FE College Homepage Best Practice Report
How To Continually Improve Your College’s Homepage To Engage Even More Learners…Without Redesigning Your Whole Website…
FEmarketing’s College Homepage Best Practice Report shows you practical guidelines to improve your college’s homepage without a costly redesign…
46 examples of FE college home pages to benchmark against…
- 579 screenshots and examples of best practice from FE & Sixth Form college homepages…
- 24 home page best practice factors to help you improve your user’s experience…
- Feedback from prospective full time learners, part time learners and employers on what they look for on college home pages…
- Answers to the 40 most frequently asked questions from FE college Marketing Managers and Web Developers about home page design…
If your College is looking to engage more school leavers, adult learners and employers NOW then you MUST read the FE College Homepage Best Practice Report.
80% of your college’s website visitors will land on your homepage – Is your college’s homepage helping you to engage learners or could it be putting them off?
Do you know EXACTLY what school leavers, adult learners and employers WANT to see on your website and what puts them off?
Does your college’s homepage meet best practice standards for the FE sector?
The good news for your college is that your homepage’s performance can be continually improved with some simple yet effective tweaks
FEmarketing have profiled 441 FE college homepages and gained extensive feedback from employers and learner focus groups on what they want to see on your homepage and what they ignore…
This research has identified the 24 homepage best practice factors that can motivate visitors to further explore your website and investigate the qualifications and services you offer…
FEmarketing’s homepage best practice report shows you practical guidelines to improve your homepage without a costly redesign:
- 46 examples of FE college homepages to benchmark against…
- 579 screenshots and examples of best practice from FE college home pages…
- 24 home page best practice factors to help you improve your user’s experience…
- Feedback from prospective full time learners, part time learners and employers on what they look for on college home pages…
- Answers to the 40 most frequently asked questions by FE college Marketing Managers and Web Developers about home page design
By investing in the FE College Homepage Best Practice Report you will discover:
- How Google Analytics can help you track your homepage performance
- The 3 homepage challenges every college website developer faces
- Four key criteria that your college’s homepage MUST communicate to your visitors
- The images that received the most negative feedback from school leavers
- How school leavers navigated college homepages
- What actions school leavers took upon landing on a college homepage
- How this content can destroy a college’s credibility with school leavers
- Why 63% of school leavers prefer watching videos on homepages
- The images that adult learners wanted to see on college homepages
- The navigation options that helped adult learners find the content they are seeking
- Why employers were critical of some college homepages
- The 7 biggest homepage mistakes that colleges are making
- Ten questions to ask before making changes to your college’s homepage
- How to determine what content to include on your homepage
- What college web developers hate to encounter and how to overcome it
- Two important considerations you must address on your homepage
- Five benchmarks to check that your homepage copy is effective
- How to check your images meet these three critical criteria
- The Google Analytics tool that several colleges ignore…and why it is a major mistake
- The two kinds of searchers that your homepage must cater for
- Five features to consider including in your graphic header
- The News items to feature on your homepage..
- The five core reasons why colleges redesign their website
- What percentage of colleges have a web developer working within the marketing department
- What percentage of colleges undertook ongoing testing of their homepage
- How colleges have used Google Analytics to improve their homepage
- The improvements colleges would like to make to their homepage to increase online enquiries and improve the user experience
- The 33 criteria FEmarketing uses to evaluate college homepages
You will also discover how FE and Sixth Form Colleges are:
- Using copy and welcome messages to sell the benefits of their college
- Promoting their provision via banner advertising
- Marketing their services to the public such as restaurants and beauty treatments
- Showcasing their academic achievements
- Promoting their apprenticeship provision
- Using course search to help visitors find the courses they are seeking
- Offering visitors the opportunity to download prospectuses
- Promoting their online enrolment procedures
- Targeting parents and schools on their homepage
- Offering training courses for the unemployed
- Engaging employers and promoting Train to Gain
- Promoting their Diplomas to prospective learners
- Marketing their Higher Education and International provision
- Using student testimonials to promote their college
- Displaying their Governance information
- Promoting their Latest News and Events
- Offering accessibility options on their homepage
- Displaying their Ofsted feedback
- Using video to promote their courses and facilities
- Promoting their social networking pages such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter
Table of Contents:
- Section 1: FE College Website Best Practice Project
- Section 2: Why Your College Homepage Is So Important
- Section 3: What School Leavers, Adult Learners & Employers Want To See On Your College’s Homepage
- Section 4: Homepage Design Factors To Consider
- Section 5: Questions From FE Colleges & Sixth Form Colleges On Homepage Design
- Section 6: Feedback From College Marketing Managers & Web Developers
- Section 7: FE & Sixth Form College Homepages
The College Homepage Best Practice Report is perfect for your college if you:
- Have recently redesigned your website and are looking to test further improvements in the months ahead
- Are planning to revamp your website in the coming months and looking for ideas and inspiration
- Cannot afford to redesign now but want to make changes that are cheap, easy to implement and measurable…
You can improve your college’s homepage without a costly web design – just observe how other colleges are implementing certain best practice strategies and them test them on your homepage…
How FEmarketing’s College Homepage Best Practice Report Was Compiled…
- FEmarketing benchmarked 441 FE college homepages from across the UK against home page best practices advocated by some of the world’s leading web usability experts.
- We then asked prospective learners – school leavers, adults returning to education and employers – to offer feedback on over 50 FE college homepages.
- The objectives were to evaluate how they navigated a college’s homepage, the links they clicked on and which content they read or ignored.
- FEmarketing newsletter subscribers were invited to ask their most burning questions about homepage design – over 100 colleges responded with the questions they wanted answering.
- FEmarketing approached over 50 FE colleges to invite them to participate in the best practice report so that we could answer the most frequently asked questions using screenshots of their college’s homepage to demonstate best practice.
Who Is The Homepage Best Practice Report For?
The College Homepage Best Practice Report is specifically for all marketing and web development professionals working within the FE sector:
- College Directors of Marketing
- College Marketing Managers
- College Marketing Officers
- College Online Marketing Officers
- College Website Developers / Website Designers
- College Press & Publicity Officers
The objective of the report is to provide marketing and web development teams with an easily accessible reference about the best practices for homepage design and usability.
Whether you are managing your college’s website or tasked with redesigning your college’s website the best practice report will give you:
- A framework to benchmark your college’s homepage against other FE college homepages
- Best Practice guidelines for all key aspects of homepage design
- Practical tips on how to improve your home page including layout, navigation and courses search functionality
Your FE College Homepage Best Practice Report will help you to further improve your homepage and user experience for your website visitors…
The Next Steps
Ring us now on 01844 355679 or email info@femarketing.co.uk and we will contact you to discuss the FE College Homepage Best Practice Report in more detail with you