School Website Content Updates To Squeeze Into Your Summer Schedule

Creating an entirely new school website is enough to make even the most confident marketer’s knees start to quiver. And rightly so: a website overhaul is a massive project.

Well good news, knee-knockers: there are ways to make your website work harder for you, sans do-over. And all it takes is some copyediting finesse and a few easy site additions.

Here are some website content updates you can fit in when you don’t have a lot of time or resources. Pick one to start with, or plan on tackling all three over time:

#1: Edit your most important pages.

Identify the most important pages on your website — the ones that you link back to from your advertising campaigns, or those that promote the programs you’re trying to push, or those that successfully set your school apart.

Got a list? Good. Now edit those pages into marketing masterpieces.

Focus on following website copywriting best practices — create a strong headline and subheads, lead with an enticing and clear introduction, use bullets and white space, remove any jargon. A.P. Style is a plus.

Oh, and remember: On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely. So make those few words they do read the RIGHT words.

And as always, make sure these pages speak to the specific intended audience — and not to your internal audiences. Your website is a marketing tool, not a communications repository.

#2: Strengthen your calls-to-action.

You website is kind of like a buffet: too many choices can make you sick. 🙂 If you give your audiences too many options for the next steps to take, chances are they won’t take the right one — or won’t take any at all.
Look at your calls-to-action. Are they promoting the right next step? Is it clear what ONE action you want your audience to take next? Are there ways to simplify the wording, or cut out some of the options?

#3: Create killer landing pages.

Landing pages — pages that promote one single offer, program or action — are a great way to increase audience conversions.

These pages are written using persuasive content, and are extremely simple. They usually include one call-to-action, and they don’t have all of the normal navigation, sidebars and distractions that a normal page on your website may have.

Consider creating landing pages to support your current or upcoming advertising initiatives: instead of linking those communications back to a page on your website, link back to a specific landing page. This way, the audience is much more likely to take the action you want.

Those are three general ways to strengthen your website story with limited resources. Want to get specific? Check out these resources: