Do you offer children's activities in Devon?

Whether it's Music with Mummy, a toddler group, football skills or Scouts, Stairway to Devon has many visitors looking for it.

Advertise children's activities in Devon

Our directory listings, news and events calendar bring visitors from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Facebook, Twitter and more.

We have a FREE listings promotion for children's activities throughout the 2010 summer holidays: just enter 'SUMMER10' as a promotional code on our 'Add Entry' form.

Otherwise, we usually ask for a link back to our website, either from your own website or from Facebook pages, MySpace, etc.

For news of more free promotions, follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Stairway2Devon

If you have any questions, please contact us.

What Promotional Features are available for Children's Activities?

1. Enter a full page directory listing for your club or business (example: Children's Entertainer in Devon). This can be as basic as a short text description with contact details, or it can include a picture gallery, a map of where your meetings are held, and even a YouTube video.
2. Add your special events, team matches, performances or fundraisers to our Devon Events Calendar
3. Post your news to our Devon news blog
4. Promote your club or business with an e-card



We actively promote our members' events, listing pages and news blog posts using Facebook, Twitter, news services and online bookmarking




Please note: our membership features are only available to people based in or serving the Devon area.

Read on to find out more...

Do I have to join as a member?

No, you don't have to be a member to add a directory listing: just go to this page and enter the details: Add URL to Devon Directory.
But you do have to join to be able to edit your details later - otherwise anyone could do it! For similar reasons, we require people to be members with details listed in the directory before they add events to the calendar.

How do I register as a member?

Click here to open our registration page in a new window or tab.

First, you will need to copy the security code that appears at the top of the form to prevent spam registrations. If you are not able to read the code, we will be happy to register you as a member if you email us at webmaster @ stairway-to-devon.co.uk.

Next on the form, please enter your name, a username to use on our website, an email address we can use to contact you and a password, then click the 'Register' button at the bottom.

You should now be able to login using the same username and password, enter your Listing Details Page and add your events to our calendar.

How do I create my Listing Details page?

Log in using the form on the left hand side of the page, and then Click here to open our 'Add Entry' page in a new window or tab.

We recommend getting the basic details entered and saved first before adding extra pictures.

1. Choose one of the listing options, ie paid / free if you link back to us from your website / free if you link back from somewhere else / free if you write us a news post or article. If you have a promotional code for free listings (such as 'SUMMER10' during the 2010 school summer holidays), choose one of the options that isn't 'paid listing' and enter the code in the box below the listing options.
2. Choose a category for your listing.
   
   Click on the '+' sign next to Children and Families to open up more categories. Click to select one of the categories that appear under Children and Families, then click the '>>>' button near the top of the list to make your category appear in the empty box on the right.
   
   Then, if you are in a particular town, click the '+' sign next to 'Towns and Villages in Devon', and select your town in the same way. If your town does not appear in the list, choose 'Add your own Category' at the top of the list, and enter a suggested category in the box above the list that says 'Suggest new categories for this entry'
   
   Check for other categories that might fit too, eg one of the 'Arts and Entertainment', 'Wildlife and Nature', 'Education' or 'Sports and Recreation' categories.
3. Enter the basic details. Enter your club name or team name in the box that says 'Title for your listing'. Include your town name if possible, as this will help people find your page in internet searches. Enter the rest of your contact details and a description. Only the fields marked with a '*' are required, so you don't have to enter a business name if you are a club, for example.
4. At this point, we recommend that you save your listing details, so click the box to accept the terms of use, scroll down the page and click the 'Send' button
5. You will get an email to tell you when your listing has been published, and then you can log in at any time and find your listing (look for new listings in the top left corner of the page). Click an 'Edit' button that appears on it when you are logged in, and this takes you to the same form.
6. Extra Features, all Optional:
   
   Search Engine Optimisation
   The text you enter in these boxes does not appear on your listing page, but can help people find it using internet search engines such as Google. For the Keywords, choose a few words or short phrases that people might associate with your club or team (eg sports for children, football club in Exeter), and enter them in the box, with commas in between.
   
   For the 'Meta Description', enter a short description of your club in 1 or 2 sentences.
7. YouTube Videos
   
   Currently we are able to play YouTube videos on our listing pages, and we are working on allowing people to upload their own short audio and video clips. So if you have a YouTube video that you would like visitors to be able to play on your page, please enter the url here, with 2 small changes: delete the 'watch?' and replace the '=' with a '/', so eg instead of 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmhaeLmE91k', you would enter http://www.youtube.com/v/zmhaeLmE91k
8. Adding Pictures
   
   There are several places in your club details page where you can add pictures. The 'Browse' buttons on the form can be used to find the pictures you want on your computer.
   
   This is where the pictures appear:
   
   • The Logo will appear as a small (80x80 pixel) image in a link to your details page. This link appears in a list of similar pages (see example: Outdoor Activities in Devon).
   • The Main Picture appears as a bigger image on the top right corner of your details page.
   • The Background Image or Colour appears in the background around your details page. If you don't choose one, it will be white.
   • The Photo Gallery appears as a row of small pictures along the bottom of the details page, which can be clicked on to pop up a bigger picture.
9. Adding a Map to Your Page
   
   If you want to add a map, eg to show where your practices or home games are held, click the 'Add a Map' box. Then click on the map, using the '+' button to zoom in and find your location. As you click on the map, the latitude and longitude of the place you click will appear in the boxes.
   
10. Accept the Terms of Use
    Again, click the box to accept the terms of use, and then click the 'Send' button.

How can I Promote my Listing Page?

Once your page is published, there will be a 'social bookmarking' button at the top that can easily be used to post a link to your page on social news and bookmarking services, such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and Delicious. We recommend using a couple of these to give your page an extra boost (we do this too :) ).

How can I add an event to the calendar?

First, you need to log in, then click on 'Announce Your Events' from the members' menu on the left hand side.

Enter the title and description of the event. Include all the information in the description, including the location, dates and times.


For Repeating Events

When you get to the part where you enter the dates, enter the first day of your event in the date field and select 'No end date (show start date only)'.

Click on the plus (+) sign to the right of 'Repeat Event'.

At 'Repeat Method', choose how often to repeat the event, eg 'Repeat every 1 Week(s)'.

At 'Repeat End Date':
• If the event repeats indefinitely, choose 'No end date'
• If the event repeats a set number of times, choose 'End after [enter number here] occurrences'
• If the event repeats until an end date, choose 'Repeat until' and enter the last date when your event occurs.


This will result in your event being displayed once on the calendar for each time it occurs.

If I register as a member, will I get loads of emails?

No, we do not have a regular newsletter or mailshot. In the past 4 years, we have sent about 4 mailshots, and this is only likely to happen if we need to inform our members about changes to the website facilities, or if we need to contact you about your own listings in particular.

Terms and Conditions and Content Policy

We have a policy of family-friendly content and avoiding copyright infringement among other issues, so please read our website terms and conditions here. In particular, with children's activities, please ensure you have parents' permission if you use photos with their children in :)