14 Weeks Until September: Are Parents in Your Area Actually Finding You?
By Zooza
September is the biggest enrolment month of the year.
You already know that. You’ve prepared for it before — refreshed your timetable, updated your social media, maybe ran a few ads. And it worked, more or less.
But something has changed this year. And most activity providers in the UK haven’t noticed it yet.
The way families search for classes has shifted
Picture this. A mum picks up her phone and types — or speaks — a question:
“Swimming lessons for a 6-year-old, Saturday mornings, near Croydon.”
She doesn’t get a page of links to scroll through. She gets an answer. Three providers, with ratings, availability, and a booking link. Directly.
No clicking. No comparing websites. No scrolling past adverts. An answer.
This is already happening across the UK through Google AI Overview, Apple Intelligence, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Families — particularly parents of young children — are adopting AI-assisted search faster than most industries realise.
And the providers in that AI answer? They’re the ones who get the enquiry.
The ones who aren’t? They don’t appear at all. Not on page two. Not buried somewhere. They simply don’t exist in that conversation.
What AI agents actually look for
AI doesn’t browse your website the way a parent does. It doesn’t admire your photos or read your about page. It looks for specific signals to decide whether you’re worth recommending.
Those signals are:
- Reviews — volume and recency. Twenty Google Reviews and 200 Google Reviews are not the same thing to an AI agent. Neither are reviews from three years ago. Fresh, frequent reviews matter.
- Structured information. Can an AI read your class schedule? Does your website clearly state what you offer, what age groups you teach, what days and times you run, and what it costs? Or does it say “contact us for more information”? If an agent can’t parse your offering, it won’t recommend you.
- FAQ content. Families ask consistent questions: Can my child start mid-term? Do you offer trial sessions? What happens if we miss a class? If your website answers these clearly, AI can surface those answers. If it doesn’t, someone else’s will.
- An llms.txt file. This is a small, plain-text file that sits on your website and tells AI systems exactly who you are and what you do. Most activity providers have never heard of it. That’s the opportunity.
A quick self-check
Before September, ask yourself these five questions:
- Do you have more than 50 Google Reviews — and have you received new ones in the last 60 days?
- Is your class timetable, pricing, and age range clearly published on your website? If your schedule only appears inside a booking widget or embedded plugin, the answer is no. AI agents can’t read content that loads inside a widget — they only see text that’s directly in the page. A schedule behind a booking button is invisible to them.
- Does your website answer the questions families actually ask before they enquire?
- Do you have an llms.txt file? (If you don’t know what that is, the answer is no.)
- Does your booking or management software help you with any of this?
If you answered no to three or more of these, you have a discoverability problem heading into the most important enrolment window of the year.
What to ask your software provider
The good news: you shouldn’t have to solve this alone. Your management or booking platform should be helping you become more visible — not just helping you manage what you’ve already got.
Ask them directly:
- “Do you generate an llms.txt file for my business?”
- “Can parents see my full class schedule in a structured format online?”
- “Do you help me collect and display Google Reviews?”
- “Is my offering readable by AI search tools?”
If they don’t have answers to these questions, it’s worth exploring what else is available.
How Zooza is helping ICAP members prepare for September
Zooza is a management platform built specifically for children’s activity and education businesses — and as an ICAP partner, we’ve been focused on exactly this problem.
We’re rolling out AI Visibility tools that help your business show up where families are now searching:
- Automatic llms.txt generation for your business and locations
- Class schedule, pricing, and age groups exposed in a machine-readable format — built directly from the data you already have in Zooza
- Google Reviews integration and support for building your review volume
- AI readability scan so you can see exactly what an AI agent sees when it looks at your business
And for ICAP members, we have a dedicated offer — including a free trial, complimentary onboarding support, and no platform fees on payments while you get started.
→ Find out more and book a demo: zooza.online/icap
If you’d like to understand more about how AI search is changing discovery for children’s activity businesses, we’ve also written a practical guide: zooza.online/blog
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Zooza is an ICAP partner. The ICAP member offer includes a free trial supporting up to 10 active clients, three hours of onboarding support, website embed at no cost, and payment gateway integration with no additional Zooza fees.