as that. Even on a personal blog you generally only get a page of the "about me" and this is supposed to be a professional site. It starts making it look all a bit amateur again, tbh

Yes, have some personal background stuff about you. Don't spread it over 3 pages. Don't bother with the audio. Also, I would stick the section right down the end either before or after "Contact" on the menu list as it really isn't as high a priority as the other stuff and is really only there for people who might be interested. Most will want to cut straight to the chase and find out about the service.

its great, apart from the photo on 'about me' ,i had a bit of a titter when i saw the caption 'me with a baby and a toddler'

sorry, you did ask!

The content is pretty good, but you play yourself down a bit, you sound like a top professional nanny, tell them that! why not enter the proffesional nanny of the year awards? that would look great on your CV!

check out my blog, you can tell me what you think! www.nannyfiknowsbest.blogspot.com

also the audio is a bit freaky.

sorry nick! Its not very good sound quality and makes you sound a bit scary.

i know this is a bit old now but ...

i think the font on this part is a bit small.

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also i think the first 4 sentences on cost need to have bullet points. they look a bit lost just floating around.

don't much like the white but i think most other people preferred that.