As with any business or organisation, a school’s website is an important tool for engaging with parents and pupils, revealing what their particular institution is all about. Websites can often be developed, however, and then left to sit online for years without a comprehensive review – information and pages are added, systems become outdated and usability begins to suffer.
If you haven’t considered updating your website for a while, now may well be a good time to review how you appear online and whether things can be done better.
OFSTED obviously consider good communication important in running a school. For heads, reviewing how parents, pupils and staff have access to school information is now an integral part of most operational processes.
A revamp of your website design can deliver numerous benefits:
- First, it can make your online presence look modern and attractive – there have been great developments in coding and it’s a lot easier nowadays to get a tailored solution at a relatively low cost.
- It can improve the usability of your website – over time, pages and menus can get more complicated than you actually want for a school site. This is because new information and links get added without much thought to the overall structure of the site.
- You may have images or other content that takes time to download because they haven’t been optimised for online use. That can be frustrating for users and have an impact on how often they visit your site.
- Your site can also be linked to other tools such as your school app so that you have a seamless identity across all devices online.
More and more of us nowadays like to search the internet and view websites on our mobile devices. It’s a lot easier than powering up the desktop computer or laptop. If your website isn’t ‘mobile ready’ that can mean it’s difficult to read on a small screen. Updating your site can quickly solve this problem and ensure visitors will be able to view your pages whatever device they are using.
Isn’t Website Development Expensive?
Of course, one of the things that often puts heads off updating the website is the cost. In the past, you would need to hire a web developer and it could be pretty expensive. The good news is that the costs have come down considerably over the last few years and you can now get a great web design for a fraction of the cost.
At Parent Apps, we’ve been looking at ways we can offer schools those value added extra services that make a difference. We’ve helped many schools develop their own dedicated apps which parents and pupils can use to stay in touch. We are now providing website development, creating the bespoke solutions that fit your school like a glove.
Our team will be able to review your current website and create a design that improves usability, helping your school brand stand out from the crowd. If it’s been a while since your website has been updated, now is a good time to have a review and find out how a restyle and redesign could make a big difference.
Contact us today to find out more.