Welcome to the School Communications Scoop by School Webmasters! Today’s topic is about school website management and how to do it well. I’m Bonnie Leedy, School Webmaster’s CEO.
Thanks for joining us today and if you know someone who might benefit from our topic today, I hope you’ll forward along a link to our podcast!
Many school leaders struggle with how best to manage their school’s website(s). Often they decide to go with the status quo—what they are accustomed to is good enough. At least until parents or the governing board complains that it isn’t as effective or informative as it should be, or maybe it is a flat-out embarrassment. Then it becomes a top priority if for no other reason than to eliminate complaints.
So, if one of those scenarios describes your situation, or if you want to avoid the drama and set up strategies to provide a website that continually serves your parents and community well, let’s look at what constitutes best practices in school website management.
Budgeting for website management
While most school website development focuses on the initial design, including the costs involved, the real value of your site is in its ongoing content and management. Businesses, especially those that depend on their websites to attract customers and build brand recognition, budget at least 50% of the initial design costs to keep their sites current, intuitive, and effective.
If the focus is on developing an attractive site and not those real-time updates that keep your site up to date, you’ll waste your investment. In addition to adding daily and weekly information to the school website (an imperative if you hope to keep parents and students informed and engaged), there is additional maintenance required to reorganize and revise older pages, avoid link rot, and keep the navigation intuitive.
Another common management issue involves the need for new graphics, icons, and structural and CSS layouts. When schools have multiple folks designing these graphic elements, or if you outsource them to various contractors when you don’t have a graphic designer on staff, the site’s look and feel will soon become inconsistent and unprofessional.
School website content is unique
Understanding the purpose of your school website is critical. That seems like a no-brainer, but we’re always surprised at how many school sites completely miss the mark on this one.
Website content and management for a school site is much different from that of a business or corporate site. A school site must be constantly updated with news, events, calendars, schedules, and success stories. Unlike a corporate website, which focuses on branding and the background and qualifications of corporate leaders, a school audience cares more about the interactions you provide to their students. Smart school website management includes keeping your audience’s needs in mind with each and every update, the tone of the writing, the graphics, and the ease of accessing the information they need.
Gathering information is a process
One of the most challenging aspects of managing a school website is creating a consistent, reliable source of information and, even better, a schedule. First, start with all the annual events and activities you know about in advance and schedule those on a topic calendar to schedule for posting on your website news pages and calendars. Be sure to make any assignments to your “subject matter experts” so they can provide details, content, and photos. Be sure to provide them the time frame that their content is due.
Next, recruit your staff to help with the info gathering process. They are in the trenches, and they see good news and successes every day. These are the people who can provide excellent news articles, human interest stories, and social media post topics for you to share. For some great examples check out, “How to turn your entire staff into a school news army.” To ensure a steady stream of content, here are some ideas:
Create a website update strategy
Maintain consistency
If you don’t want to annoy your site visitors, make sure that all the navigational interfaces remain consistent between pages on your site. When all elements look and function the same, your visitors will feel comfortable using your site rather than having to learn a new structure on every page.
Consistency applies to other areas, as we’ve mentioned above, like using a single style guide so that grammar, punctuation, and tone are also consistent. This is important for branding purposes, but it also maintains the conversation between you and your site visitor that builds confidence that your values are sincere and your messaging transparent.
The best way to ensure such consistency is to have a single department responsible for all school website updates. If this is not possible, ensure that you’ve provided detailed training for any and all who touch your website, including branding rules (colors, fonts, logo standards, tone) and a style guide (grammar and punctuation preferred standards). Oh, and of course, training for website accessibility compliance.
Maintain conventions
Most website visitors are accustomed to specific generic website layouts. While being unique is often a good thing as it helps you stand out, it doesn’t apply to taking your users away from what they are comfortable with when getting to the information they need quickly and efficiently. For example, some conventions worth sticking to are:
Success is possible
Managing an effective and helpful website isn’t rocket science, and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. However, the benefits of creating a strategy that provides consistent updates that keep your site information current and enticing will provide you with increased enrollment, improved customer service, and develop a reputation for trust and transparency. While parents who haven’t had access to a current and effective school website in the past may not realize what they are missing, you’ll save your school money and your staff time when you implement effective website strategies. You’ll have happier and more supportive parents, making your efforts well worth the time.
If this seems overwhelming, don’t forget that School Webmasters can have your back! We manage websites for hundreds of schools and support staff and administrators who are committed to excellence in both education as well as the customer service they deliver to their parents and students. If you need us, we’re only a phone call away (888) 750-4556. Talk to Jim or request more information and we’ll get right back to you.
For more information, check out these other articles on website management:
School Website Management: It may be time to get some help
10 School Website Management Tips You’ve Never Heard Before
3 Steps to Expert School Website Management
So, thanks for joining us here at the School Communications Scoop! We hope you’ll come back soon to get for more helpful tips on how to improve your school communication efforts, which include managing your website and social media, increasing enrollment and community support, and strengthening your school’s brand and reputation. For more tips, please subscribe to our blog at www.schoolwebmasters.com/blog