Many school websites are difficult to find on search engines, which can make it difficult for students, parents, and teachers to discover the information they need when they need it. Creating a school website that is easy to find and navigate will help more people discover the information on it. Having a good website is very important to all schools. This article will dive into the importance of your school’s website and some strategies to increase your visibility!
Importance of Your School’s Website
First, we need to look at five reasons why your school’s website is so important.
#1: A Great School Website Reflects Well On Your School
Having a well-designed, user-friendly website is important for good branding. A good website allows people to distinguish your school from schools in the area quickly and easily. It also gives you an opportunity to show your personality with photos, videos, and fun facts about your teachers. Plus, it can be one of your school’s best forms of communication. A website allows the teachers, administration, and parents to post in one central location where everyone can access it at any time.
#2: A Website Can Be Your School’s Landing Page
A landing page is a good place for people to start when they visit your school’s website. A landing page, also called a homepage, should be simple and easy to navigate. It should provide a welcome message about your school, as well as other information that you think might interest visitors to your website.
#3: Visitors Can Learn About Your School From Your Website
Your school website should be filled with helpful information about your school and community. This will allow parents and students to discover things they didn’t know before coming to visit. For example, some schools have a special focus on STEAM education, while some are nationally known for their sports programs.
#4: Your Website Can Help You Engage With Parents
Adding useful features to your site can allow you to keep parents updated with school news, events, schedules, and even emergency information. You can also use it as a way for parents and students to communicate with teachers and administrators. For example, some schools have a special email address just for parent messages.
#5: Your Website Can Be A Great Educational Tool For Students
A modern school website can allow teachers to post class notes, classroom blogs, homework assignments, and study guides online. In this way, students have an opportunity to interact with their teachers outside the walls of the school building. This might be a great alternative for some students who have a difficult time going to school due to illness or transportation issues.
First impressions are everything, so it is so important to ensure your page is aesthetically pleasing and simple to navigate.
5 Strategies To Increase School Website Visibility
Next, you need to know these five strategies to ensure your website is viewed and well-received. If you need to know how to improve a school website, keep on reading below!
#1: Optimize your Landing Page
Your school’s landing page should be the first thing people see when they find your website. If this page isn’t easy to navigate, you can lose potential new visitors quickly. So, be sure that your landing page is as simple to go through as possible. It also needs to be pleasing to the eye.
#2: Invest In Strategic SEO
Popular search engines like Google and Bing are constantly changing their algorithms to improve the user experience. That being said, it is important to have your website in a search engine that can be easily found by potential visitors. This is where SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, comes into play. It’s important to build your site with SEO best practices built right into its design from the start. You are trying to advertise and “sell” your school, so make sure you know good SEO to ensure your school is growing.
#3: Keep Visitors Coming Back
If your landing page is the first thing people see when they land on your site, you’ll want to make sure it’s a good one. At a minimum, you should include key details, such as address and phone number, directions for getting to your school, and a message about what makes your school unique.
#4: Develop A Call To Action
These days it can be tough to keep up with all the features and functions of various web management tools. Even if this is the case, you should add a call-to-action to each page on your website. A call-to-action invites visitors to take the next step and submit a form, such as emailing you with questions, volunteering at your school, or learning more about enrollment opportunities.
#5: Keep Visitors Looking Around
School websites should offer lots of great information for parents and students alike. Even though it’s important to have information readily available, it’s also important to keep users on the site for as long as possible. For this reason, you should create an interesting homepage with lots of engaging content. You can even use video or social media posts to capture visitors’ attention. Having an effective school website design also keeps people on your website longer.
In this day and age, it is so important to have a good website and to increase visibility as much as possible. Make sure you follow these strategies in order to help you and your school’s website.
Why It is Crucial To Keep Your School’s Website Updated
Finally, you need to know at least these four reasons why it is crucial to keep your school’s website as updated as possible:
#1: It Is The First Place Parents Go
By developing a user-friendly website, you can increase the likelihood that parents will visit your site to learn about what goes on at your school. It’s important to have an updated website because this is probably where parents are going to look first when wondering about what you do.
#2: Your Website Is Always Available
In the event that parents have some questions for you, it is important your website can answer those questions as thoroughly as possible. If your website is full of outdated information, you might lose a student or parent to another school with a better website. You will always want to ensure that your school website features the most up-to-date information available.
#3: You Can Showcase Your Awards And Accomplishments
One of the best ways to improve your school’s reputation is to show photos and press releases about awards and accomplishments. This can be put on your website so others who visit will learn about what you’ve done and achieved over time.
#4: You Can Make Your Facilities Available To Visitors
By having photos and videos of your school and facilities on your website, you can allow potential students and parents to decide if they want to visit you. This is a great way to make your school more accessible to those who may not have been able to see it otherwise.
With the many benefits of keeping your school’s website updated, it’s no wonder why it is crucial to maintain this part of your website. You can use the strategies listed above to help you update and maintain your school’s website.
School websites should offer lots of great information for parents and students alike. Even though it’s important to have information readily available, it’s also important to keep users on the site for as long as possible. For this reason, you should create an interesting homepage with lots of engaging content. You can even use video or social media posts to capture visitors’ attention!
SchoolCues is an all-in-one school management system for small schools with limited budgets and resources. Our solutions include admissions and enrollment, online payments, student information system, gradebook, communications, parent engagement, donations and fundraising, alumni management and more. Schedule a demo with us today.