When thinking about higher education websites, the phrase “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma” immediately comes to mind. For every institution, the external website is their most important marketing and communications asset due to its reach, depth, and popularity. What other asset is globally accessible 24/7/365, covers every inch of their institutional story, and has been viewed by just about every single one of their constituents?

The answer is none. No other asset even comes close.

Considering its role and importance to an institution, the development, structure, maintenance, and governance of the website should all be thoroughly strategized, planned, and executed to ensure that this most precious of institutional assets is functioning at its most optimal level.

Unfortunately, when reviewing higher ed websites, we consistently see sites that aren’t functioning at peak level. From a sub-par content strategy, to lost conversion opportunities, all the way through inferior design choices, we’ve seen it all.

And that’s where the riddle begins.

A new higher ed website is easily a six figure project so it’s not an asset that should be treated lightly. However, that’s exactly what we think is happening. If you’ve ever been part of a higher ed website redesign, think about how much time, effort, and energy went into the design concepts. Think about how important it was that your new website “look” great. I would bet that for most institutions the design, and especially the design of the home page, comprised the majority of the project focus. What does that say about the other parts of the project that actually matter?

• Was all of your content reviewed and rewritten?
• Was your SEO analyzed and optimized?
• Were conversion opportunities fleshed out on every single page?
• Was your navigation thoroughly reviewed to make wayfinding as easy and intuitive as possible for your users?
• Did you maintain all of your hard-fought SEO authority with 301 redirects before launching the new site?

And after all of the hard work of building your new website, did you govern it properly or did you open it up to numerous content editors who then had free rein to work independently and ultimately expedite its degradation with poor content (too wordy, not written in the brand voice, etc), with poor styling (centering and bolding the entire page – we’ve see it!), and with poor design choices (clip-art anyone?).

Very mysterious.

For most institutions, the likely reason for this lax post-launch oversight is probably a lack of personnel to manage such complex and time-consuming work. So what does an institution do? They let their six-figure website degrade over a period of years until it’s time for the next six-figure redesign. Seems wasteful and irresponsible.

An enigma really.

So when your next website redesign comes around, arm yourself with these seven core principles and produce a website that is worthy of the cost, time, and effort that went into building it. And if you can work on a governance strategy, perhaps you can stave off degradation and actually save your marketing dollars for other initiatives.

The 7 Habits of a Highly Effective Higher Ed Website

1. The key to a successful website lies in its content - not in its design. After all, it’s the content that your end users are there to consume. Your design is there to enhance your content - not the other way around.
    
2. Your Home page is not the most important page of your website. It’s a jumping off point as most users utilize it as a gateway to other pages deeper within your website. Analytics will show you that most users will spend very little time perusing its content and that clicks from the main nav are the most popular actions users take on that page.
    
3. Search engines do a great job of driving traffic to pages deep within your website. This means that every single page of your website needs to be treated as if it is the only page your end user will visit. Content, conversion opportunities, wayfinding, and design all need to be properly and thoughtfully developed on each and every page of your website.
    
4. Users are task-oriented in their browsing behavior and aren’t interested in reading every single word on your website. Content should be lean, marketing-driven, and include appropriate calls to action and conversion opportunities.
    
5. Your end users aren’t concerned about your internal structure so your website shouldn’t be built to reflect that structure. Rather, it should be built to inform, engage, and convert your audience. Developing an intuitive architectural structure will enhance the user experience by making your website easy to use.
    
6. As complex as websites can be, they also need an intuitive and easy-to-use navigation system in order to facilitate wayfinding. This is perhaps the most critical component to the user experience. Eliminate silos and simplify this complex process with consistent & intuitive navigation and search functionality.
    
7. Just because you see a feature or style on another website doesn’t necessarily make it a best practice. Let real data and user behaviors inform your decision making.