University Website Design: Your Path to Stable Career Growth

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29 Mar, 2024

university-web-development

Introduction

More than ever, potential students are utilizing the internet to study the institutions they want to attend. They are researching the available majors and minors, financial assistance details, local attractions, and—if the institution is a good fit—application procedures. 20.5 million students were enrolled in colleges and institutions in the autumn of 2016.

These students use the school website to access course materials, teacher listings, academic calendars, and grades. However, there are a few regular discrepancies between what students anticipate from a website for a school and what they are given.

These numbers have since altered, and in 2022, nearly 95% of US students will visit college websites to learn more about the programs and admissions criteria. Because of this, university website development is a crucial component of your organization.

In this process, a trustworthy college web design and development company can greatly assist. They have the sector knowledge that enables you to stay clear of common blunders and focus on the successful launch of website development for college.

Additionally, several factors should be given priority as you progress through your web development college, and hiring a trustworthy web development company seems like a good choice.

Good-features-of-web-development-company

Furthermore, it is essential to gain adequate knowledge of university web development before you commence website development for college.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • Enlist the Primary Goals Of Your University Website Development 
  • Top University Web Development And Design Features To Consider 

Looking to Create a Custom University Website?

  • Well-optimized landing pages
  • Strong & visible CTA
  • An intuitive website layout

Enlist the Primary Goals Of Your University Website Development

Understanding what your college website ought to be attempting to do is the first step in establishing a solid base for digital marketing for universities. If you want to increase enrolment, your objectives ought to be the following:

  • Win students through SEO: Students must first locate your institution before considering it. Your website must be optimized for the most popular search terms used by your audience for which you need a university website development company.
  • Expressing value: Every aspect of a college website, including the messaging, UX, and design, should convey to potential students why they should pick that institution over others. Your university web development firm can enlist these aspects and guide you in the process. 
  • Delivering the appropriate knowledge at the appropriate time: Before they click "Apply Now," prospective students want to learn about your institution and university's tuition, degree offerings, employment possibilities for alumni, campus life, and other fundamentals. A flawless web development college ensures that they have no trouble finding what they're looking for on your website.
  • Early-stage lead nurturing and conversion: The majority of applicants who aren't prepared to apply or request to fill out forms to gather more information are ignored by many universities and colleges because they mistakenly concentrate exclusively on the end of their sales funnel. There are only a few web development college service providers that advocate for our colleges in higher education to place more emphasis on early-stage leads. 
  • Supplying pupils with a range of rich resources: You want to retain students on your school's website for as long as you can after you draw them there and hence it is important to invest in website development for college. You can use tools like a blog, videos, downloadable eBooks, and more to acclimate potential students while you gradually encourage them to think about applying to your institution.

Top University Web Development And Design Features To Consider

Goals are fantastic, but how can you accomplish them with the university website development for your college? This list includes the key website elements that institutions should emphasize to increase enrolment.

Would you like to avoid the instances and get right to the point? Learn how the website consultant helps in college website design & development by utilizing web design best practices.

The Fundamental

The main image, and (often) CTAs that people encounter when they first visit a website are referred to as the "what’s the message" in website development for college. Users don't have to navigate to see the fundamentals because it is above the fold.

Why it's important: This is a college's first chance to talk to students about where they are and help them on their path to enrollment, not only to make a nice first impression.

How to do it correctly: What distinguishes the finest college website design & development from the worst ones? simplicity, appeal, and user intent alignment. 

Tips-To-Design-A-Simple-Website.

The greatest principles for university web development are to include:

  • Video or compelling images that depict campus life.
  • Let the user know exactly what the university or program they are looking at has to offer, as well as what they will soon see as they browse.
  • Stay away from themes that are ethereal or overly artistic and don't directly relate to what potential students are seeking.
  • Avoid using CTAs that are primarily directed towards the end of the funnel and stay away from the outdated and inefficient "Apply Now" phrase.

Here’s an impactful instance of a web development college:

  • With a picture of student work, Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design distinguishes itself from the crowd. The supporting material in the headline and body directly addresses the prospective student. 
  • Although the CTAs' layout in their university web development is a touch odd, the wording is compelling: Students' work, their programs, and a virtual tour. All allow potential students to learn more about the institution before deciding to enroll.

 A-Glimpse-Of-A-Virtual-Tour

Here’s another web development college instance. 

Pomona College, a liberal arts college in Southern California, decided to deploy a carousel image that promotes five different news stories, each of which is only marginally relevant to prospective students. Carousel heroes, in our university web development experience, reduce interaction because most visitors lack the patience to scroll through all the images.

With its heartwarming, engaging movies about campus life, Goucher College's homepage's fundamental image hits all the right notes with effective website development for college. 

Their CTAs particularly amaze us since they steer clear of bottom-of-funnel pitfalls like "Apply Now" and instead target students that are more interested in choosing the best degree programs, boosting their professions, and enjoying their college life!

Wall Of Fame

Prospective students are interested in experiencing college life and that’s how university website development helps you. Through the efficient use of movies and photo galleries, colleges and institutions may provide students with what they are searching for without making them leave their homes.

Why it's important: Videos and pictures help you establish compassion and trust with potential students through college web development. Additionally, it has been demonstrated that including videos on websites can:

  • 41% increase in visitors
  • Engage users to maintain them on your website 88% longer on average
  • Increase conversion rates on your website by 34%

How to do it correctly: For good reason, aerial shots of university campuses are extremely popular these days. It enables students to see themselves there, which is an excellent first step toward contemplating applying and then enrolling. The same is true with student life photo collections for college website design & development.

Additional urge you to educate your audience by employing video. Consider making movies for each program that describe the courses it offers, as well as a video for admissions that guides potential students through the application process and uploads them during website development for college.

The top video and image collections to include in your university website development are:

  • Hire professionals: Hire skilled people to shoot videos and photographs, the cost of hiring professionals is worthwhile.
  • Be authentic: Avoid stock images and any film that appears to be manufactured or contrived.
  • University-specific: Your photographs and videos should make it very obvious what makes your institution special, whether it be a particularly stunning campus, small class sizes, entertaining extracurriculars, a sizable sports program, etc.

Our experts have used the following two examples:

  • The most popular Instagram photographs from Bates College are shown in a gallery on their website, which provides visitors with a true sense of campus life. To view the description, hover your cursor over an image.  To visit the school's Instagram page, click. This is a fantastic university website development strategy to attract potential students and motivate them to follow you on social networking sites to deepen their relationships.
  • Don't get us wrong, some videos look awesome. It depicts the tale of one student's trip to Kenyon and is artistic and distinctive. Will it, however, aid in boosting enrolment or conversions through your university web development? 

In the end, probably not. Why? It misses the "empathize and connect" boat because it concentrates obsessively on the conceptual and not sufficiently on the actual lived experience of attending Kenyon.

Use-An-Effective-Carousel-Editor.

From one of the greatest film schools in the nation, you wouldn't expect anything less, and the San Francisco Film School's video does not disappoint. The film enables viewers to picture themselves "living the life" of an enrolled student, including beautiful images of the Golden Gate and clips of students honing their art through their college website design & development.

The Message

Your website's message consists of all the terms you decide to use to explain to its audience the value of your college through university web development.

Why it's important is knowing your audience and creating messages that are pertinent to their passions and intentions is crucial for institutions trying to expand their programs. Students need to understand right away that they are in the correct place. 

Your bounce rates will remain low if your headlines and underlying messages speak plainly and specifically to the kinds of students you would like to draw in and your university web development won’t go in vain. This is instant and completely clear. 

Users frequently leave Web pages in 10 to 20 seconds, but webpages with a defined value proposition can keep people's attention for much longer, according to a study from the Nielsen Norman Group. 

You must effectively express your value proposition in under 10 seconds if you want to capture the user's attention for several minutes. All your university website development is effective as it conveys your unique selling point. 

An-Example-Of-Effective-Website-Message

Keep in mind that you are up against over 1400 other colleges. It would help if you describe your unique and superior qualities to your prospective students.

Address your audience directly. Your web development college must primarily speak to potential students (and, if you're pursuing undergraduates, their parents) if increasing student numbers is your goal.

Be authentic! This title serves as the cornerstone for Moore's messaging, which is straightforward, unambiguous, and consistent throughout their website development for college. 

The Moore College website is doing an excellent job of explaining who the college is for and why prospective students should pick Moore above other art and design colleges.

User Experience

UX in college website design & development is all about structuring and presenting content in a way that makes it as simple as possible for users to go to the desired location.

Why it's important: The paradox of user experience is that when it's done well, users won't even notice, but when it's done poorly, you'll leave a very unfavorable impression. If you get it incorrect enough, visitors to your website will become frustrated and leave before you have an opportunity to persuade them to stay.

How to do it correctly: Website development for college should have straightforward, user-friendly navigation, search, and routes so that prospective students may quickly locate what they're looking for.

The primary menu should make it simple for students to find all of the applications that are offered, through web development college as well as any extra information.

a navigation bar for students who are certain of their needs. Even though it doesn't need to be highly noticeable, this should appear on every page.

Research-shows-that

Tools and secondary action navigation utilities are a must-have in your web development college. 

To help readers find blog entries that are relevant to their interests, users can search for and filter them.

Here’s an example:

With logical navigation that directs potential students to first browse programs while making it simple to learn more about all their top-level issues, ASU online has its priorities in line when it comes to the user experience through its effective web development college. The Apply Now icon is present but underemphasized, and when you navigate down the page, the navigational elements are identical to those at the top.

What Do You Have In Store For Applicants?

Your skills are what students value and your right university website development efforts will in return provide information on your website, typically through an inline form. Consider eBooks, webinars, comparisons, virtual tours, and more.

Why it's important is when it comes to chances for conversion, gated offers are gold. Today's colleges have numerous possibilities to offer programs in return for information; if they don't, they risk losing out on prospective students at all points of the application process.

How to do it correctly: Be imaginative. The good news is that most institutions' online offers begin and end with a panoramic view, giving you plenty of opportunities to establish yourself as a standout candidate. Utilize your SEO consultant to help reach your potential students so that you can create engaging content around those topics.

How-To-Offer-The-Best-On-Your-University-Website

Engaging early-stage prospects is what the top university website provides. For the large number of applicants who are still deciding where to attend college, resources like university comparison charts (that, of course, portray your institution in a favorable light), college preparation checklists, and electronic books about the employment prospects for particular degrees are all helpful.

Extension of your "free" material through work Gated offers isn't enough on their own, so you shouldn't assume prospective students will be willing to submit a form to receive one before they've invested some time on your website. 

Use free material, such as program webpages and blog posts, to pique consumers' interest. As a value-added service, present pertinent gated offers.

Focus On CTAs

CTAs, or calls to action, do exactly what they sound like they will do: they instruct users on what to click and what they should expect once they do so but only when used wisely during university website development.

The top CTAs on university websites are:

  • Avoid using words with high friction like "sign up," "submit," or "complete." These expressions convey a sense of labor and deter potential students.
  • Compared to other page elements, they are large.
  • Use hues that stand out from the background of the page.
  • For engaging CTA buttons and certain other action locations across the site, stick to a single color.
  • Use button designs that make it obvious that clicking them is required.

Different-Types-Of-CTAs

Anyone can enjoy a good quiz, right? It's one of the finest homepage CTAs to "Take the Quiz" if you're unsure of your major. Although purple is often a good CTA color, it might have been preferable for the university to select a color that stood out from the remainder of the website. 

Your university web development company can recommend the best places, colors, and content for your CTA. 

Regular Blogs

Nowadays, most colleges and institutions are aware of the importance of having a blog. Do they however know how to use it? Every institution uses blogs to its best capabilities right through university web development.

Start with a targeted, strategic SEO strategy. A smart place to start is creating a keyword list that is pertinent to your specific programs and evaluating related search volume and competition. An expert SEO approach in sync with university website development is rather in-depth. If your postings aren't performing well enough, analyze your competitors to see what you can do to improve.

Guidelines-For-Effective-Blog-Strategy

A lot of things are done properly on the University of Cincinnati Online's blog, which regularly posts dozens of pieces aimed at picking readers' interest from the early stages of contemplation to those who are prepared to apply. 

As a result of blog posts being optimized (and ranking) for elevated search terms, a volume of traffic that converts to leads is generated right from the initial stages of web development college. 

Users can choose more than one of each of the 15 study categories offered by UC online and explore over two dozen topics. 

Chatbots

We'll examine the strategies institutions are doing to boost engagement and encourage conversions and their web development college.

The top chatbots for university websites:

  • To show that the bot is to enhance the prospect's experience, start by asking, "How can we help?"
  • Adapt the question to the user's starting page by personalizing it. For instance, the bot may inquire, "Can I help you learn more about our MBA program?" if a user launches the chat feature from a university's page promoting its MBA program.
  • Use the information you learn from the questions users ask to better tailor the chat experience and potentially boost the speed of your website as a whole and a successful university web development. 

Chatbots-Goals-For-Your-Institution

  • Make greetings and responses more distinctive for recurring users.
  • The existence of a chatbot with the name Cowboy Joe makes perfect sense for a school whose tagline is "The World Needs More Cowboys." Cowboy Joe does a superb job of providing answers to queries and pointing visitors to pertinent data.
  • This chatbot's lack of a data collecting or conversion plan is the only thing preventing it from being placed on the winner's pedestal. Joe never once asked me what courses a student was interested in or otherwise tried to get information that may guide the school appeal to me better during their talk. 

However, this successfully lowers communication barriers, which is a positive thing and ensures an applicant-friendly website development for college.

Conclusion

Over the years, several colleges have tried and tested efforts to create a niche digital presence. However, college website design & development under an expert’s vision has a different outcome. 

For instance, experts at JanBask Digital Design have a more strategic approach that does not ignore leads in the initial stages, prioritizes content to lead stuck applicants, and encourages them to complete their process organically. 

Connect with our experts to discover innovative ways to reach applicants through impeccable university web development.

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Jaden Hernandez

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