Website Design
Website Development
Analytics & Tracking Setup
SEO Strategy
Conversion Strategy
Content Management & Governance
UX Design
Content Strategy & Copywriting
Multisite & Multilingual Development
Branding Alignment
Accessibility
Third-Party Integrations
Ebooks: eBook: 15 Higher Ed Website Redesign Mistakes
Don’t risk tanking your institution’s website with these common redesign mistakes. This guide shows you where higher ed website projects go wrong — and how to ensure yours stays on track.
Web Strategy
Higher Education Website Design & Development
Increase enrollment and elevate your online presence with a website built to meet your institution’s unique needs.
At Vital, we know your website needs to function as a solid foundation for digital enrollment marketing — while meeting the needs of your diverse audience
In our 20+ years of building websites for higher education institutions, we’ve developed a unique approach that combines time-tested strategies with future-focused innovations in order to ensure that your site does it all — and looks good doing it.
As the digital extension of your institution, your website plays a critical role in attracting and influencing right-fit prospective students. In fact, 93% of prospective students get information from higher education institutions’ websites.* It also serves as a home base for your existing students, parents, faculty and staff, and more. Plus, it needs to integrate seamlessly with the technologies and tools you use to operate every day.
A tall order, you say? Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan.
Schools we’ve Helped
Higher Ed Website Design Portfolio
What Does Your Higher Education Website Need to Do?
Today’s students use the internet in ways we couldn’t have imagined ten years ago. It’s almost like they’re trying to put old-school websites and digital marketing agencies out of business. Luckily, Vital is anything but old school.
We collaborate with our higher education website clients to meet the goals that matter most in today’s enrollment landscape.
#1. Tell the Story of Your Institution’s Brand
Building a website is one thing — building a website that truly embodies your institution’s values and strengths with a stunning visual identity can highlight what sets you apart in the academic landscape.
#2. Enhance Institutional Visibility
With thousands of colleges and universities in the U.S., it’s essential to increase visibility among prospective students who are most aligned with your institution’s values.
#3. Generate Quality, Full-Funnel Online Leads
We focus on capturing and nurturing top- and middle-of-the-funnel leads who are ready to take next steps, not just the unicorns who are ready to apply after one look at your homepage.
#4. Make Your Institution Top-of-Mind
Your website needs to provide not only information, but a digital experience that prospective students truly appreciate and value. This helps ensure your school is first in line when they’re ready to apply.
#5. Increase Enrollment, Not Just Applications
Applying is a gamble; enrolling is a commitment. Our goal is to give you a website that inspires this level of confidence in accepted students.
#6. Enhance Website Engagement
Today’s students demand immersive online experiences that meet most (if not all) of their academic needs. Using interactive features and compelling content, we aim to captivate visitors, encourage prolonged engagement, and foster meaningful connections with your institution.
#7. Adapt to Mobile Devices
This is a non-negotiable. Prospective students need to be able to access your website wherever, whenever, and however they want, and we’ve got all the know-how to optimize the design accordingly.
#8. Establish Content Governance
Higher ed website content can be a headache to navigate and a beast to manage. We create intuitive, streamlined organizational structures for your content that facilitate easy research and discovery.
#9. Guarantee Secure Hosting
Your website needs to perform during peak traffic windows, which requires a secure and scalable hosting platform that will scale with your growth.
#10. Understand the Student Journey
Choosing a college is no easy feat. Through interviews and persona building, we gain insights into students’ decision-making processes, enabling you to accurately hone your outreach efforts.
#11. Adapt to Virtual Experiences
As virtual academics increasingly become the norm, it’s imperative that your website facilitates users’ seamless adoption to virtual platforms.
#12. Cultivate Alumni Relations
Alumni engagement is integral to institutional success; satisfied alumni strongly influence prospective students’ decisions. Featuring their stories on your website is key to enriching your brand and fostering a supportive community.
Higher Ed Tech Integrations We Support
Website Content Management Systems (CMS)
WordPress
WordPress offers a powerful, scalable, and intuitive content management system that streamlines both the user and administrative experience. We harness our decades of WordPress experience to create responsive and customizable websites that support your enrollment marketing efforts with features like multisite functionality, robust content governance, and seamless third-party integrations.
Drupal
With its flexible and secure content management capabilities, Drupal is ideal for creating accessible and dynamic websites that support sustainable institutional growth. We leverage Drupal’s powerful tools for managing diverse content types, user roles, and permissions, ensuring a seamless and secure experience for administrators and end users alike.
HubSpot
HubSpot combines a powerful CMS with robust CRM and marketing automation tools. The result is an all-in-one platform that enables dynamic user engagement, sophisticated content marketing, and streamlined operations from a single digital control room. HubSpot’s user-friendly interface, extensive integration capabilities, and features like dynamic forms, smart content, and chatbots empower institutions to enhance the user experience, track visitor journeys, and drive significant enrollment marketing results.
Slate
Designed specifically for higher education, Slate offers a comprehensive platform that excels in student recruitment, admissions, and enrollment management. With a full range of CRM capabilities, Slate allows institutions to manage prospective student interactions, automate communications, and track application progress. The platform’s customizable dashboards, reporting tools, and integration capabilities support administrators and admissions teams in making data-driven decisions that drive student engagement and institutional growth.
More Integrations.
| Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs) | Marketing Automation | Additional Technology |
|---|---|---|
| – Salesforce – HubSpot – Slate | – HubSpot – Pardot – Marketo | – Modern Campus (Destiny) – MailChimp – SEMRush – Opt In Monster |
Choose How You Want Us to Build Your Site
Depending on your goals and functionality requirements, your timeline, and your budget, we will recommend one of two approaches to designing and developing your website.
| Custom Websites | Templated Websites |
|---|---|
| Ideal for institutions with complex technical and content requirements. Development is tailored to the specific requirements and scale of the project. We perform in-depth discovery and research to understand your institution’s unique needs and enrollment objectives. We then identify custom features, functionalities, and integrations to meet a range of complex demands. Pricing Custom quotes are based on project scope, complexity, and required features. | Ideal for institutions seeking a cost-effective solution with a fully branded design. We begin with our own extensive library of pre-designed layouts developed over our decades of higher ed website experience. From this foundation, we customize styles and content to fit your institution’s unique brand. This solution offers a faster development timeline compared to a fully custom build. Pricing Fixed pricing packages based on the chosen template and additional features. |
Who We Serve
Our extensive experience with higher education clients has taught us that, while they share many of the same goals and challenges, what works for one institution doesn’t necessarily work for another. We customize our designs, recommendations, and brand-building strategies to meet the unique challenges and goals of a wide range of academic entities.
- Private and public institutions
- For-profit and nonprofit colleges
- Online, in person, and hybrid academic models
- Regional, national, and international student bodies
- Big names and lesser-known schools
- Highly selective universities and more widely accessible schools
- Four- and two-year colleges
- Specialized and technical schools and programs
- Graduate and professional development programs
- Adult and non-traditional student bodies
- Professional education and certificate programs
Vital did an incredible job designing and building a website that empowers my team to meet our most important goals. From increasing prospective student leads to making it simple to launch and promote new academic programs, the site strikes the perfect balance between powerful functionality and ease of use. It looks great, too.
— Jaclyn Kezirian
Marketing Director, University of San Diego Online
Higher Ed Website Design & Development Process
At Vital, we plan the work and work the plan. Our process ensures that every detail on your site serves one ultimate goal: building a foundation for long-term success. Here’s how we do it:
Step 1: Discovery
We gather details about your institution’s brand, your audience, competition, current website performance, what’s worked, what hasn’t, and where you’d like to be — all of which helps us generate a project proposal.
Step 2: Content Planning & Wireframing
We work with you to define your website’s architecture, navigation, and other critical aspects of user experience (UX) design. Together, we aggregate, curate, and update all existing site content as necessary and identify areas where new content needs to be developed, either by our team of copywriters or your internal team.
Step 3: Delivery
Our designers create a custom design system that establishes the elements of your website’s unique look and feel, while your Vital strategist pinpoints unique integrations and functionalities that will give your website an edge.
Step 4: Content Entry / Page Building
This is where the rubber meets the road. Our highly experienced development team begins to transform all design elements and content assets into a beautiful, functional, easy-to-use website using a custom block editor.
Step 5: Quality Assurance & Client Training
We meticulously test your site’s functionality and compatibility across browsers and devices, aligning with WCAG 2.0 AA accessibility standards. We provide training for your team on navigating the back end of your site to make updates, post content, etc.
Step 6: Pre-Launch & Launch
Once all the boxes are checked, there’s nothing to it but to do it. Let’s launch this thing!
Step 7: Post-Launch Development
Every web build includes 30 days of post-launch development support to fix any bugs. We also offer a suite of ongoing support programs to handle the post-launch maintenance and support, plus digital marketing and project-based retainers to maximize the long-term value of your site.
Why Choose Vital?
With over 20 years of web development experience, Vital’s team ensures that your website adapts to your institution’s needs — not the other way around.
We’ve Built Our Own WordPress Roadmap
Our proven web development process is a product of our extensive experience with the unique requirements of website design for higher education clients.
Our Developers are Top-of-the-Line
We have a dedicated team of web developers and strategists that specialize in higher education websites and tailored digital marketing services.
We are Hard-Wired to Think Strategically
Our SEO strategists are constantly developing tactics to enhance website ranking potential and ensure maximum visibility and reach.
We’re Always Looking Ahead
Following your site launch, we’ll create a customized 12-month plan to increase your conversion rates and identify opportunities for improvement.
Security is Our Top Priority
We provide 24/7 monitoring services, so we’ll be the first to know if your website needs back end support.
We’re Committed to the Long Haul
We offer post-launch maintenance support packages to keep your website updated, functional, and secure.
20+
Years of Web Design Experience
+25+
Web Design Awards Won
300+
Websites Built
Essential Reading
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about working with Vital on a higher ed website design and development project.
How long does a custom website development project take?
That all depends on the size and scope of your institution’s website. During our discovery phase, you’ll receive a detailed project timeline and a dedicated project manager to keep you up to date on the status of your website.
Can I make updates to my new website myself?
Yes! WordPress is our favorite block editor for a reason, due to its ease of use. That means, with the training we provide, our clients can make updates and changes without the help of a developer (though we’re always just a couple clicks away).
Do you outsource any web development services?
Nope, what you see is what you get! Everything you need is taken care of in-house by people you’ll know by name. That includes web development, design, copywriting, project management, photography, videography, and anything else you may need.
What will happen to the existing content on my website?
We use a cloud-based content organization platform called GatherContent to make sure all of your existing website content is transferred to the appropriate new pages. This tool also helps us identify areas where you may need new content (which we can help you write).
Do you use website themes?
No we do not. Themes aren’t designed to highlight your school’s unique offerings, and they can be difficult to integrate with your existing third-party software. Instead of using themes, we created our own blank framework that allows us to customize and control everything on your new website.
Ready to get started?
Let’s talk about how we can boost your enrollment and add more value to your website!
