katemiller

...that will help you stand out from the crowd

1. Strategic Website Planning

To get a website that works, you need to consider these questions in detail before you think about design.

• Who is your audience?

For most school websites, the primary audience is not so much current parents and students as prospective parents and students. If that's the case for you, your website must address the needs of this market first and foremost.

• What are you communicating?

Your audience should get a clear answer to these questions:
-  What does your school have to offer?
-  Why is your school different to others?
-  What curriculum or special programs does your school offer?
-  What sort of facilities does your school have?

• What are the site objectives and goals?

The main focus of your website is probably to effectively promote your school to prospective parents and students and boost enrolment numbers.

Once you know your objectives, you need to think about how to achieve them:

• What tools/technology can we use to help promote your school?
• What content do you want to include?
• How can we encourage the user to take action?

2. The Design

Now it's time to start the design! We'll make sure it's...

• User-friendly and easy to navigate.
• Laid out in a way that is easy to read.
• Effective in communicating your message.
• A genuine expression of your school, not just a generic template.

3. Web Development

The next step is to build your site:

• I build prototypes so that you can track your site's progress.
• I test extensively to ensure the site does what it should.
• I integrate it with a CMS so you can update the site yourself.
  (Dependent on your school's server; PHP & MySQL required.)

4. Support

I don't just hand over your finished site - I help you use it effectively.

For a CMS site:

• I show you how easy it is to update yourself.
• I provide onsite training and resource documents.
• I give you free phone support for the first month.

For a non-CMS site:

• I work with you to ensure your site is kept up to date.

5. Your Finished Website!

Your website is finished and ready to go online!