The Concept School Launches New Website
July 01, 2015 filed under: News, Website Design
The Concept School (TCS) is an independent school in Westtown, Pennsylvania with a mission to be a place “where unique learners discover the tools they need to reach their fullest potential.” I worked with them recently to build a new website for the school, which went live this spring.
TCS had several aims for our work together: they were interested in boosting school enrollment, increasing engagement, both online and on campus, and simplifying their website so that it was easier to navigate and update.
A new CMS and design
TCS’s old site had gotten out of date in a number of ways. It was a complex site for users to navigate and even more complex for school staff to update. With the new design, we simplified the website’s navigation, making options simpler and more obvious for users. We also created clearer calls to action, presenting more direct paths of engagement for users.
On the CMS front, we replaced the site’s existing CMS with Tunnel 7’s custom configuration of ExpressionEngine, which made site updates less daunting for staff.
The website was also built using responsive design, and analytics data is already showing good results in this area. Within the first two months of site launch, time spent on the site on mobile devices increased 193% and there was a 145% increase in the number of pages visited per session. The mobile bounce rate also decreased 36%.
New functionality
To help meet TCS’s engagement goal, we built out some new sections to the website. We created a new section specifically for alumni, where school graduates can do things like update their contact information to stay in touch with the school. We also added News and Events content sections, making it easier for users to stay up to date with goings on at the school. And there is a new urgent alerts feature that is designed to be easy for TCS to activate and once activated, it shows up prominently across the top of the website.
We created a simple mailing list signup and overhauled the Request Info form, reducing the number of required fields on it. These steps are already making a difference – within the first two months of site launch, conversion rates are up significantly.