News and Trends

14 Ways to improve Your School Web site

8/1/2011 By:

1 Regard the Web site as a publishing medium, not a technical one.

2 Regard the maintenance of the Web site Web site as a collaborative process.

3 Regard the school Web site as the Web site of the school. The “school” includes students, parents, support staff, and the local community, as well as teachers and the principal.

4 Show what the school is really like. Why not have pupil bloggers on the Web site, discussing what they do and why, and what they like and don’t like?

5 Why not a blog? Consider having a school blog rather than a Web site, or have a Web site that incorporates a blog.

6 You can go further than articles. How about a school Ning in which parents can get into blogging and discussions?

7 How about a weekly, or monthly, opinion poll to engage parents? It doesn’t even have to be about the school itself.

8 Why not give something away on your school Web site to get more traffic? It could be something as simple as a downloadable sheet about keeping your child safe online.

9 Don’t have a ‘latest news’ page unless you really are pretty sure that you can keep it going.

10 Have a publishing schedule.

11 Blog ahead, if possible. By using pre-scheduling blog features, you can write when you have time and spread out your posts.

12 Write draft posts. It’s useful to be able to have articles written and ready to go live, but it’s also nice to go back and review them before publishing.

13 Be forever timely.

14 Regard the school Web site as important. That means, giving whoever is responsible for putting it together and maintaining it or coordinating everyone involved some proper time to do it in.