Toddler Group Search Engine: Find Toddler Groups

06 Jun

Posted by Little Mummy as Internet, Toddler

I was sent an email recently from Michelle asking me to take a look at a search engine she had built which enables parents to search for toddler groups in their area. Michelle says this is her first ‘real’ web project, you can find her blog here, I have already subscribed to follow Michelle’s progress.

I have to be honest, and I’m sure Michelle will find what I have to say constructive, but I have mixed views. I’ll try and tackle each aspect in turn.

Design

I like the design and the logo (which took on an eery quality when I copied it - see above!!). The layout is ultra simple and sleek. The logo is fun and the domain name - www.findtoddlergroups.co.uk is easy to remember.

Search Options

There is currently only the option to search by postcode. Michelle, if we don’t find a group using our postcode we may want to search by town or some other method to at least find what groups are in the wider area, what do you have planned?

The Database

I know this is a new project but you need to try and grow the database, fast. I live in Scotland which you haven’t included yet (but it is in the pipeline, right?) so I checked another address which I know has local toddler groups in Wales and received no results.

Search Results

When I used a few other random postcodes I was very pleased with the results page, the layout was good, and the amount of information was excellent, I particularly like the details on how the group is run and what you can expect when you get there.

Monetization

At the moment the service is free, and there are no ads. From the brief look I took at your blog it seems that you want to build systems that will earn money, what is your monetization strategy because splattering it with adsense could really spoil the sleek look.

If anyonelse has any other suggestions please leave a comment, I’m sure Michelle would like as much feedback as possible.

3 Responses

Michelle Crofts

June 6th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
1

Hi Erica,

Thank you so much for taking a look at the site, and writing such a great review! You made some excellent points too.

We’ve just been working on adding a ’search by town or city’ feature, and it’s pretty much done. Just got to be worked into the coding, and uploaded, which should be done today.

Yes, results for Scotland and N. Ireland are not included yet… this was just because we had to make some sort of cutback in order to get the site up on time, and running smoothly. Rest assured, they will be asap. As to few results from Wales, I’m not sure why that is! I’ll definately look into it - thanks for pointing it out. However perhaps since you wrote the review, we added ‘distance from’ details for listings, and display any toddler groups within 30 miles of a postcode instead of 5 miles as was the case at first.

The ultimate aim of the site apart from being really useful, is of course to earn some money from it too, through advertisments. We want the service part to be our priority, and so we’re going to try and monetise once we have a high flow of traffic and good search engine ranking. We also hate too much Adsense, so we’re going to do our best to keep ads to a minimum and very neat!

Overall this site may be a little specialist to generate large amounts of income for us, so we’re largely treating it as a learning experience, and hopefully something our parent friends will use and discuss at our toddler groups

Thanks again for your support,

Michelle
Little Mummy

June 7th, 2007 at 12:40 am
2

Thanks for the response Michelle, it all sounds great and once the improvements are made it sounds like your going to have not only a useful service, but a nice passive income earner too. Well done.
1000MileJourney » New Projects and Baby Site Progress

June 7th, 2007 at 8:38 pm
3

[...] As spreading the word and promotion goes, a blogger I also approached last week, Erica from LittleMummy.com has very kindly written up a detailed review on the new site! Thanks Erica, and there’s a link to your blog for your help. [...]