School Communication Best Practices
Designing an effective school website for your target audience, parents and students, can be confusing and even stressful. So, let's explore some of the points one should consider in order to find the information that will lead to the website that parents and students will visit often.
Every few years, schools decide they need to update or redesign their website. The best reason is because you want to improve the experience your website visitors have when they visit your school’s online presence. Your school website is your most important communications and marketing tool. But, the key here is that it can do all of this only if your website design and content is done right.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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!”
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.”
School choice and the many possible options available to K12 education have created an environment of competition that was nonexistent even a decade ago.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
School website management can be a huge advantage to your school’s branding and communication efforts. Find out what works and why.
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.
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.