If you’re reading this, then you already know how important the presentation of your school is, not just online but across your prospectus and other community touch points. Here is why you need a school website redesign.
From cohesive branding to clear and concise information checkpoints, getting your digital and physical presence right is important for engaging and connecting with pupils, parents, teachers, and the wider school community.
But with digital on the rise, it’s no longer enough to just have a website packed with nice visuals and useful information. In this article we share the top 5 ways to recognise when your website needs a school website redesign, and what to do to bring it up to scratch.
It’s not Responsive
53.9% of all e-commerce sales are made through mobile devices, which proves just how much we use our phones as part of daily life. So, why not make school admin easier on-the-go too by ensuring your website is not just mobile friendly but completely mobile responsive?
This means that the site recognises when it’s being displayed on a mobile device and adjusts the layout automatically to suit the smaller and more vertical screen. Rather than sizing everything down it shifts different content blocks so that they fit and become easy to navigate on a phone. If it doesn’t do that, then it’s time to rethink your mobile focus.
Your SEO isn’t performing
If your SEO isn’t performing well, then your website may not be showing up in search results as Google isn’t favouring your site against your competitors. SEO is a crucial tool which lets Google search bots trawl your site and understand what it’s about and what value each individual page offers, drawing on keywords and copy to ascertain its relevance in line with user searches.
If your school website has been around for a while, you might find that your SEO ranking is being impacted by the existence of duplicate content and juxtaposing information. If this is the case, it’s often worth stripping your online presence back to basics and starting again with a school website redesign, ensuring that you are using an SEO strategy from day one.
You’re ready to rebrand
This is an easy one! When you know you’re ready for a rebrand, it’s probably time for a new website to celebrate. From terminology to visuals, colour schemes, and even the basics of layout, a rebrand will often change everything about the way you present your school, so much so that layering the changes into an existing site will take a lot more time than simply starting again.
Navigation is Poor
Indicators of poor navigation include a high bounce rate and a low average time spent on your website in a single session, not to mention the user experience overall may be low and difficult to move through. Remember that navigation is not just the ease of accessing the menu and the buttons, it also refers to the impact of your call to actions the way your website creates an automated journey for captive users, and the links between different pages that provide information that the user needs.
It doesn’t integrate with your other systems
Your school needs a lot more than just a website to operate. After all, it’s the hub of information for not just teachers and their pupils but parents, prospective parents and pupils, the school community, and anyone who might want to get in touch. If your website doesn’t integrate with other systems, for example an app for parents, a selection of social media profiles for optimised engagement, and a basic email list for relevant updates, you will find that your digital presence is not operating as effectively as it could.
To make your job easier, a school website redesign that is built for integration will support daily admin and deliver the right information to the right people.
What to do next
If your website falls into any of the above categories, you will probably find it’s time for a redesign – and that’s where Cleverbox comes in. As a school branding and design agency, our job is not just to create websites but to deliver consistent design and support across a range of touch points which bring the core values and information to life for your entire school community.
Whether it’s through the integration of an online prospectus, the implementation of a dedicated Home Learning Hub, or simply providing you with a new website to match your rebrand, our business is in making your school stand out. Get in touch with our wonderful, friendly team today for more information.