Local SEO Campaign for Monkey Donky

The Childcare Center with Character in Groningen

Monkey Donky has been a household name in Groningen for 25 years. With seven unique locations spread throughout the city, Monkey Donky distinguishes itself through an educational philosophy centered on respect, bonding, and creativity. Educational staff provide loving care and support children’s development through play and themed activities, often based on the Piramide method.

Each location has its own character and atmosphere:

• Hamburgerstraat: located in the historic Kandelaarkerk, featuring a covered outdoor play area and a view of a pond.
• Oosterhamrikkade: located in the former Noorderbad, featuring a large indoor playground.
• Kraneweg (Het Toddlers Huis): a small-scale facility with a vegetable garden and a peaceful, green outdoor area.

In addition, Monkey Donky offers flexible contract options, parent involvement through personal and informal communication, and fresh, hot meals every day. Its locations are spread across neighborhoods such as the Korrewegwijk, Oosterparkwijk, Groningen-Zuid, and the city center, ensuring there’s always a location nearby.

It’s important to note that Het Toddlers Huis, part of Monkey Donky, also has its own website. As part of our SEO strategy, we’re taking a separate approach for this, with the goal of making both websites easily discoverable locally.

SEO Project for Monkey Donky

Since December 2019, SmartRanking has been Monkey Donky’s regular SEO partner. The project focuses entirely on local SEO, with the goal of achieving optimal visibility in Google’s local search results and on Google Maps. Het Toddlers Huis is also being handled as a separate project with its own strategy.

The objective from Monkey Donky

The main objectives at the start of the process were:

• Be more visible in local search results in Groningen.
• Close the gap in organic growth by becoming the largest childcare provider in Groningen and surpassing other competitors.
• Secure a solid No. 2 position on a long-term basis.
• Generate more conversions: this includes guided tours, availability requests, and sign-ups.

Later, this objective was expanded to include visibility in surrounding villages. In addition, for a short time, extra attention was paid to recruiting new teaching staff through organic search queries. Since Monkey Donky has since become a well-known and respected employer, there is less focus on that now.

The Approach for This Project

At SmartRanking, we believe that SEO is more than just a series of tricks. It’s about making structural improvements to websites to provide better answers to the target audience’s questions, with the user at the center.

The approach for Monkey Donky consisted of:

• Create and optimize Google My Business profiles for all Monkey Donky and Het Toddlers Huis locations.
• Local link building and getting more customer reviews.
• Optimizing existing pages and creating new pages focused on local conversions.
• Improving the site’s quality, UX flow, and clear communication about Monkey Donky’s unique story.
• Implementation of (local) structured data to improve relevance for search engines.
• Publishing content based on educational expertise, with practical parenting tips for parents.
• Competitor analyses and a sharp focus on key search terms such as “childcare Groningen” and “daycare center Groningen.”
• Using Google Ads data to determine priorities within the SEO strategy.

What’s unique is that a conscious decision was made not to generate generic nationwide traffic, but to focus solely on local search terms that are actually relevant to the target audience.

The Result Achieved

The Monkey Donky team is dedicated, critical, and actively contributes ideas. Thanks to this pleasant collaboration, we’ve been able to achieve the best possible results. Our long-standing partnership, which began in 2019, demonstrates how important mutual trust is in a successful SEO project.

Monkey Donky is now firmly established as the No. 2 childcare provider in Groningen in organic search results, with excellent visibility and a strong local competitive position that continues to grow.