Five Must-Have Elements for Your Doggie Daycare Website

When you start your doggie daycare or kennel boarding business, you're going to need to have a website. Not having a website is one of the biggest reasons for small business failure. Though we're not going to go into a step-by-step process for building your website (we'll talk about that in another post), this post will highlight five main elements that your kennel website needs to have to be successful.

1. Easily Recognizable Title and Logo

First things first, don't misspell your business name on purpose. So often you see businesses that think they're being cute by purposely misspelling their business name. Things like "Purrecious Pets" instead of "Precious Pets" is a good example of purposeful misspelling that only hurt your SEO potential. If someone hears your business name in conversation and goes to search it, they're going to type "precious pets" into their browser, and more likely find another business that isn't yours. So, anyways, back to the story. Make sure you have your logo in the top left corner (easier on the eyes) and make sure you have any title text easily visible as well.

2. Link to an Appointment Request Form

Having an online appointment form is essential for your business. If people can't request an appointment with your business, there's a good chance that they'll go to another site where they can. If you're a DoggieDashboard user, you'll be happy to know that you already have a customizable appointment request form included with your subscription. Link to this form from your homepage so that people can quickly book appointments with your business.

3. Partial List of All Prices and Services

You don't need to list every single possible pricing possibity, but having a general list of your prices is going to help your business. Hiding prices on your website is an easy way to upset potential clients. I recently went to a gym's website and couldn't find ANY prices, not even suggested prices. I called the place and they said that I'd need to come in and have a "sit down" with their memberships representative before we could talk prices. SEE YA! There's no way I'm going to sit down with some high-pressure sales rep trying to push supplements on me.

4. Appointment Booking & Contact Phone Number

First and foremost, you should get a dedicated line for your doggie daycare. There's no need to use your personal phone number for your business number. As your business gets more and more popular, you're going to be dealing with a lot more calls. Best to have a dedicated line that you can set up and use to manage your business. Google Voice offers free phone numbers for small businesses. Use one of these and set up a nice voicemail and you're set. List this number on your website so that people can call in and request appointments. Google Voice even includes voicemail transcripts that can get emailed to you when you miss a call. They're quite accurate too!

5. Picture Gallery Showing Off Your Facility

Last but not least, take the time to put together a nice photo gallery of your doggie daycare. People like seeing where they're going to be leaving their little fur babies. There are a ton of nice photo slideshow plugins for websites. Set yourself up with one of these and keep it updated with lots of well-done pictures. Pay a professional to take high quality pictures. Don't use grainy cell phone pictures. You're representing your business, and if you represent it with low-quality pictures, you're subconsciously telling people you're a low-quality business.

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