Does Your College Really Need a New Website? Factors to Consider

Maybe enrollment has dipped, inquiries are down, or web traffic is lower than you’d like. A complete website overhaul isn’t your only option. There are smaller, less costly improvements that can be made to optimize your existing website

We enlisted Adam Dince, director of digital experiences at Collegis Education, to help us lay out all of the considerations schools should make when evaluating the need for a new website. Keep reading to see what he has to say.

Step One: Identify the root of the issue

If you’ve invested in various marketing tactics to drive traffic to your site, and they haven’t performed, you may question whether you’re targeting the wrong audiences or if even more investment is needed. The answer is usually “no.”

The real issue is often the website itself. Here are common red flags that signal an underperforming website:

• Important pages (i.e., program pages) have low conversion rates
• Page load times are exceedingly low
• Important pages (i.e., admissions or tuition pages) aren’t getting much traffic, indicating that users can’t find it
• Pages have high bounce rates, suggesting users aren’t getting the experience they need
• Keyword rankings decline over time, bringing less visitors to your website

A website is a long-term investment – one that pays off again and again over time. Before you invest additional money and effort into bringing visitors to your site, ensure you’re providing those visitors with an engaging, informative and user-friendly experience.

Step Two: Evaluate your website

The foundation

First, take a close look at your technology. This includes your customer relationship management (CRM) system, Google Analytics and other tools.

Ensure these are all integrated properly so your data can appropriately pass through the technology stack. These serve as the foundation of your website and are critical to understanding how it performs.

The performance

Assess analytics based on conversion rates. Are you taking advantage of the traffic coming to your website? Low conversion rates mean that your website is generating traffic, but not leading to any prospective student inquiries. This is essentially leaving money on the table.

To assess the user experience of your school’s website, Dince suggests answering these questions:

• Is it easy for a visitor to find the information they’re seeking?
• Is the navigation intuitive?
• Are similar pages strategically located next to each other?
• Does on-site search work appropriately?
• Are links working or are they broken?

Also evaluate the content perspective of your website. Answer questions such as:

• Are your web pages accurately speaking to their intended audience?
• Is your content student-focused? Or is it written in a scholarly, academic style?
• Is your website providing users with the information they need to make an informed decision?
• Is your brand promise clearly articulated? Is it meaningful?

The web content

Next, look at traffic to the website from an organic search perspective. Keep in mind that higher education is one of the most competitive industries for search, making your content incredibly important.

Ask yourself:

• Are you attracting users from a variety of channels?
• Is there a breadth of content on your website?
• Do you have the right content that people are searching for?
• Is your site optimized for organic search?
• Is your content covering the entire buyer journey – from awareness, to the consideration stage, and into the close phase?

The personalization

If someone visits your website and expresses interest in a business program, do they have to repeat the entire process when they return? Or will they get a personalized experience bringing them back to the business program page? This level of personalization could have a significant impact on your conversion rate.

Answering questions like the ones above can give you a good sense of why you’re experiencing poor performance on your website. Once you pinpoint your weaknesses, you can begin to assess the most cost-effective solution.

Step Three: Enlist the Experts and Price Your Options

Is your current site salvageable or does it need to be replaced entirely?

With so many different factors to evaluate and considerations to make, enlisting the expertise of a third party can help give you the impartial guidance you need to make a sound decision. Web performance experts can help you weigh your options to ensure you’re making the best decision for your school’s website.

“If you don’t have a strong in-house team for analytics or website performance, work with a strategic partner with index experience. Work with a partner that knows the ins and outs of what it takes to boost ROI for your website, understands prospective student needs and can make smart recommendations based off of both,” Dince advises.

Collegis Education has more than 20 years of knowledge and experience to help you identify and implement the perfect solution for your school’s website, whether it be improving upon the existing foundation or building new from the ground up.