I stumbled upon a school website that exemplifies the exact qualities of a fantastic school website. If you go to the website for Bishop Heelan School in Sioux City, IA, you will see what I am talking about.
I have been consulting for schools for over ten years and I have found that many schools have a website and this is great...but there are still some schools that do not have a website, nor do they have the qualities of what makes a fantastic school website! Parents and potential parents are visiting your website whether you like it or not and if you want to impress them one of the things that you need to have is a quality website that offers valuable information. The great part about this is that it is not hard to do at all!!! Just follow the steps below and you will be on your way to giving parents and potential parents what they need and want when they are researching schools!
Here are the top ten items a school website must have to provide the most valuable information for parents and prospective parents searching your school.
1) About Us Page: It is great to have an about us page on your website. This gives people an overview about your school and website. It is kind of like a summary of everything that your website and school consists of. You will be going into more detail in the pages of your website, but people can just look at this at first glance to see what your school is all about; hence About Us. Make the about us page desirable to keep parents intrigued to keep looking at your website. Make it interesting and unique.
2) Pictures: Everyone loves pictures. Provide pictures of the students in sporting events, science fairs, dances, plays - anything you can think of! Provide pictures of the school itself like the grounds of the school, the buildings, and classrooms. Portray anything new that you would like to showcase. These are all very important so that people can get a nice visual aspect without ever seeing your school in person. Providing faculty pictures is also a nice enhancement as you will see below.
3) Faculty / Staff Directory: Make it simple and easy to find the faculty and staff that work at your school. This is important for many reasons. It makes the staff and faculty members feel more important when they see their name and title on the website. It is also very helpful for parents that might be searching for a teacher and wants quick and easy access to their phone number and email address. If you want to take this a step further and really up the quality of your website, then add pictures of the faculty members. This makes it much more presentable and fun for everyone when they can put a face to a name.
4) Admissions Policy: It is always nice to tell people what the school's admission policy is. Providing information in a step by step, spelled out format is the best thing that you can do. Also, provide any forms that the families might need to register their kids. This makes the information easily accessible for the parents. Most schools have their tuition information in the admissions section of the website. Describe all registration fees, payment plans, payment methods, additional fees, and tuition. A nice calendar of events might be helpful too in the admissions section: First day of school, registration day, open houses, etc
5) Ways to Donate to the School: Even in this downturn economy, there are still people out there that are willing to donate to schools. Referring to our example school, Bishop Heelan, if you look at the navigation heading at the very end, you will see "Ways to Give". Listed there are different campaigns that people can donate to. This is excellent because people can donate towards a specific cause. If someone wanted to help out a family in need of tuition assistance, they can click on the Monsignor Lafferty Tuition Foundation and their money would go to a family in need. This is one of the most important ways for a school to raise money. It is easier than most fundraising efforts! Put it on your website!
6) At least two descriptions (in detail) of what makes your school different: There are many options for places for parents to send their kids to school. There are public schools, charter schools, online schools, religious schools, Montessori schools, and many more! You have to outline the qualitative that your school has to stand out from the crowd! If your school has a great drama program, or a great music program, or an award winning science team, or an awesome performing musical band - you must showcase that on your website! Anything that you can do to 1) add information and content to your site and 2) make your school standout and answer the question "what makes your school unique". The more you do this, the more compelled parents will be to keep looking at your school as a viable option for their children, instead of another school!
7) School History: People searching your school's website like to see details of how long the school has been around for, what updates the school has gone through throughout the years, and other valuable information associated with the school that made it what it is today. Things like renovations the school has gone through and changes throughout the years are what shape a school and creates more value. I always like to read a school's website before I go into a meeting. If I find out that the school I am visiting has a school and parish that have been around for over 100 years - that is very valuable information and it just makes me respect a school that much more!
8) Mission Statement: A school Mission Statement gives people a good idea of the philosophy and ideology of what the power behind the school is. The mission statement answers the question of what fuels and motivates the school to be the best it can be for the children it educates. A clear cut mission is important because parents want to see the thought process of the people running the school. Of course, the more time and energy that is put into the mission statement, the better the quality your school and website will become.
9) Headmaster / Director / Principal's Message: A message from the person at the top goes a long way for a school's website! This makes the website more personal and it also is a way for the parents to get a good sense of who the commander in chief is at the school. The more you personalize the website, the better it will be. Just imagine what you would want to see on a website - you want it welcoming, you want to meet the people in charge and you want to see firsthand information and images to make a well informed decision.
10) Contact information: It is imperative that the school has a contact us page with the formal address of the school and the main phone number of the school, a fax number and an email address. You can have a contact form, but most people feel more comfortable writing an email if that is their preferred way of communicating with the school. You must have an open outlet of communication so there are no barriers of people contacting your school. Directions to the school are also helpful on the contact us page. These days, it is very easy to add a picture of a map pinpointing the exact location of your school.
If you go ahead and follow these basic guidelines, you too will have a fantastic website for your school. The economy will not stay bad like this forever! Make sure you are ready for the rebound!
From the folks at Raise Enrollment - website coming soon!
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