A high school website is crucial for creating a long-lasting and enhanced first impression. Before a parent reaches out to any schools, they look to conduct a small research to find the best school for their child. Yes, the popularity of the school always plays a crucial role in driving parents to your institution. But no matter how popular you might be in your location if you don’t have an attractive, optimized, and informative school website then your school might be losing potential students.
The high school website you create and offer acts as the information distribution machine where prospects land on your school website design to learn more about your offering achievements and more. Not only that but a school website also helps in establishing your authority and creating a strong online presence. The reason why most of the schools look to hire an experienced website design company because the design and architecture they create help in showcasing professionalism and creating strong authority among prospects.
No matter whether you have a 5 or 10-year-old school or planning to build a new one the website of your school will play a crucial role in making your business reach a maximum number of potential students. But the question comes down to how to create an attractive and informative high school website?
If you are scrolling the internet for the same then you have landed on the right article where we are going to highlight some of the best tips that can be considered before creating a high school website. Apart from that, we will also be highlighting some of the elements and features that every high school website should include in its website design. So make sure you stick till the end of this article.
An Overview Of high School Website design
When it comes to creating a high school website then every small, as well as a large school, should know that the competition is fierce. That is the reason why it’s essential to remember the more you are able to tell your prospects why they should select your school over others, the easier it will become for parents to decide whether your school is right for their children or not. The high school website design you create and offer will play a major role in the parent’s decision-making process. Whether you are an existing institution or planning to build a new one, the website of your high school will play a major role in getting more new admission to your school.
Today it has become essential to have a simple and attractive website design that grabs user’s attention and encourages them to explore more about your school. The high school website design you create and offer not only helps in highlighting your offering but also allows you to showcase your establishment along with the achievement.
The main role of the high school website is to uphold the overall brand of your school. A high school website contains a huge amount of important information for parents as well as students. That information can be related to faculty, existing students, services offered by the school, extracurricular activities, and more. Not only that a website also helps in representing the campus culture. These types of information will help you to grab more prospects’ attention and encourage them to get in touch with your school.
Gone are the days when parents used to call the school to inquire about their offering. Today every parent picks up their phone and starts searching for the school website to get detailed information about their offering, achievement, and more. Until and unless your high school website satisfies them they will not show interest in getting in touch with any of the executives in your school.
Today every parent wishes to offer top-quality education to their children. That is the reason why they look for the best school for their child. If you don’t have any specific website for your school then you are automatically losing your potential student. On the other hand, if your school website is slow and monotonous it will create a negative impression about your website and school. Remember the site you create and offer will play a major role in highlighting your school reputation.
That is the reason why it’s essential for every school to have an attractive and informative website for their high school. If you are looking to create one then make sure to read this article till the end as we are going to highlight some of the important points on how you can create the best website for your school. But before that, we would like to highlight some of the important points on why having a fully functioning school website is needed more than ever?
If you wish to hire an experienced and reliable website design company for your website then make sure to check our article on How to hire the best website design company for your business
Why is it essential to have a fully functioning website for your high school?
Schools are the place where the life of every person begins and transforms. It is the palace where a child starts to learn every basic fundamental of life and how things function. That is the reason why parents want their child to land into the best school that can help to enhance the child’s mind and future. But with the increase in the number of schools almost every parent faces problem-related to finding the best ones for them.
Not to mention but today every person is busy with their personal and professional life. With the increase in the number of schools, one can never expect parents to visit every single school to identify their offerings along with their achievements. To avoid that, parents always look toward the internet as it makes things easy for them to find every small detail about different schools by sitting in one place. Today almost every person that is making use of the internet, sees it as a source to find information.
To make your prospect find your school in the particular area you need to have a fully functioning website for your high school. As mentioned earlier the website you create and offer acts as the source of information where parents are able to get every small detail about your school including what you are offering, the achievements, teacher’s details, contact information, and many more. Most of the schools ignore creating a website because they are unaware of the cost involved in creating a website. If you are one among them then make sure to check our blog on Website design pricing Guide: How much does Website design cost
The school website you create and offer also helps in making a good first reputation. Whenever a user lands on your school website they will be accessing the information in the way they will do by visiting your school physically. If you are failing to offer good design then it will create a negative impression about your school. So if you don’t have a website for your school or have a poorly designed website then you are creating a bad impression about your school and your prospects will never show interest in visiting your school physically.
So if you don’t have a highly responsive and fully functioning high school website for your business then we recommend you get one. If you wonder, then here are some of the important points that can give you a better understanding of why you need to have a high school website for your business.
1. Allows you to become part of the online community
By creating a fully functioning website for your school you are not only helping your school to reach a wide range of audiences. But you are also becoming part of online communities. There are a number of schools that already have a website and with the help of the website, they are creating a strong online presence. So by creating a website, you are joining a huge online community that can help you to connect with your prospects.
Yes, social media platforms are always the first choice of every business due to their cost friendliness. But a website allows you to create a strong online presence and connect with a larger audience. Today when a user wishes to find some or other kind of answers and information then they don’t make use of social media platforms instead they look toward search engine platforms.
By creating a highly responsive and SEO-friendly website you can rank your web pages in the search engine so that users are able to find you in the search results. If your presence is only on social media then you will comparatively have a lower reach. On the other hand, a website will allow you to reach the maximum audience. There are many organizations out there that are making use of websites and search engines to reach their prospects and get them hooked on the website.
The website you create and offer will act as a tool where users can connect with your school by sitting at their home. No matter where you are small or recently started school, a fully functioning website will offer you a competitive edge. But for that, it’s always recommended to hire a highly experienced wordpress website design company that can help in creating a research-based design that encourages your site visitor to explore more about your school.
2. Helps in improving your branding
Earlier the term branding was only used by the clothing industry but now every business looks to set itself as a brand. You might be running a school but it’s also a kind of business and today many schools are focusing on setting themselves apart from others by setting themselves as a brand. Yes, there are a lot of things that go into setting yourself as a brand. But the website you create and offer plays a major role in enhancing your school branding.
You might be using social media and offline marketing to set your brand apart but if you don’t have a website then you are running behind in the race. As mentioned earlier there are a number of schools that have set themselves as a successful brand with the help of the website. A website allows you to create strong brand awareness among your target audience. If your website design is created more strategically with the help of an experienced wordpress web design company then it will surely grab more site visitor’s attention which will help in gaining more credibility.
The reason why we mentioned taking the help of professionals is that when it comes to setting yourself as a brand then every small element including the color you are using, the information architecture, and more will play a crucial role in separating your website from others. Until and unless you are able to offer a reason to your site visitors on why they should prefer your school over others you won’t be able to set yourself as a brand. A school website designed keeping the website user interface (UI) in mind will help you to highlight your school image more effectively.
Hiring experienced website design professionals for your school website will ensure that you are able to present your school images in a way that makes you look more professional and authentic. If your website fails to convince your site visitors about your authenticity until then they will never show interest in talking to any of your executives or visiting your school physically. So having a highly responsive and fully functioning website will help you to improve your school branding and reputation.
3. Allows you to gain the competitive edge
Most of the time the popular school in your city and location might not have established any website for their school but still, they are able to get more still because of their popularity. Those schools are your direct competition and to gain the competitive edge against them it’s the best time to establish an official website for your school. By creating a highly responsive and fully functioning school website you are not only helping your school but also helping parents to get a better understanding of your school by sitting at home.
A school website will help you to reach out to your prospects quickly and also helps in saving time. On your website, you can highlight every small feature, service, and more that will act as the selling point of your website. Most of the schools are using the website to highlight school facilities, student programs, educational programs, and other extracurricular activities to grab more parents’ attention. These are the features that most parents seek when enquiring about any school.
By creating and offering a website you ensure that parents don’t have to land on your school to get these details instead they can get the same from your official website. These types of help create a positive impression about your school and allow you to gain an edge over your competition. You can always look at your school website as the primary marketing tool that allows you to reach maximum prospects and create a strong online presence.
There are many schools out there that are using their website to gain more popularity. That is the reason why it’s said a school website is way more effective and faster compared to the flyers, brochures, posters, and more.
4. Helps in enhancing your School credibility
In today’s competitive marketplace where every year we are seeing a surge in the number of schools, credibility is becoming one of the crucial factors in getting more students into your school. Apart from your services and achievement, your school website plays a crucial role in enhancing your school’s credibility. Well, we are not saying that your school is not credible if you do not have a website. But when it comes to engaging your school’s credibility then there are multiple factors that come into account one among them is your official website.
With the help of a website, you can highlight every small detail about your offering including your student achievement, the programs offered by your school, and more. You can create a separate gallery page that highlights images of your classroom, auditorium, playground, and more. Apart from that, you can also include your school achievement photos to grab more site visitors’ eyes. If a user is landing on your school website then they will look to get every small detail about your school that is the reason it’s essential to have an About us page on your website.
On this page, you can talk about your school history, notable achievements, origin, branches, and more. The more answers you are able to offer from your website the easier it will become for you to gain users’ credibility. You can easily make a list of questions that are frequently asked in your school and offer the answer for the same on your website. This way you will be able to reduce the extra workload of your school as well as your parents. Make sure your website emphasizes the school’s contact details and your location along with the full addresses.
5. Allows you to offer a platform for online admission
Most of the schools are already making use of fully functioning school ERP to manage the whole school functioning. But when it comes to online admission one needs to have a fully functioning website for their schools. It will act as the source where new users will land on your website, fill the form and take new admission. If you have already gained credibility and authority from the user then they will never hesitate to pay the fees online for new admission.
If your school is doing the admission manually then it’s the right time to make the same admission prices live for online users. As mentioned easier today every person is busy with their own personal work that is the reason why they look at online platforms to get information or make any purchase so that they don’t have to be present there physically.
When it comes to the education sector your school can add and offer an online admission feature where your prospects can pay their fees or enroll for new admission. It will not only become convenient for your staff but also for your parents and students. They will be able to make the payment online from anywhere and from any device.
To add the online admission feature you need to have a fully functioning website for your business. Many institutions and schools are already making use of the websites and apps to access payments online. Make sure you are selecting a reliable payment gateway for online payment so that your site visitor feels confident while making the payment online. So if you wonder why you need a fully functional school website then online admission can be another reason that you can add to your list.
6. Act as the mean of communication
Having a school website will not only help you to add and offer the online admission feature but it will also act as a means of communication. Yes, the website you create and offer will also act as a communication tool. Having a school website allows you to convey information related to important events or announcements. Most of the schools and institutions have a dedicated mobile app where they convey these types of information. But if your school doesn’t offer a mobile app then you can make use of the website to convey these types of important information.
This information can be anything related to upcoming events, exam schedules, and more. A fully functioning school website will allow parents and students to access this information instantly just by clicking and visiting your website. Yes, emails and phones are considered as one of the most reliable ways to communicate this information but most of the time parents either fail to pick the call or check the email. By offering this information on your website you ensure that the information is getting delivered to parents and students.
Apart from that, there will be no need to communicate the information through calls, text emails, and more. If you are getting your school website design from an experienced wordpress web design company then you can ask them either to create a separate page for this type of information or add a column in your home page that highlights this information. Remember the better communication you offer to your audience the easier it will become to gain their trust.
By now you must have a good idea about why you need a fully functioning website for your school. Next, we are going to highlight some of the important features you can include on your school website.
Features & Elements to include in your school website
If you are planning to create a school website then you need to ensure that it comes with all the features and functionality that enhance your website user experience. Gone are those days when institutions used to offer a simple website with a bunch of images. Now users expect more features and the right placement of images on the school website.
If you are looking to engage more and more site visitors then it’s essential to create a website by placing every element strategically and adding more features that encourage your site visitor to explore more about your school. Some of the features are essential to add to your school website whereas there are a bunch of features that most of the schools add depending on their needs. So let’s take a look at some of the essential features and elements that you need to add to your school website:
1. Social media feeds
When you plan to create a website for your school then you need to utilize it with full potential. You might be creating the website after 1 or 2 years but your presence is already there on various social media platforms. That means you must have a business page on social media platforms and people are already talking about your website. Some of the users might be talking about your services and others might be praising the recent event that happened in your school.
Not only that but your post might have grabbed many eyes and people might be interacting with posts in the comment section of your social media business pages. All these comments and praises you can highlight on your school website by creating a separate social media feed section that highlights every small positive comment by the user. Adding these types of features to your website will grab more users’ eyes and encourage them to perform the desired action.
2. Telling your story through video
Text content has always been the most adaptable and most effective way to deliver information and grab more site visitor’s eyes. But in recent years video content has started to gain more popularity and now it has become the most effective medium to deliver information and grab more site visitors. Today more than text content every user likes to interact with the video because video content offers the same amount of information within a short period of time.
When it comes to school websites then it’s essential to have short videos that highlight small details about your school. By including embracing videos of your school, you ensure that users are able to connect with your content and explore more about your services and achievements. You can create and offer any kind of video explaining your establishment, your school environment, services, achievements, and more.
That is the reason why most of the top schools spend hundreds and thousands of dollars creating different types of videos about their school. Including video content not only helps in engaging more and more site visitors, but also helps in gaining credibility and establishing authority. So when you plan to create a school website make sure you add videos to your website. Depending on the video title you can distribute the video content across different pages on your website. And make sure your homepage contains videos that highlight your school environment and achievements.
3. School calendar
Apart from videos, you can also look to add calendars to your website as it helps parents to get important details about the term date, upcoming events, and more. Most of the school websites prefer to create a separate page or add a small column in the home pages that highlight this information. Having an organized calendar on your website will make things easy for the parents as well as students to get every important information by sitting at their home. By looking at the event calendar students can easily find which events they need to participate in.
Gone are those days when emails and calls were the only sources to get these types of information. Now schools can make use of their website to display this information, making it convenient for schools to communicate this information to their students and parents easily. By including these types of features in your school website you’re making it easy for the reception staff to cut down the time and utilize it in other places.
If you have hired a highly experienced website design company to create a fully responsive school then you don’t have to worry about these features as they will ensure that the school website comes with every small and advanced feature that can make your website more engaging and grab more site visitors’ eye.
4. A well designed “About us” page
When it comes to a school website then the About us page will act as the sole of your website. The reason why schools create and offer an attractive website is that it helps the prospects to get a better understanding of school and its origin. But for that, you need to create and offer a well-designed about us page because if a user lands on your website to get a detailed idea about your school then the first thing they will look onto is your about us page.
The about us page or our school page is always the most viewed page on any school website. It helps the user to get a better understanding of your school origination along with the environment and the achievements. The about us page or our school page allows you to communicate your values and ethics along with your achievements, goals, and USP or things that set your school apart from your competitors.
Before making any decision every parent looks to get a detailed idea about the school. If the “about us page” fails to impress your prospects or deliver the information they are looking for then it can create a negative impression about your website as well as your school. On the other hand, if your school website doesn’t have any about us page then there are high chances that your site visitors might get confused and end up leaving your website.
So when it comes to creating a school website then make sure your site map includes the “About US ” page or the “Our School ” page. Apart from that makes sure you structure the content properly so that users are able to access and interact with the page you are offering. If you are looking to know more about how you can make your web page accessible then make sure to check our blog on How To Make A Website Accessible? 10 Proven Tips To Follow In 2021
5. Make sure your website comes with the FAQ page
If you are running your school for long then you must be aware of the fact that every parent that is looking to get their child in your school has a lot of questions to ask from your management in the beginning. The fun fact is that most of the parents will have the same question to ask for your school so why not make use of your website to answer the questions instead of repeating them again and again.
Yes, you can make use of your school’s official website to display some of the frequently asked questions by the parents. Yes, these answers might be available in your website content. But bringing those answers in one place under one specific question can enhance the website user experience and also improve your website reputation. Most of the time parents don’t like to read each and every small text on the website because of that they miss the key information along with the answer they are seeking on your website.
By offering a FAQ page on your school website you ensure that your prospects don’t miss any kind of information and get access to the answers as quickly as possible. These types of practices encourage your site visitors to interact with your website and explore more about your schools. You can always update your FAQs regularly depending on the question that you are getting from your prospects. The more questions you add to your school website the more people will show interest in engaging with your website.
Having an updated FAQ page means your prospects can easily and quickly access the answer they are looking for on your website. Once your prospects find the answer then they will never hesitate to explore more pages on your website. So if you want your school website to be effective and productive then make sure to include FAQ pages in your school website.
6. Start offering a newsletter
Most of the schools just see their website as an information offering machine which is true to some extent. But remember the website you create and offer can be utilized for multiple purposes. If your school publishes a weekly and monthly newsletter then you can add the same to your website to make your school website more interactive and engaging. Well, every school is not in the habit of producing these types of newsletters but if your school is doing it then it’s always recommended to add it to your school website.
Most of the schools that are creating and producing these types of newsletters are in the habit of sending them via email. We are not asking you to stop them but you can make your newsletter more effective by publishing it on your website. You can upload the newsletter to any specific page of your website but make sure it’s easily discoverable. By doing this you will ensure that parents always have access to the recent and past newsletters. So if your school is creating a newsletter then make sure to add the same to your website.
7. Contact Form
Not to mention but the contact forms are the most crucial aspect of every website. Whether you are running a blogging website, business website, or school website every website needs a contact form so that the site visitor can get in touch with you for all types of queries. Mainly when it comes to school websites the contact form will play a major role in helping your site visitor to get in touch with the reception. You might be offering a FAQ section on your website but still, your site visitor might have a number of queries related to your schools or service.
By adding a contact form you ensure that they are able to reach out to your school and get the answer to the question they are looking for on your website. In your contact form, you can add a section that allows users to write their questions so that your school can reach out to them with the right answer. A content form also helps in getting your site visitor’s personal details which can be used to reach out to them in the future.
Depending on the query you are receiving you can add multiple options in your contact form where users easily select the option they are looking to enquire about. Some of the site visitors might look to book an appointment or facing issues related to the same and other parents might look to enquire about the upcoming event, child performance, and more. By adding these options in your contact form you will be able to enhance your website user experience and encourage your site visitors to complete filling the final form.
Conclusion
By now you might have a good idea about why you need to have a fully functioning website for your school and what features you need to include in your school website. If you are still thinking about whether you should design a website for your school or not then we recommend you to get its design as soon as possible. Because your competitors are already in a position to create a strong online presence and drive more prospects to their school.
The more time you spend thinking about whether you should design a website or not the more prospects you will be losing to your competitor’s website. The website you create and offer will act as the source of information and will also help in setting your brand and business authority. That is the reason why we recommend you to get your website design from experienced website design professionals who can bring their years of expertise in creating an attractive and informative website for your business.