It‘s commonly said that “first impression lasts forever.” Okay! Let’s examine the reality of this notion through the image you create in the mind of anyone that lands on your school website for the first time.
As crucial as it is to have a working web page for your school in the 21st century, value-added to school home pages is vital to creating a good brand image in the minds of your potential customers.
Though “books can’t be judged by their covers,” your patronizers are ready to predict contents from the initial impression learned from your school website template. Do you agree to this…?
Fantastic! This is because some parents’ decision to enroll their wards in schools is tied to the impression gained from their personal assessment of the website design lesson plans you are showcasing.
With this, your web design idea must be fascinating enough to retain ordinary visitors, appeal to their psyche, and ultimately convert them into your permanent clients.
Of course, the primary goal of your school web design can be built around creating a convincing impression in the minds of these visitors.
Although the value of it being informative and helpful for your current students shouldn’t be overlooked, all you need is to make your school website page friendly for all the users to get your desired returns.
Leveraging on your agreement to my submission that an excellent-looking website template increases your number of visitors, I can boldly tell you that the effect on the volume of your enrollment will be favorable. Now, let’s quickly take a look at what the middle school website is all about.
What is middle school website design?
As you can see, there are two different concepts to explain here; middle school and website design. Now, let’s pick them one after the other:
The term middle school means intermediate school, junior high school, or lower secondary school. It further connotes an educational level that is peculiar to some countries, existing to provide education between primary school and secondary school.
Meanwhile, there exist classifications and regulations of specific age brackets, but it also varies between and among or sometimes within countries of the world.
For instance, some countries recognize middle school as an educational stage for children between about 10 and 14. However, there is a big difference between what is obtainable in some parts of the UK and the US. The former pegged it between the ages of 9 and 14 while the latter maintained the space between 11 and 13 years.
Whichever standard is applied, the core of this explanation houses the stages of formal learning provided for children between the elementary level of education and senior secondary school.
A set of interconnected web pages usually include the home page, collected on the World Wide Web, which contains detailed information supplied by one person or entity that could be traced back to a common Uniform Resources Locator (URL) known to be a Website, right?
Then, what is website design…?
Simply put, web design is the artistic process of creating websites. It contains several aspects like web page layout, content production, and graphic design. The term is often used interchangeably with web development, even though web design is technically a subset of the broader category of web development.
Having known these, let’s now wrap it up and consider the concepts of middle school website design as one entity to mean a systematic way of creating web pages detailed with contents and visual information, which will serve as a centerpiece of a comprehensive communication strategy for students, parents, staff and community base of a middle school.
From the preceding, the importance of having a good website that communicates your efficiency, motive, and modus operandi to your clients, as a school, is highlighted. Therefore, it is pertinent to know how your school website template can benefit you if you eventually create a school website.
Benefits of creating a good middle school website
Creating an awesome web page for your school comes with tons of foredeals. Here are some of the advantages at your doorstep with which you can get inspired:
- It gives a Better First Impression
A professionally designed website will attract the interest of the visitors with an inviting template. This first impression is a vital asset in the growth of your school. On the other hand, Amateur websites will diminish the degree of credibility you planned to instill in the minds of your potential clients. Of course, either good or bad, the initial impression formed by the visitor of your middle school website is a determinant of the action that follows.
- It helps to keep pace among the competitors.
A well-equipped web page that is capable of setting other competitors on their toes is a stunning property. The level of competition around the establishment of schools, especially for children, is heavy. Therefore, for a middle school website to keep its relevance among peers needs the service of professional school website builders. Having done it right, your school will continue to make waves among its competitors.
- It provides an intensive revenue.
If you create a befitting and attractive school website, your page visitors get attracted at a glance. This can tie them down for you and make them enroll their kids in your school. What does this mean? Brilliant...! You are following me. It brings you a robust income.
- It improves search rankings.
Having a fascinating website design for your middle school is to give aesthetic value to your home page and keep your website moving up in rankings among the famous search engines like Google, among others.
- It reduces the bounce rate.
If you create a good website for your middle school using a reliable tool, you have given your potential customers reasons to navigate your web page to ask more about your offer. Instead of shutting down your home page, they will need to explore more around your captivating website design lesson plan.
- It helps you to cut costs.
In creating your middle school website, take off with a marvelous tool. This will assist you in saving money when you need to update it. Instead of hiring professional services to build your web page from scratch, using the modern tool, the existing website template will need just a touch to make it align with modern demand. This will eventually cut off unnecessary extra costs.
- It makes it easy to add future and evolving functionalities
If you intend to add some additional functionalities in vogue, it will come easy on your well-created web page. This will economize the time span when the updated site starts to be available for people to visit. Meanwhile, some clients tend to lose interest if your website goes on an extended vacation.
- It establishes consistent brand identity.
A consistent brand identity is so significant in business, especially school for children. This serves as a booster for the credibility and trustworthiness you have created initially. A good middle school website built with a reliable tool will give room for this.
You might be thinking about how to design a functional middle school website.
Good! Now, let’s take you through this journey. You will find it interesting.
How to design a good website for your middle school
Irrespective of the size or age of your school, well-designed school web pages can help your school grow beyond your imagination.
Someone with design and coding skills has the option to build a website from start to finish. However, the process could be complex and time-consuming for ordinary people. Should we now say the difficulty is insurmountable? Certainly No.
To achieve that, you need someone who can take you by hand and walk you through the step-by-step guide. By so doing, your dream for fantastic school website design ideas will never be a mirage.
Now, let’s ride on!
Step 1. Obtain Hosting and a Domain Name
This is crucial because your web host is at the service to store all your website files and make them accessible. Your domain name is what visitors will type in their browsers to land on your school webpage. In the absence of these two, the task is impossible.
Your hosting and domain registration can be acquired from the same company, depending on what they offer. But keeping them in the same place can make administrative steps easy anyway.
Step 2. Layout Your Website Foundation
You need to think through the structure you want your site to have. In doing this, you can take an ex-tray look at similar middle school website designs and be conscious of the design elements exploited with thorough attention to note what you like and those you don’t like.
No doubt, different school websites designs might be pursuing other goals, but the meeting points haven't been shifted from the core to win visitors’ minds to their sides. Thus, ensure your primary goal is at the cardinal while working through this process.
Pages in your school website are determined by the mission set to accomplish with the site. Many sites have the same sets of pages like:
- Home page: this is the first page your visitors see. You would like to make it a vibrant representative of your brand. A compelling home page will appear simple, concise, and straight to the point.
- About page: your about page is your avenue to sell your service as a middle school to your potential clients. Frequently, it is the most popular page on a site. Therefore, devote enough time to create an excellent high-quality copy that can wow your readers. You just need to tell them what you’re about, how you’re uniquely qualified to be their choice in a direct and straightforward form.
- Contact page: No matter how beautiful your web pages are, if you’re not easy to locate through a proper contact address, you’re out of the market. Thus, put all your contact information on an easy-to-find page on the site.
- Products or services page: here, you outline the specific services you offer as a middle school. Exploit this page for making cases while your services go beyond a mere education provider to a full-fledged caregiver who should be entrusted with children for learning purposes. Present it easily and simply such that the following action by the visitors will be favorable to your desire.
- Blog: more often than not, a blog serves as a valuable supplement to a website. For a content-based website, a blog is naturally made for publishing new content. Simultaneously, it acts as a marketing tool for a business site to improve SEO and win more customers for the business. It takes a lot to maintain it, so it may not be necessary for a middle school website.
Conversely, you should remember that for a school website, content is essential—the most integral part of the site. You must also give a reasonable degree of priority to content alongside the visuals that represent the favorites of the middle school children. depict when developing an education website
But, take the time upfront to see whether you need to have a blog on your school site from the start or it will come at a later time. It can serve as succor for you as well.
Step 3. How to Design Your Website
As a starter designing your middle school website, the best way is to fall back on the professionally created designs to get inspired. Deciding on your take-off, you can consult the existing themes powered by reliable builders to form a structured framework. This research will get the main design elements ready for you, and you can customize your template using your brand.
Step 4. Test Your Site Before Launch
Now that your school website is in place, your pages added, your original copy written, and your images loaded in. You are a step to the destination. Agree? Good. that is the testing before the launching. You will want to set out on a good form, ensure all work as intended before jumping out to the public.
Your website may appear gorgeous to you. That isn’t enough to call it a great one since you’re not at the service of yourself. Your customers will approach different browsers, devices, screen sizes, and, more importantly, their activities on your site are varied. On this note, you need to provide answers to some questions.
Does the form suitably work? Is the checkout process smooth and easy? Is it friendly for them to navigate across every page on the site? Is there any disparity in the form of display on different devices or different screen sizes?
Attempt these questions through an extensive testing process. You can share with friends and colleagues. Some other experts you trust can take part in assisting you with some heavy activities on the site to assure its effectiveness because you are too close to it to see some flaws with your fresh eyes. This is very important before you release your newly built school website to the world.
How to design a similar website using strikingly
As simple as it appears to whip up a website to showcase the activities of your middle school website for onward desired gain in this technological age of ours, it’s paramount to power it with a vibrant web builder.
Fortunately, there is a similar platform available for schools of any kind to set up their sites. Strikingly offers many schools websites templates that can be tweaked depending on the objectives of the school.
Don't you think it isn’t out of the way to show you a few out many education websites examples as it is related to the overall framework you will need for creating your middle school website before presenting the steps to design it?
Brilliant! Let’s take it from here...
- Cornell University Class of 2016
Image taken from Strikingly user website
The image above is from the website of Cornell University Class of 2016. The school adopted an educational web template from Strikingly to design their site and add necessary functions.
- Franklin Scholars
Image taken from Strikingly user website
As you can observe from the image above, their homepage features an image of students engaging in class. This helps create a sense of connection with students.
If you take a closer look, you'll see two images, with one overlapping the other. Using Strikingly, you can manipulate background image and layout as you please. You can also edit them depending on the style you're going for.
Now that you've seen compelling education website examples, don’t you think it's proper to head on to Strikingly and make yours?
Come, let us now show you the guide...
Before we proceed, keep in mind that functions, features, and tools differ from every website builder. Training website templates are also not the same for each case. If you want to achieve optimal results, choose Strikingly as your source of school website template.
Here are the steps in building an education website that will as well be useful to create a stunning web page for your middle school:
- Select a Template
Strikingly has many free education website templates, but for this example, we'll use the Shermer International School template. You are at the liberty to select a different template, but we highly recommend this one because it's packed with all the sections you need.
Image taken from Strikingly product
Upon selecting this template, you will be prompted to the website editor, where you’ll have access to various tools and features. Just a heads up, many tools are free, but you can switch to a pro account to access exclusive features.
As you can see, the template above already has various sections, including the homepage, about, vision, core values, academics, and contacts. And truthfully, these are all the sections you need in your middle school website template.
Other teaching website templates do not offer this kind of convenience, so make sure to really leverage and optimize the functions and pages.
You can, of course, change the company name located at the top left of the template. You can also change the background image by clicking on “Background” at the upper right corner of the screen. From there, you will be prompted to replace the image by uploading one or using any of Strikingly resources.
Not too happy about the layout and style? Easy, Just change the settings on “Layout” at the upper right corner of the web editor. For styles, you can access it using the four-panel window on the left-side menu.
- Add a Mission and Vision
The mission and vision page is one of the most essential parts of your education website. If you notice, most educational institutions have their mission, vision, and goals posted all over the campus. The purpose of which is to relay to students and stakeholders the school’s long-term plans and objectives.
Image taken from Strikingly product
Take a look at the image above. Middle school like any other educational website templates must have a mission and vision section and Strikingly offers one right off the shelf. A mission must reflect both your efforts in education as well the interests of students. While your vision is a long-term projection of what you want to achieve within a long period of time.
- Add Academic Services
Most education website templates from Strikingly already offer this academics page. It’s always imperative for an education-oriented website like the middle schools to have a page devoted specifically to services. This may be the page where most students would spend the most time.
Image taken from Strikingly product
Using this template, you can add different types of services, including the levels of education that your school offers. As you can see in the image above, the services are separated like a windowpane, with each panel showcasing a different level.
- Add a Contact Page
Your contact page must contain relevant data about your address, contact details, and key persons. With Strikingly, you can even add a map on your contact us page to help students navigate their way towards the campus.
Image taken from Strikingly product
You can also add a form field on your contact us page so students, parents, or potential clients can reach out to you when they have a query, a concern, or feedback about the school and its services.
With Strikingly, you can achieve your plans for a middle school website and embrace the power of education in the online space in 2021.
Having a website is ideal in the 21st-century. So if you have a middle school and you want to gain global visibility, you need to have a website. Start by creating an account with Strikingly today!
