Is Your Small School Website Design Succeeding?

5 Things To Check to Measure School Website Success

A high-functioning, effective school website is a must for your small school! While a successful private school website doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg, it is a significant investment for your school and requires special attention when budgeting for the next quarter or school year. In the afterglow of a website redesign or refresh, it is important to track metrics and provide hard data on why budgeting for the website redesign was crucial, and how it’s paying off for your school. 

In this blog post, we’ll dive into what metrics you should take note of to measure the success of your private school website design. There is a long list of metrics, but here are a five things to look for help determine if your website is serving you to its highest potential: 

You have experienced an increase in applications and enrolled students

If your refreshed school website design is functioning as it should, your marketing funnels should be working in your favor. A school website is designed to communicate your school morals, uniqueness, values, and benefits to interested parents and families. If your website can effectively communicate what makes your school special, you are in the sweet spot! An increase in applications and positive funnels to enrolled students equals increased revenue for your school.

There are a number of elements that may increase your application numbers, which eventually turn into excited new students and parents. They include (but are not limited to) a clear messaging framework throughout the website, large and visible calls to action, easy-to-find school contact information, and a plethora of great imagery or videos to supplement your school morals, curriculum lists, and values. 

There are more followers on your school social media accounts

If you have seen an uptick in followers on social media, congratulations! This means your efforts to create an online community for your school have been fruitful. Social media accounts for a small school are a fantastic way to share student activities with school families. They can also share news, testimonies, alerts, event information, and stories from students and faculty. 

In your school website design, social media icons work well in the footer with the school contact information. We also often embed Instagram posts into a home page to show some great imagery and content that is fresh and frequently updated by the school. Social media cons can also be designed into your school’s “Contact Us” page. 

Parent and volunteer sign ups for school events have soared 

Seeing an increase in parent and volunteer sign ups for events through your school website is always encouraging! If your school is experiencing a noted increase of volunteer sign ups and event RSVPs, this great success may point back to your school’s website. 

A roadblock for parents signing up to help with events, or sign their child up for an event is difficulty with online forms. Perhaps they don’t receive a confirmation email, the page doesn’t load correctly (or not at all), the information isn’t correct, the list goes on. 

For contact and other types of forms, there are some effective WordPress plugins available. Charlotte Jewish Day School, a happy DesignTLC client, uses a variety of forms on their website to make it easy for prospective and current parents to get in touch, sign up for after school activities, purchase spirit items and more! There are a lot of options on the market, but it’s essential your school website has a high-functioning form plugin. 

If more parents and school volunteers are signing up for events, that’s a sign that your school website design is working. The easier it is for parents, the more they will sign up for school activities or make a donation to the school!

Parents can find what they are looking for

Nothing is more frustrating for parents when they can’t find the information they are searching for online. Whether it is the school calendar, tuition information, school news, or simple contact information, any delays in locating what they need is going to send parents into the stratosphere. This may result in an influx of parent calls to your school offices, desperate for information that should already be on your website. 

If your school website is designed well, parents won’t be left in the dark. Important information is prioritized and easy for parents to find. 

User tests are incredibly important when it comes to designing a website. In user testing, real users will rate their experience with your website and provide you with real feedback. 

Parents will skip over your website if they initially have trouble navigating it; it doesn’t matter how wonderfully designed and creative the site is. Testing your website with users before launching gives you the opportunity to fix any kinks in your design before it is officially published to your public audiences. If you have done this and are seeing great results with your school families, well done!

School website traffic has increased

Increased visits and engagements on your school website is rewarding! When launching a school website, more traffic is expected as school families, volunteers, and your general audiences are excited to see the finished product. However, after the excitement wears down, it’s great to see that website traffic is still reaching new levels— it is a good sign that your school website is designed well. 

School website traffic can be measured through Google Analytics. Google analytics is a free tool that provides you and your marketing team with a wealth of knowledge on how your school website is performing.  

The basic metrics that Google Analytics track include (but are not limited to): 

• The demographics and locations of people coming to your site
• How visitors are finding you: what websites are sending traffic to your site
• What content on your website is most popular
• What kind of device visitors are using when viewing your site
• How much time people are spending on your website
• When and where users are exiting your site

To the untrained eye, Google Analytics can be overwhelming; however, it is an important tool to track how well your website is doing, and if your new website redesign is helping your website traffic. 

Contact Us

When reviewing your school website, do you have trouble saying the five statements above with confidence? Not to worry— the DesignTLC team is here to help you achieve the school website design of your dreams. Contact us TODAY for a FREE 15-minute consultation!