School Webmasters Blog
Does your school website need a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page? The short answer is yes. But let’s consider the reasons to include it and talk about how to create an effective FAQ page.
Your school website content matters, especially how you say it. Get some tips for keeping it positive!
Let’s look at a few areas that contribute to a positive first impression, each of which we have considerable control over.
If we can be a part of helping others to feel less stress, why wouldn’t we? Your school website content can help!
You must raise and nurture your school’s social media platforms if they are to be successful. Learn four ways to nurture your social media channels.
We all know that images make our content more engaging. Now learn how to keep your website compliant while sharing great photos!
Tips for topics and strategies to create effective blog posts that will engage and convert.
Struggling to keep your website current? Find out how to improve school communications without overwhelming your busy staff.
If you've accepted the idea that a school blog can be beneficial, take the next step and add the power of storytelling to your blog articles. Here are some tips!
Is your school making sure you are communicating all the necessary information to your community in places they can easily access? These tips may help!
Schools must improve the quality of customer service they provide to their customers. Here are 20 tips to get you started.
In the era of social distancing, you’ll need new tools, new approaches, and new processes to overcome the challenges schools face in internal communications, stakeholder engagement, and alternative learning delivery. Video conferencing has emerged as a key element of all three.
Emergency notification systems have become indispensable tools for school communication. Are you using yours effectively?
While schools across the country are shut down for various lengths of time and staff and students work remotely to ensure students continue to learn, administrative staff can focus on improving communications.
The moment you are in an emergency situation is not the time to prepare for an emergency situation. Prepare now for future emergency situations at your school.
Can your school improve its school customer service by considering its virtual services? Find out how.
While the world is fighting to find a cure for the Coronavirus (COVID-19), schools are scrambling to get their curriculum online and available to all of their students. Home-based distance learning has become the new norm for every school in the U.S.
You’re a principal or superintendent with no school in session, charged with continuing to communicate during a quarantine closure. What can you do to make this work? Check out the tips and resources to find out.
Learn why it is important to get in front of a crisis and when unable to do so, how to improve your messaging moving forward.
Whether it’s personal preference or a necessity, having a website that is keyboard accessible is vital to having a good user experience.
If your school doesn’t have a responsive website design yet, I’ve got bad news for you—your website is old and outdated! Let's fix that.
The most common complaint we hear from schools is that they struggle to get content from staff to keep their sites current, informative, and engaging. Learn how to solve those issues.
Would you like to improve your school’s newsletter? Are you intrigued by the idea of making it a pillar of your overall communication plan? Here are some helpful tips!
If you are going to get the attention of potential families, you must do it BEFORE they need you. To accomplish this, you should know what they want, need, and value. Here are three tips on how to create such content and how to deliver it to the right people.
We are getting daily calls from schools around the U.S. about what they are facing with the onslaught of OCR complaints filed against their schools.
Your school website can benefit from the principles learned at show and tell. Learn how.
You know the value of a blog for marketing and communications, so now learn how to have a school blog that rocks.
Have a great school event planned? Want to get some positive media coverage? Find out how to engage your local media.
Do you feel like the local media is out to get your school or that the coverage you do get is always negative? It doesn't have to be that way. Find out how to change that!
Why does getting the media to cover your school event seem like such a Herculean feat? It doesn’t have to be!
Effective school communication is essential to your school’s reputation, community support, and student success. Build your school communication plan using these simplified steps.
Need some tips to help your parent-teacher organizations help your school and connect with your community? Use your school website to get things rolling!
Use your school’s instructional videos and increase your public relations. Your students will learn better, resulting in healthy connections and more effective parent engagement. Find out how.
With so many communication avenues at our disposal, it is a miraculous time to be a school leader, but these avenues include pitfalls. Learn why hiring a communications coordinator for your school district might be a wise economical investment.
Just like the office of your school or school district, school websites are a hub of activity. The experience your website provides matters—to your visitors and to you.
As an educational leader, one of your significant challenges is to develop strategies that deliver a positive message about your school to the community. Good public relations and positive perceptions are critical aspects of a successful school (and a successful administrator).
Parents are stressed, and like the “bad moms” of the movies, even the best moms and dads in your district act like “bad moms” at some point. So what is the most effective way your school can communicate with the majority of parents?
Your school website is your primary communications and marketing resource. Success isn't about software but about your strategic process.
Unlike a butterfly preparing to transform, schools aren’t always sure what steps to take in order to maximize their school website’s potential. Learn how to do it right.
In this blog, we will consider various ways you can share your school's success, thereby adding value to your school.
Your school's website is a powerful communications tool. Are you using yours to its best advantage?
We would love to see today’s digital world be 100% accessible to all users. Unfortunately, however, as long as schools continue to use developers who are not trained in accessibility standards and techniques, it will never happen.
As administrators, teachers, and staff, it’s important to efficiently work together towards the same goal. Tools such as Google Docs offer convenient collaboration options.
Are you a school board member, or do you know someone who is? Learn how the most effective governing board members help the schools they were elected to lead become more successful in meeting their goals.
Not sure how to implement school marketing to improve your enrollment, school reputation, or trust? Learn how to use marketing and watch your school bloom.
How important is a first impression? Very. It has to do with what is known as the halo effect. Our first impressions create a perception, whether positive or negative, that causes us to associate other qualities with our original impression.
We wish we could say yes, but unfortunately, it is not nearly enough. It is vital to remember that while automated scan tools are beneficial to the audit process and can help you catch many accessibility issues, they are not capable of testing everything.
School website management boils down to creating a memorable, inviting, and emotionally engaging experiences. The benefits are worth the effort!
What is your school customer service costing your school? Does it effect your enrollments, your staff morale, your school brand? You bet it does!
The level of technological connectivity in today’s world is beyond anything we as digital immigrants have ever seen before. What can school leaders do to navigate these uncharted waters?
Your school and district websites are essential PR tools, but since they must reach a large audience that encompasses your entire community, they serve distinct purposes and functions. In contrast, the sole audience for teacher sites is current students and their families. You may ask, “Is a teacher website worth it for such a limited audience?” The answer is yes!
How can teachers help bridge the gap between home and school? Consider an effective teacher website!
We often receive questions from our clients about the links they provide to websites other than their own. Are you responsible for the accessibility of the websites you link to?
What if you could get your parents more engaged in their child's education? You can. Here's how.
It’s the kind of news we never want to hear—a tragedy has struck. Unfortunately, in our world today, the news media daily reports the reality of violence, accidents, and death, and our schools are not immune.
Take a look at your school's communication strategies. Are you missing the point by maintaining the status quo?
You hear it everywhere: “Tell your school’s stories.” But, how do you go from understanding the value of storytelling to actually do so? Find out here.
Creating accessibility is hard. It takes time and training that most document and website authors did not plan for.
School public relations carries more clout than advertising or marketing, and is often less expensive. Are you implementing strategic public relations at your school?
Can the information and design of your school website influence parent's choices for their child's education? The answer is a resounding yes!
Here are six tips for building strong school public relations. We’re going to help you get out of your comfort zone and look at some school communication risks that can vastly improve your school’s public relations.
Are you struggling to get engagement on your school social media posts? Find out what you should be doing to create and manage successful school social media.
It’s not easy to be a risk-taker. After all, “risk” involves the possibility that something unpleasant or unwelcome may happen. But risk also includes the possibility of something wonderful or amazing happening. What kind of school leader are you?
We receive many questions about automated accessibility testing. According to Section508.gov,
“Automated testing and evaluation tools are not sophisticated enough to tell you, on their own, if your site is accessible, or even compliant.
Is your school website doing the job that it needs to do? Only if it is helping you do the job that parents want to hire your school to do. Find out what jobs-to-be-done a school website needs to do.
When you are looking to increase your school's enrollment, positive, uplifting, and inspiring stories and testimonials are the "x-factor." Use it!
Are you holding your breath every day, hoping you’re the lucky one whose website doesn’t receive a federal complaint because of inaccessibility? We will be the first to tell you that’s not a good plan.
Empower your school's CTO to use their technical expertise to improve student outcomes.
Your school website and social media presence are public relations tools that help you build and nurture relationships with audiences that are already connected to you; a blog can do the same.
Inbound marketing is attracting customers with relevant content–when and where they need it. Learn how your school can create effective school marketing.
In part 3 of this customer service series, let’s look at some healthy, guiding principles to follow in order to establish your school as dependable and committed to good communication habits–both face-to-face and written.
In part 2 of our school customer service series, we’ll take a look how to deal with difficult or upset persons as well as how to deliver constructive criticism.
Learn how to use the power of words to improve your school customer service in part one of this 3-part customer services series for schools.
Successful schools communicate to their parents and students that they are part of a team, not just observers whose presence matters very little. If you inspire a student with a school program, activity, initiative, etc., your efforts will be multiplied by their enthusiasm to the get the word out to their family and friends. Increased parent engagement through your students is a crucial part of successful school public relations and marketing.
You are in need of an accessibility audit. Now what? You have two options: hire a seasoned auditor who is fully trained in accessibility (us) or DIY (Do It Yourself).
Here are some simple ways your school’s office personnel can contribute positively to your student enrollment efforts.
Telling deeply satisfying, meaningful stories isn’t just a tool or device to use once in a while; it’s an essential strategy in communication and in marketing your school.
Do you ever feel like your school public relations plan is missing something? Take a look at your school-parent community partnership. How often do your students’ families come to your school? Do they have reasons to look forward to their time on your campus?
In Part 2 of Inbound Marketing for Schools, learn how to create and manage your effective and affordable marketing for your school.
Join us as we talk about inbound marketing, what the benefits are, and how schools can make use of this marketing strategy to increase enrollment and establish a respected school brand.
Don’t let this happen to your students. Be sure your teachers and staff are trained on how to create accessible documents.
As a school administrator entrusted with the education of youth and fostering a positive school brand to current and potential families, your job is not easy. Take comfort in the reality that powerful components for your school’s success already exist in your school—the valuable relationship of teachers and parents.
To be an effective educator, you must be a good communicator. To be a good communicator, you must break your messages down into their simplest form and change the way you talk about programs and educational systems. Let’s commit to replacing jargon with more relatable language and compelling, authentic stories.
Vacant expressions, glazed eyes, confusion—these are all classic side effects of “jargon monoxide” poisoning.
As academics and education professionals, there are terms and phrases that you use on a daily basis to which you possess a much deeper understanding than others outside educational circles.
As a parent in a busy family, one of my greatest struggles is getting the messages sent from schools. My children attend high school, junior high, elementary, and preschool, and staying au courant in our home is no small feat. So, if you can get my attention, you’re really doing something right.
We often look for ways to lighten the burdens of those around us. Have you ever thought about giving the gift of accessibility?
Where is your school spending the funds allotted to hosting and managing its website? Is it the best option and are you getting what you pay for?
Your school’s website is that critical intersection between public relations, customer service, marketing, media relations, communications, and branding. Website management is the process that makes this a reality.
In an effort to save money, has your school considered using a do-it-yourself software like WordPress? If so, weigh the pros and cons first.
What is your school culture like? How would your students describe it? What about your staff? How can you improve it? Here are some ideas!
As school marketers, we sometimes become distracted by all the wonderful tools we have at our disposal—the website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and whatever the next new social media trend will be—that we sometimes don’t give one of the most efficient tools in our arsenal the attention it deserves. I’m talking about your district and school calendars.
We all do some type of surfing. In reality, there is a good chance that we spend more time surfing the web than we do surfing anything else. This is where web accessibility strongly affects surfers—web surfers (in other words, all of us).
Imagery is a timeless form of communication that engages audiences in various ways. Whether you recognize it yet or not, seeking to increase your use imagery as part of your school marketing is important, easy, and effective. Let’s look at the value of concrete imagery, such as pictures either on a printed page or screen
Marketing your school is essential in today’s competitive educational environment. The good news is that there are so many effective ways to do it—you just need to get started. So, here are 51 ideas to get you moving in the right direction.
Right as I rang the bell, a concierge walked around the corner. The bell wasn’t a simple ding… It was a long, drawn out doorbell tune that played up a scale and then back down. I grimaced and looked at the concierge’s face to see if I had annoyed her by ringing the bell—I could just imagine how hearing that tune every day may grate on her nerves.
Can you believe it? She wasn’t even a little annoyed that I had rung that bell just as she appeared.
If we were to tell you just one thing that private schools do right that most public schools don’t bother to do, it would be to market their school’s differentiators. Maybe public schools see themselves as ubiquitous and feel they don’t offer anything different than every other public school in the country. However, I’m pretty sure that isn’t true.
October is Red Ribbon Month, and schools typically celebrate Red Ribbon Week during the last week of October. This year, Red Ribbon Week is October 23–31. Whether your school pulls out all the stops for Red Ribbon Week or you’re throwing together a last-minute plan, don’t miss the opportunity to market your school.
In today’s highly-connected world, it is more important than ever to establish trust. One of the main contributors to trust is creating a culture of transparency. To most of us, being transparent means you’re hiding nothing. You’re letting others look through a window into your world, throwing the blinds wide open.
This month our social media team reminded us that school social media can (and should!) be so much more than the same old, tired news post or calendar reminder on our social media streams. With a little extra investment and the courage to be personal, schools can turn their social media into a truly unifying force with their overall community.
Nearly every educator will agree that positive parent engagement improves a child’s educational outcome. Besides making common sense, many data-driven studies are proving what we all know intuitively.
Telling school stories that inspire, excite, entertain, and encourage your school community is at the heart of successful school marketing. Stories educate, inspire, and entertain us. They carry with them underlying themes connecting us to the organization and people involved. Storytelling and its scientific background affirms its relevance as a powerfully simple tool in school branding. Let’s look at how you can use this tool in your school
Website accessibility compliance has become front and center in the past few years for both schools and businesses. The history of the Americans with Disabilities Act started in the 1960s, but only recently have the Office of Civil Rights and lawyers focused on website accessibility. Basically, if you have a website, you need to make sure it is accessible to those with disabilities.
The best school websites serve many critical purposes. To accomplish those many objectives, they must also be functional, usable, and accessible (which we covered in Part 1). Here we’ll not only cover what should be on a school website but how to target and satisfy your various audiences.
Beginning July 1, 2019, California law requires state agencies and entities to post a certificate of accessibility on the home page of their websites.
California Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 434 into law on October 14, 2017. Learn what this means for your school ADA website accessibility requirements.
This is a question every school leader should ask. A school’s website is one of the most effective tools a school has to improve communication, engage parents, market its strengths, and build a solid, trusting reputation within its community. These are all benefits that improve education for our nation’s students, which makes achieving them worth the effort.
A while back, our CEO, Bonnie Leedy, was invited to be a guest presenter at the annual conference for the Pennsylvania Association of Rural and Small Schools (PARSS). We asked participating PARSS administrators to submit a story about a time they successfully shared what was going on at their schools with the community. We chose one lucky winner to receive a copy of the Marketing Your School toolkit.
A strategic communications plan for your social media can improve relationships with parents, build trust, and encourage engagement. When it comes to school communication, parents want important information such as events and meetings, policy changes, and news that affects the education of their child. However, this is information better suited for e-mails, newsletters, and the school website.
As you practice school public relations, you’ll improve your school brand, connect with your community, and boost your marketing efforts. Consistent, strategic messaging with the end goal of creating and nurturing relationships with your publics is key to your school's success.
Trust—all across our country—is perceived as wounded and limping. Whether within corporations, government, or our schools, many feel the damage is irreparable. We disagree, and you should as well. You have the ability to rebuild trust in your circle of influence and create optimism that replaces cynicism. Trust rules. It drives your school’s cohesiveness. It drives performance. It even drives student achievement.
If you are considering undertaking a school website development process, I imagine you are feeling a bit stressed. Or if you've tried it and are ready to hire professionals, you've come to the right place.
Whether or not it’s a conscious effort, we seek to imitate people we admire or view as successful. This carries over into the business world as well. While careful not to infringe on anyone’s copyrights, we look to others for inspiration. When you undertake a website design, do you look at other school websites to see what they are doing? So how about seeking inspiration for your school marketing approach too?
Nationwide, schools in the United States have a public relations problem. It would seem they could fix these problems with some well managed strategic communications and marketing efforts, right? But, the problem goes deeper than that. It isn’t even entirely a perception problem; some of it is a reality. We must respond to these issues quite differently.
Don't give your power away by allowing others to define your school for you. Claim your school’s brand for future, current, and prospective students and faculty.
With all the talk in the past few years about ADA website compliance for schools, the focus has been on public school websites. Public school websites must comply with Section 508 as they receive federal funds. But what about those independent and private schools?
Whether you’re managing school marketing for a public or private school, chances are you would like to grow your enrollment. More than a monetary investment, your school is an investment of time and trust for the families you serve. So what better way to show other parents what a great school you have than to let them hear it from other parents?
What is effective school communication? Most people would acknowledge that it is critical to the success of our school, but it is a broad topic and difficult to pin down.
It sounds simple enough, right?
Merriam-Webster says it is “the interchange of thoughts or opinions.” I think the use of the word “interchange” is significant, as it indicates mutual give and take.
Your website is accessible and complies with WCAG 2.0. Now that you can finally breathe a sigh of relief, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recently updated success criteria and now recommends WCAG 2.1 as the standard for accessibility.
Blogging shouldn’t seem like a new fandangled idea any more, especially as you delve into your position as school marketer. You might be hearing about it in conference sessions, in articles about school social media impact, or from other education blogs.
The question school marketers should be asking themselves is, "to blog or not to blog?"
When many parents select a school for their child, they are selecting with their heart, not their mind. This is actually how we make most of our purchases as well. Branding is about winning the heart. It is an intangible. A feeling. An emotion.
How do you envision the impact of negative comments on your community’s perception of your school? In this blog, we’ll provide some informative tips to help you take action to protect your school’s reputation online via your school blogs, website, social media, or other online site.
Here at School Webmasters, we believe that effective school communications are a part of good customer service. One doesn’t happen without the other. And, one aspect of school customer service (aka good communication) includes telling others thank you.
Foundations are essential for buildings, organizations, relationships, and yes, marketing plans.
As we make our resolution to market our school, the first step I suggest is aligning your school values to your school marketing agenda. Because this is such an essential marketing tip, I’d like to help you with this step. Let’s work together to lay the groundwork for marketing your school by defining your school values, mission, and stakeholders.
A few weeks ago, my 15-year-old daughter competed in a music festival. I was so excited to see that her band teacher posted about it on the school Facebook page! When she got home that day, I said, “Did you see the nice FB post about the competition?” She stared back blankly. That’s right, I remembered, she doesn’t have a Facebook account. Neither do most of her friends.
Standardized testing—do these two words raise your blood pressure? It seems as though the school year all comes down to testing, doesn’t it? For administrators, your school grade, your school reputation, your school brand, all rely heavily on the results of how students from your school perform on test days.
While backpacking recently with my family, I was reminded of the value and refreshing nature of trusted sources. We hiked deep into the Grand Canyon along a popular trail. While water was everywhere, and we certainly enjoyed every minute playing in the turquoise blue pools and staring at the spectacular red rock backdrop, there were really only a few places to access clean drinking water.
If you’ve been following our blog for any length of time, you know that we believe communication is at the heart of every school’s success. That includes your school reputation, public relations, school marketing, customer service, and crisis management. In each of these areas, without rock solid communication strategies in place, you risk losing control of the situation.
By now we’ve all heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act or the ADA. Interestingly, it was the by-product of the civil rights legislation passed during the 1960s. But with all the acronyms, sections, and titles, it can be a bit confusing for us lay folk.
Telling school stories that inspire, excite, entertain, and encourage your school community is at the heart of successful school marketing and branding, and is critical to your school’s success.
In this blog, we’ll look at a scientific side of storytelling and explore how other school administrators across the county are implementing various storytelling tools.
If you’re hashing out marketing and school public relations on your own, then a full-blown strategic communications plan can feel overly complicated and time-consuming. Sometimes looking at complex processes in different ways can help with understanding and executing and, thereby, simplifying the process. In this blog, let’s look at your school marketing plan like a roadmap—complete with simple, stops along the way to help you reach your goal.
When it comes to school social media management, there are those who outsource and those who prefer to learn what they need to keep things in-house.
The term “brand” is much more than a logo or school motto, and it encompasses much more than your school letterhead and newsletters. Your brand is an image that includes the ideals that you want to promote to your enrolled families, prospective families and visitors, and the community at large. A distinctive brand can be one of your school’s most valuable communication assets, especially in this time of school choice and open enrollment.
We’ve blogged previously about the legal requirements of website accessibly and how to make your school website ADA compliant. We’ve even provided full website accessibility services to make things easy for our clients. But there is one thing we haven’t talked about yet in all this—and that is the public relations aspect of ADA compliance.
Benefits are a huge motivator. And whether we realize it or not, much of our day-to-day actions are motivated by benefits. School marketing has incredible benefits such as approval, trust, investment, support, involvement. These benefits are worth your time at least a few hours every week.
One of the most powerful tools a school has when it comes to implementing effective school communications is the school website. It’s like that indispensable Swiss Army knife that has nearly every possible tool in one convenient location.
Despite what you may have heard, the Facebook world is NOT coming to an end. Still, with a term like “Facebook Apocalypse” being thrown around, we felt it best to spend a little time chatting with you about what Mark Zuckerberg’s recent announcement concerning the changes Facebook will be making to their algorithm means for you.
Feeling a bit overwhelmed with the amount of information you have to absorb each day? Beginning to think you are merely roadkill on the side of the information superhighway? Are you inundated with far more information coming in than you can assimilate? Well, you are not alone.
Imagine a scenario involving two parents, Laura and Sue, who live on opposite ends of the city and in different school districts. Each has a child in elementary school. It’s early in the new school year, and on this particular evening, both women realize they need to download a copy of the school lunch menu. But here is where their stories diverge.
I was relieved when I logged in to Facebook this morning to see that a friend of mine had checked in as “safe” from the Wildomar Wildfire, a fire that was actively threatening the area where she lives.
What do you REALLY need in a school website? This is actually a very important question. Different schools have different needs, so it is worth taking a few moments to think about your answer.
If we provided the following list to most other industries, it would be old news. I’m pretty sure the whole article would get a response like, “duh!” from their readers.
No other industry would even consider asking their technology department to manage their communications, public relations, or marketing strategies. These two areas of expertise require radically different skillsets. It would be like asking a prima ballerina to conduct brain surgery. Both are experts in their fields, but their fields are vastly different. But public schools do it all the time. So, how did this come about?
The blank canvas. The empty page. We want to fill print media with ink the same way we fill silence with words. It makes us uncomfortable, all that nothingness. If you are a customer, you feel cheated that you paid for, what exactly?
Implementing change is like flying solo for the first time. It scares the crap out of you when you look down at the runway, but once you land, you can’t wait to get back up into the sky.
Marketing is usually a word used by for-profit businesses and shunned by educators. Most of us don’t enjoy being “marketed” to, so we don’t like the thought of having to market ourselves when we have dedicated our lives to one of service. We might feel we should be exempt from all that nasty marketing/sales stuff. But, we may need to rethink this!
Because our work here at School Webmasters bridges the world of education and the world of business, it is easy for us to see similarities and differences. Here’s what we’ve learned.
No matter what kind of school you run—public school, private school, charter school, or faith-based school—these three pillars of an effective marketing plan should support your school communications. These elements will not only help you transition throughout the year from one focus to the next, but they’ll bring all your efforts together to strengthen your school brand and messaging and improve your public relations.
Back-to-school jitters aren’t just for students and teachers; administrators certainly get their share of the stress that comes along with that first day.
How would a first time visitor to your school describe its atmosphere? Is it warm and inviting? Or is it cold and unwelcoming? From the grounds, signage, and parking lot to the front office and the website, your school atmosphere is evident. Is it the message you want to present?
While a school website redesign can feel like a Herculean task, not worth the time or the money, keep in mind that your website is your most important marketing and communications tool.
Have you ever walked into a crowded room where a hundred little conversations are taking place all at once? It sounds a little like a beehive buzzing, doesn’t it?
In school communications we don’t throw the term “marketing buzz” around much—although maybe we should.
It's summer. Are you enjoying the quiet hallways, catching up on paperwork, and working on your summer maintenance? Taking time off for some outdoor adventures on your bucket list?
When looking for a new school website hosting provider, there are some areas to consider before making your selection.
Who could forget Seinfeld’s 1995 version of “the Soup Nazi”? He served the best soup on the planet. So good that his customers had to follow his ordering procedure (step into the store, move to the right side, proceed directly to the counter, order without comment, and step to the left) to get what they wanted, or they would hear the dreaded words, “No soup for you!”
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and means that you put some strategy and techniques into your school website management to get free online traffic from unpaid (organic) results.
Quality Control. What, exactly, is it? The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines it as “an aggregate of activities (such as design analysis and inspection for defects) designed to ensure adequate quality.”
In the field of education, we often don't think of ourselves as service providers. We just don't relate what we are doing in education as being about customer service.
Your school website should be the hub of communications for your school. We understand when complications arise—like ADA compliance—some schools would like to throw the towel in and give up on their online presence altogether. But in today's mobile world and climate of school choice, you cannot ignore your school website—especially if your school is struggling.
Working in a school can be a tough job. It is also one of the most important roles in American society.
School choice and the many possible options available to K12 education have created an environment of competition that was nonexistent even a decade ago.
School choice doesn’t necessarily mean that public schools have to suffer. One elementary school in Queen Creek, Arizona, is setting an excellent example of how to succeed and excel in a school choice environment. Even if your state is not a school choice state at this time, there is something to learn from this public school that is stealing enrollments from charter schools.
Website design trends come and go. But, schools don’t typically do a complete website redesign to reflect fads, simply because of the complexity and expense involved. However, there are some trends that are not simply a fad and are moving from trend status to best practices status.
Making sure your school websites meets ADA compliance requirements is now a necessity—not just because the laws for this are now being enforced but because it is important that you eliminate any barriers to access to your school website and the information you provide.
Would you like to improve your school's communication? Start with your school webmaster's role. Learn what would be ideal in a perfect world and how you can make that a reality in your school.
Let's eat grandpa.
Let's eat, Grandpa.
This is one of my favorite examples of how punctuation can drastically affect the meaning of a sentence. An errant or missing comma has the potential to completely change its meaning. Its misuse as well as misspellings and typographical errors have resulted in extreme losses—some measurable, others not as measurable but nonetheless actual.
If your school website were to get a grade, how would it fare? Does it come out on top in the various subject areas like communications, customer service, marketing, branding, telling your school’s stories, or highlighting your successes? Find out how to bring up those grades and move to the top of your class.
You’ve tried everything—pictures, video, funny memes, poignant quotes, carefully planned-out social media campaigns, calls to action, links to thought-provoking articles from education organizations and experts in your field, even shameless begging—and still, crickets. Is anybody out there? What more can I do to get people to respond to my school’s social media posts?
If you are one of the tens of thousands of schools concerned about meeting the newly adopted website accessibility deadline of January 18, 2018, we can help.
Your school’s website accessibility is coming under fire. In addition to a flurry of complaints being filed against schools across the U.S., Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act recently published updated accessibility requirements on January 18, 2017. This means that by January 18, 2018, you need to have your school’s website compliant with WCAG 2.0 A/AA standards.
Doing more with less is a beautiful concept. It allows you to simplify processes, be more productive, and use resources most effectively. For schools especially, the notion of doing more with less should be particularly appealing given stretched budgets, sparse staff, and ever-increasing to-do lists. Let me tell you how our friends at Ridgefield Public Schools (RPS) are managing their to-do list all while saving staff time and staying within their budget.
“The very things that held ya down are gonna carry you up and up and up.”
These profound words were said to Dumbo by Timothy Q. Mouse when he was encouraging him to fly. They may also apply to the possible changes with the incoming Trump administration regarding School Choice.
Now that you are headed into the second half of the school year, it’s a good time to refocus on how to best reach and engage parents in this new year.
Marketing is a key communications function for schools, and it’s one that is often underutilized or sometimes completely ignored.
Because we think school marketing needs to be a priority this year (and every year), here are three steps that will help you not only make but keep this new year resolution!
Think of website compliance as the HOA of the Internet. While you sort of hate having someone telling you what you can or cannot do at your own home, you appreciate the fact that you won’t have the Griswold’s cousin Eddie’s RV blocking your driveway all winter.
What’s the secret to guiding your audience along a path in your school website? The answer: Copywriting with a destination in mind! With almost 15 years of experience, we’ve learned a few important lessons about writing school website copywriting tips that we’re happy to share with you.
Welcome back, class! If you’re stepping in to this two-part series about effective social media management for schools without having read the first part, we invite you to take a moment to do so. If you're all caught up, read on!
So, you’ve finally seen the light and made social media a part of your school’s communication strategy. Congratulations! You've read blogs and e-books, watched DIY videos, and your school social media pages are up and running. Now what?
Find out what our secret weapon is for managing a successful website development project--and it's not what you might expect!
There are lots of reasons people decide to do things themselves instead of outsourcing or hiring a trained professional. ...
What makes the difference in a DIY success versus a DIY train wreck?
The answer is having the right foundation and tools.
There is a reason we say, “An image is worth a thousand words.” Photographs stand out in text-heavy websites, draw attention, and increase memory recall. The best photographs communicate without any text; that is the power of visual content.
It's not too late to make a lasting good impression. Whether your school has already begun or has yet to open its doors, there are some important topics that you should address to make sure you are starting each school year off right.
When it comes to school websites, many schools don’t recognize their most valuable players and often don’t even put them in the game. Typically, all the focus is on the main office or district website. If you aren’t using your school-level websites as strategic communications tools, it is like only playing your second string all season.
If you haven’t received a letter or notification yet that your school’s website needs to be ADA compliant, consider yourself warned. Your school needs to get its website in order or face the consequences.
Managing your school website can be challenging. It isn’t enough to keep it current, informative, friendly, and positive. Handling your school website management incorrectly can land you with some expensive copyright infringement problems. Find out how to have a beautiful school website and out of image copyright trouble.
It's summer and if you're like most educators, you're enjoying the quiet hallways, catching up on piles of paperwork, and working on your summer maintenance projects. While your school is getting whipped into shape with new coats of paint and clean carpets, don't forget that your website needs some summer TLC as well.
You’ve worked hard all year long to build up a strong relationship with school families; if you want that relationship to remain strong, you have to nurture it.
Your school’s students, parents, staff, and prospects are already using social media to stay involved. So choose your platform, set up your pages, and get involved!
By understanding the reasons people talk and following these four simple rules to influence word-of-mouth marketing, you are well on your way to being the hot topic of conversation in your community.
Learn how your school’s website can serve your audience needs while cultivating a positive school reputation using these principles.
“You don’t need to brag; when you do a good job, people will notice.”
Dear readers, this is a lie!
The primary task of your school’s website is to facilitate effective communication. If done right, it can not only keep everyone informed, but it will improve morale and create staff, parent, and student enthusiasm for the school.
School website management can be a huge advantage to your school’s branding and communication efforts. Find out what works and why.
Your support staff is busy, your teachers are overwhelmed, and administrators are wearing many hats. Now there is a solution to keeping your website current.
There is so much involved in creating and maintaining an effective school website. And, to be fair, it is nearly impossible to expect your school staff to have the skill sets required to manage today’s website and social media without specialized training.
The primary task of your school’s website is to facilitate effective communication. If done right, it can not only keep everyone informed but will improve morale and create staff, parent, and student enthusiasm for the school.
As a baby boomer, I am not exactly proud of the fact that my generation is stereotyped as rebellious when it is also associated with self-centeredness.
Take note, today’s staff members want to be asked for feedback and to be heard.1 I think we also recognize that in addition to more frequent communication, how we communicate can mean the difference in how effective we are as leaders. This means better listening skills.
I’ve been preaching for years that content is king. I’ve written numerous articles espousing this recommendation. However, I’m kind of old-school and I actually read content—on the Web, in books, in ads, etc.
Are the words you are using undermining your school’s intended messages? The words used in all forms of communication can be some of the strongest branding taking place at your school.
Yes, we are talking about outsourcing your school's website management. Not just the design of the website, which is quite common for most schools, but to include the ongoing content updates, proofing, copywriting, graphics, and content additions throughout the year.