By not regularly updating your school website with the latest school news, you may be missing an opportunity to engage with your community. So, where do you start and how do you create a news item students, parents, and prospective families actually want to read? Great school news articles are timely, well-structured, visually engaging, and written with your audience in mind. Use clear headlines, compelling images, and keep the tone warm and informative.
Grab Their Attention
Just like a printed news article, website users skim sites for information, so be sure to make your headline stand out by following these guidelines for engagement success:
- Be creative: basic headlines won’t encourage readers to click through and read your article.
- Be succinct: statistics show that shorter headlines with 8 or less words work best.
- Use punctuation: using colons or hyphens allows you to create shorter, punchier headlines.
- Evoke a reaction: creating excitement, curiosity, or an emotional response makes readers want to read more.
How to Structure Your School News Article
Once you’ve created a powerful headline, you’ll need to create the article itself. There’s an art to capturing and retaining a reader’s attention:
- Cover the W’s: your article school news needs to include the what, who, where, when and why.
- Get straight to the point: when writing for web, use the inverted pyramid and cover key details in the first paragraph.
- Read more: provide supplementary information within the following paragraphs. This might include comments from those involved (don’t forget to style these with the quote tool in your Cleverbox ReactCMS).
- Keep it simple: use simple language and short sentences and paragraphs. Your article should be between 200 – 500 words, depending on the topic.
Why High-Quality Photos Boost School News Engagement
A newspaper without images would be quite overwhelming to read – the school news blog on your website is no different. Here are our best practices for using imagery and school photography in news updates:
- Use a trophy image: statistics prove that a news item with an accompanying trophy image will increase click-through by 27%.
- Ensure quality: blurry images are much less appealing than a high resolution, professional quality image.
- Add interest: consider adding a gallery of related images to the bottom of the news article to encourage users to spend longer on the page.
So there you have it, the Cleverbox comprehensive guide to writing engaging school news articles. Follow our top tips next time you update your news feed for improved engagement and readability.
If you’re looking to create a new school website that truly engages – or want fresh ideas to enhance your existing Cleverbox site – explore our dedicated school website design in Kent services. You can also get in touch with our expert team at team@cleverbox.co.uk or call 020 8466 7222.