May 21

5 things to consider when choosing a school website template

website design for primary schoolsWhen you decide to launch a new school website, there are many factors to consider. One of the first things you may want to think about is the platform that you use to design the site, as well as the template that you use to build your site.

Here are five important factors to consider to make sure you make the right decision.

1. Price

The price is one of the first factors to consider with school website templates. If you use WordPress or Umbraco, which are two of the most popular content management systems, these platforms themselves are free to use.

You will find that some templates on each of the platforms are also free to use, but some will cost a small amount of money. Other templates may be quite expensive, so it really depends on what you need.

A free template may look great at first, but be wary – if it’s good, there is a strong chance that many other organisations will be using it, so it will not be unique.

For your school website, you may prefer to use a premium template. This will be more professional, more customisable, and fewer organisations will use it.

2. Customisation options

Some templates are more easy to customise than others. Some are incredibly flexible and provide you with the option to do pretty much what you want (often the more premium templates), while others are more restrictive.

It’s best to find one that allows you greater flexibility. You want your website to stand out and be unique, and if it looks like all the others, this can be a problem.

Customization Options
3. Professionally designed

Some designers may have their own templates ready to use. They may use a platform like Umbraco and create a template on this, which they then use as the starting point for your site.

They can then design your website from this custom template, using their design skills to alter the website and make it unique to your school, and this can often produce the best results.

4. Usability

You want your finished website to be user friendly, and much of this may come down to the template you use.

Does it create a positive user experience? Pages should be fast to load and the site should be easy to navigate. The skills of the designer will be hugely important, but the template you choose to start with can also have a big impact.

5. Optimised for SEO

Some templates will be optimised for SEO by having better coding behind the scenes. These may make it easy for you to add meta data, and they can give you a head start once your site is launched and you start to market it. Check out Moz’s guide to SEO if you want a better understanding of what it involves.

Talk to a web designer about your template

After looking over the various factors to consider, one thing that you may want to do is talk to a website designer at an early stage. They may have a preference for a particular platform, and they may have a template that they use for school websites.

This is often the best idea when you want to launch a new site, so start looking for a suitable designer and make your new site a reality.

website design for primary schools