How To Build A Compelling University Website
Looking to build a new educational or university website? Find out how to build a compelling university website with the right features.
Image Source: Avada
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but online education is quickly becoming the norm. If you’re in the market to build an educational or university website there is definitely a right and wrong way to go about it.
Educational websites have to be intuitive and highly functional all while providing and exchanging a massive amount of information. This isn’t easy.
In modern academic societies, marketing is essential for universities, so they compete with other credible institutions. Therefore, leaders must invest in promoting their colleges to attract highly competitive students who will represent them. As they continue to receive qualified enrollees, their schools will likely gain the hopeful eyes of undergraduate students deciding which university to select to pursue their chosen degree courses.
Since marketing is vital to stay ahead of the competition, university heads must build their online presence to attract more prospective students. With that, they have to develop a website that will provide them with helpful application information and institutional milestones to encourage them to enroll. In addition, having these web pages will also help these universities to attract the best professors and staff, which allows for offering required courses.
This article provides you with the five fundamental strategies for building a compelling university website.
1. Add Visible Programs And Admissions Requirements
Whenever online users visit a schools websites, they’re interested in the available courses and programs offered by these universities. A program is a series of studies, including enrolment, years of studying, and graduation, which is typically certified with a qualification like a diploma. These degrees may include Arts and Sciences, Architecture, Engineering, Business Administration, Culinary Arts, Healthcare, Information Technology, and Psychology.
As you design the website for your university, you must visibly display these details to provide accurate answers to the queries of your page visitors so you can receive higher enrollment rates. You may include all the classes your school offers and put them on a separate page rather than adding them to your main landing page. Additionally, you must keep in mind to make a mobile-responsive website to prevent your pages from loading slowly, which might affect the interest of your prospective students and cause them to leave your site.
In addition to these programs, you also have to make admission requirements available because they will help your students determine if they meet the entry standards of Digital Schools and other similar platforms. This feature includes anything from standardized tests, qualifying grades, information on financial assistance, and fee structures. Moreover, you have to highlight deadlines and allow them to download a requirements checklist to save applicants from missing out on admission dates and help them have a seamless application journey.
Here is a breakdown of the necessary functional requirements almost every educational website has to have:
- Course Management: Your University or educational site should let you upload and display a variety of course materials. This includes text, PDFs for course workbooks or worksheets, and video/audio material for course lessons. A good university or educational website will also allow registered students to upload and share content.
- Course Registration: The next essential step would be to allow students to register/sign up for a course. This will let students interact and develop into a community, as well as allow you to monitor registration and even take payments for enrollment.
- Student Profile Management: You should be able to track how many students are enrolled in your course.
- Course Progress Tracker: This enables students to track their progress and pick up lessons where they’ve left off.
- Content Dripping: You can release lessons on a timed schedule instead of releasing all the material at once. The main benefit of content dripping is that it makes the content digestible and helps users handle extensive courses.
- Quiz and Test Support: It’s a given that students should be able to take tests online. You should really think of online educational systems as a whiteboard where all information is shared between students and teachers.
- Various Payment Gateways: Make it easy for students to pay with their preferred method.
One thing you can quickly see is that this type of platform is much more than a simple website. There are so many layers of accessibility, security and real-time sharing that you’re going to really need to focus on content delivery for the user experience. When organizing so much information it’s essential to make sorting through it easy for students.
2. Optimize Search Box
A search box is a visual component that enables users to enter keywords in a system to help them locate specific information. When a visitor can easily find this element, site owners might encourage them to return to the website and do more vital research. As they gain more knowledge about the university using these resources, they will have a smoother browsing experience.
As you plan to add the search box to your website, you must remember that most online users expect to find this tool at the top corners of the pages. Also, you need to make this element large enough so your visitors can quickly locate it and help them have an optimized experience as they type long search queries. After the user has executed their search, you must store their question and make it visible in the search box so they won’t have to re-type the same keyword.
3. Provide Contact Information
Contact details are essential for websites because this information provides prospective enrollees with various ways to communicate with their universities. Without adding this up-to-date data to your page, your students won’t have any means to get in touch with your admissions department and might miss deadlines. As a result, they might consider enrolling in another university that can instantly accommodate their needs and help them get the necessary notifications they need to have a smooth application process.
As you design your website, you must provide as many active contact details as possible so your potential students can have a wide selection of options for getting in touch with you. This information should include a working telephone number, a professional email address, and the specific address of your campuses. If you have an impactful social media presence, you should provide these links on the footer of your ‘Contact Us’ page so your visitors can quickly locate them.
This type of social proof is essential in order to instill confidence in potential students. There are a lot of fly-by-night educational sites and universities online. Having a legitimate address, direct contact methods, and social trust will help you stand out from those types of sites.
4. Produce High-Quality Images
Whenever digital users visit a website, visual content is the primary motivator for determining whether or not a user is going to stay on your site. When websites publish professional-looking images, their prospects will likely ask about their offerings and influence their decision. As they gain the attention of these visitors, they might be able to persuade them to invest in their brands by illustrating their stories.
Since most potential students explore your website, you must offer visually appealing images of your campuses, university logo, and even your students. You should consider outsourcing the expert services of a professional photographer who can capture high-quality photos of your university and the image you want to portray.
Take a look at some of the top online universities out there. They all use well-branded images that are unique to their learning experience.
Image Source: Arizona State University
5. Define Solid School Branding
A university brand is crucial because it reflects the institution’s character to establish its prestige and public image. This element is essential in attracting a talented workforce like administration and academic staff who will all guide the whole student body. When used correctly, an effective university branding can create an emotional connection with its ideal employees while attracting qualified students who will represent the school.
Like Arizona State University, Purdue carries branded imagery throughout their site:
Image Source: Purdue University
To create a credible brand image for your university, you have to know your story to add more depth to your institution while strengthening the connections you make with potential students. After that, you should take advantage of the accomplishments of your university over the years and add them to your website to make these prospects want to be part of a significant academic community. Then, you can convey your value to your ideal audience by frequently producing leadership articles, matching your web design with brand colors, and ask testimonials from your faculty and students.
Choosing a University or eLearning System
As you might have guessed, there are a lot of different routes you could take in setting up a university website. As with many decisions, budget and funding are going to be primary factors in deciding.
If you’re Well-funded and Launching an Enterprise Level Learning Portal there are several SaaS systems that you should check out.
For example;
https://www.learnupon.com/
and
https://www.absorblms.com/
are all industry-leading platforms.
If you’ve got a great university idea and are building the experience on a much smaller budget then you’re going to want to look at a solid system that still has all the features you need. In that case, I would recommend a WordPress theme like Avada University that provides a highly customizable template to get you started.
Key Takeaway
As a university leader, you must establish an impactful online presence to help your academic institution stand out from the competition. Therefore, you should consider building a compelling website with these five strategies. Once you do so, you might create a solid branding for your school, which influences the decision of your potential students and employees to be part of your growing community.
