Just a few seconds into a website and people start judging.
There are a lot of factors that you can monitor and improve overtime to get the most value from your school website. Among them are design, load time, content, navigation, and graphics..
If you are not happy with the current performance of the website, you may have already started researching ways that can improve your website. If that’s your story, you are at the right place.
Read on to know 6 key strategies that will help you get more value from your school website.
1. Go superior web design mode
Remember, the first impression does matter. 94 percent of the first website impressions are shaped by design.
Website users make split-second judgments about your school, based purely on the appearance of its website.
To stay up with the continuously changing expectations of modern-day website visitors and provide a seamless experience, aim to rebuild your website every three years. Stay fresh to stay young and attractive!
2. Be mobile-friendly
While making your website visually appealing is vital, ensuring that the design shows up well on mobile devices is also important. These days, most websites receive roughly 50-60% of their overall traffic from mobile devices. It should therefore be your priority to opt for a mobile-first design.
If you are unsure whether to invest in a mobile-friendly website design, check the following data:
- A bad smartphone web browsing experience made 52 percent of users feel less likely to engage with a website.
- If a site isn’t optimized for mobile devices, consumers are 5X more likely to quit the platform.
- When visiting sites that aren’t mobile-friendly, 48% of users report feeling annoyed and disappointed.
3. Ensure quicker load time
Today’s average web surfer expects all websites to load fast. As it stands, your site’s performance is a big factor to consider and improve if you wish to get the most value from your school website.
As a general rule of thumb, if your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, 47 percent of visitors are likely to abandon it.
The size of photos you use on your website can significantly affect the site’s load time. The way and where your website is hosted also plays an important role in website load time.
4. Navigation should be simple
The way your school website’s pages and content are organized can have a big impact on its success.
Websites with the right navigation structure will ensure that browsing through them makes sense for the average user.
Here, your focus should be to provide a simple and enjoyable user experience, in order to ensure lower bounce rates and higher engagement.
5. Make it search engine friendly
If you want your school website to show up ahead of your competitors on the search engine result pages, you better invest in SEO or search engine optimization strategies.
While this particular strategy may not directly relate to the website experience, ensuring that your site is search engine optimized will ensure that your potential clients can locate you on the web.
Even if you have the best school website in the world, it won’t matter if no one can discover you.
6. Engaging and informative content
While an attractive design might entice visitors to stay on your site, it is the information and how you present it that ultimately helps you sell your message. Focus on the following two types of content on a website:
- Visual: Photos, graphic components, videos, and infographics are examples of visual content.
- Written: Calls to action, news, blogs, etc.
Remember, today’s internet visitors scan their screens rather than reading thoroughly, especially if they’re on a mobile device. Make sure you design your content appropriately.
We believe that the tips we have listed above will help you get more value from your school website and also help improve its functionality.
