How a Good School District Web Site Can Create Ethos For Your District
Those of us who use the internet to find information know how important good Web design can be. As consumers, we are constantly judging the advertisements, print media, flyers, signs, and Web sites of businesses to determine whether or not we trust them and the services or products they offer. If a business’s ad in the yellow pages is simple, or looks unprofessional, we tend to overlook that business, and gravitate towards the ads that are larger, and perhaps contain images and logos. You drive past the restaurant claiming to have the best brunch in town, but who advertise this with a spray painted sign on butcher paper. You don’t patronize the local dry cleaners who advertise by sticking a photocopy of a coupon in your screen door.
Today, the internet presents the same equation. People judge the quality of goods and services before they ever actually experience those goods and services, based on the quality of the business’s Web site. Ethos-using text and visual language to build credibility and trust between an organization and the user-can make or break an organization. Does that mean that all organizations with fabulous Web sites offer extraordinary goods and services? Not at all. Just like that restaurant with the spray painted sign may really be the best brunch in town, but the sign does not encourage or support trust by the consumer.
School districts, while public institutions, are also organizations that rely on public trust in order to function well. Parents and new families moving into your community will go on-line to view the district or school Web site in their area. With public schools competing for funding with charter and private schools, building ethos in your community should be a priority. Does your current school or district Web site portray the image of trust and respectability?
Many schools and districts farm out their Web sites to well-intentioned parents, local college students, or the district IT department. While the focus is saving money, many times these sites are poorly designed, difficult to navigate, contain errors or outdated information, and look unprofessional. These sites damage the ethos of your school or district, and do not encourage a feeling of trust within the parent community. Parents want to feel like the school their children attend is keeping up with current technology, providing challenging curriculum, and using up-to-date instructional methods. If the school site has minimal formatting, is difficult to use, and looks unprofessional, that sentiment attaches itself to the school as well: unprofessional Web site = unprofessional school = unprofessional teachers. It may not be reality, but that’s the message users get.
Investing in their Web site is the first place schools should focus when trying to build ethos for their school and district. Hiring School Webmasters is an easy and efficient way to start. We design, write, host, and update sites specifically with the user in mind. Our staff of professional designers create pages that are easy for parents to navigate, pleasing to look at, and allow parents to find the information that’s important to them in a fast and efficient manner. Our professional content writers write text that is easy to read, conversational in tone, and engage the reader. We use formatting to your advantage, by incorporating bullet points and links within the text that are informative and lend credibility to your institution. The overall sites are clean, polished, and always up-to-date, which helps build that ethos with the public. If the school Web site is well put together, friendly, informative, and on-the-ball, I’m going to think the school and district must be as well. Your school and district Web site say so much more about you than the text on the page. Make sure it’s saying the right things.
Rachel Vidoni is a mom of three, freelance writer, and content writer for School Webmasters, an all women owned company based in Mesa, Arizona. School Webmasters focuses solely on designing, writing, and hosting award winning school and district Web sites. For more information about parenting and education, visit their Web site and blog at http://www.schoolwebmasters.com School Webmasters also has an affordable teacher Web site component and teacher blog at http://www.myteachersite.org
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