All of your school’s admissions, advancement, marketing and communications efforts lead back to your school’s website. It’s the key component that turns leads into prospects, and prospects into enrolled students. It drives community engagement, delivers timely announcements and provides a central hub of resources for current families. Website visitors have expectations of finding what they need quickly and easily. Although well-intended or trendy at the time, some website features or pages are just not cutting it anymore. To make your website as effective as possible, there are several quick fixes that can make a positive impact on your school’s website traffic.
1. Long Online Forms
Website visitors want the information they are looking for instantly and they don’t really want to work for it, especially if they are only in the beginning research phases of the enrollment journey. In fact, there is an average 120% conversion increase when you reduce the number of form fields from 10+ to 4 or less. Even less engaging than long online forms, are any downloadable PDF forms that need to be printed and re-uploaded. This doesn’t just apply to inquiry forms; form length impacts conversion rates on everything from admissions forms to event registration and online donor forms.
Try This Instead: Rather than a few longer online forms with 10 or more fields throughout your website, build a series of online forms that align with your admissions, enrollment and advancement processes. These forms should be on dedicated landing pages with specific single call-to-actions that drive form submissions.
2. Lengthy Text Pages
The average adult internet user’s attention span is 8.25 seconds. That’s not a long time to wow parents visiting your website for the first – or even second – time. Storytelling is the most important component to your school’s brand but long paragraphs are not the only way to tell your school’s rich history. In fact, text content has become the least engaging form of digital content. The human brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than written text information. This aligns with our expectations of receiving information we’re looking for instantly, anywhere we are.
Try This Instead: Be strategic about how your school presents information online. Is a paragraph really the best way to present information? Could a short video or infographic make more sense? When paragraphs do make sense, it’s critical to write concisely. Remember that your content should be scannable — meaning sub-heads, bulleted lists and imagery should help break up your written content.
3. QR Codes
QR codes are making a comeback but does your school really need them on your web pages? With over 60% of all global internet traffic coming from mobile devices and mobile devices being required for QR codes to work, QR codes can’t actually be accessed during the majority of website sessions from your audience’s favorite devices.
Try This Instead: QR codes are still a useful tool to drive traffic to your website from print materials. They could even drive traffic to specific landing pages for easy tracking of the most effective print materials.
4. Stock Photos
Stock photos are noticeably fake. Families will instantly pick them out, and could actually see them again on another school’s website. They are harmful to your school’s brand and storytelling. Without authentic imagery, families will not make a real connection to the real experiences your school offers.
Try This Instead: A common misconception about photography is that you need all the fancy equipment for it to be worth it. When it comes to digital channels like websites and social media, smartphones can actually be enough to get it done right. Capturing authentic photographers of the real student experience at your school will greatly improve your school’s brand and story.
5. Photos of Text
All website content – including media files like images and attached files – are read and scanned by search engines as possible search results. Text within images cannot be scanned by Google or assistive devices like screen readers (only the image file details can be). These images serve no benefit to search engine optimization (SEO) or ADA compliance. Thumbnails of the weekly memos or dining menus are not accessible to all users. Any of your school’s brand messaging regarding inclusivity or diversity on campus would become mute.
Try This Instead: Try more news posts! Oftentimes, text as images are created to save time and space for quick and timely information. News posts can do the same thing! An even bigger benefit to using more news posts is that they can be shared on social media to drive even more traffic to your website.
6. Website Sliders
Website sliders were all the rage and dominated website design for over a decade. With recent Google algorithm updates, page speed matters more than ever as it impacts the overall user experience. The average load time for a web page is 3.21 seconds. For every 100 milliseconds longer it takes, there is a 1.2% decrease in page views and engagement. Website sliders are heavy with code and media, which ultimately slows down any web page that uses them. Additionally, just like the text as images, website sliders are not accessible for assistive devices such as screen readers.
Try This Instead: Website sliders are most commonly used on homepages. While you want to make a good first impression, you don’t need to put all your messaging on the homepage. If your website structure is intuitive and engaging enough, your audience will naturally find what they are looking for. We challenge your school to be more strategic about your school’s brand messaging. Before crafting your homepage messaging, answer the following questions:
- What is our school mission?
- What is our school vision?
- Who is our target audience?
- Which departments are our priority?
- What is our key call to action?
7. Native Video Files
Similarly to website sliders, videos that are hosted and stored within your website files significantly slow down page speed. There are much easier ways to host and embed videos – which can also help benefit your school’s search engine optimizations (SEO)! YouTube or Vimeo might be a few extra steps, but can have a much larger impact on your school’s website overall performance.
Try This Instead: Embedding videos is always better for overall website performance. Creating and optimizing a YouTube channel to host all of your school’s videos is another channel that can help boost your school towards the top of search results.
8. Generic Call-to-actions
Generic content isn’t going to keep your target audience engaged and will greatly shorten their website session. It’s much harder to build trust and credibility when website sessions are short. Nurturing families and your entire school community requires concise content that directs them through their journey. Call-to-actions (CTAs) like “Click Here” or “Learn More” are not specific or exciting enough to keep them moving along.
Try This Instead: Your CTAs should be engaging and distinctive. Think about the specific action needed at every step of the enrollment journey. Here are a few examples:
- Instead of “Call Now” try “Call Our Admissions Office.”
- Instead of “Learn More” try “Download Our View Book”
- Instead of “Schedule Now” try “Schedule A Campus Tour”
These specify the action and set an expectation for who they will speak to next.
9. Email Links
Is your inbox filled with spam or sales emails? If your online faculty and staff directory lists contact email addresses publicly, that means anyone – including bots – can find it online. For website visitors who are actually looking to contact a faculty or staff member, email links can disrupt their website journey when they open mail applications and lead them away from the website.
Try This Instead: Contact forms allow website visitors to stay on the web page and continue their journey once the form has been submitted. Contact forms can also have layers of added spam protection to limit inboxes being bombarded with unwanted emails.
With over 20 years of combined experience in admissions and education marketing, Katava Marketing can build your school a website and SEO strategy that will have a positive impact on your school’s enrollment. Contact Us to get started!
