Establish your foundation for enrollment marketing success with a website built on a powerful, scalable, intuitive content management system.
WordPress isn’t just another content management system. It’s a verified game-changer for higher ed institutions. With its intuitive block editor that makes it easy to add and update content, WordPress empowers your team to manage ongoing changes effortlessly and in-house, while building a solid foundation for future enrollment marketing initiatives.
At Vital, we harness our extensive knowledge of WordPress (backed by decades of experience designing websites for universities) to empower your institution to grow and thrive — today and for years to come.
*Source: eQafy 2021
Our comprehensive WordPress services encompass everything you need to build and maintain a successful website for your institution. From eye-catching design that captures your brand’s identity to robust back end development that ensures top-notch functionality, we have you covered. But we don’t just walk away with the keys — we equip your team with tools to monitor and optimize your site’s performance, giving you the power to drive continuous improvement and institutional growth.
Using the world’s most popular CMS, we create visually stunning and user-friendly websites that capture your institution’s unique brand essence.
From custom themes to advanced plugins, our WordPress development services bring your website to life with seamless functionality and performance.
Beautiful user experience (UX) design is more than just the cherry on top of your website — it’s a crucial factor in boosting engagement, increasing time spent with your content, and driving leads.
We help bridge the gaps in your SEO strategy, boosting your website’s visibility and rankings.
We design your site specifically to enhance user engagement and drive targeted traffic to key resources and landing pages that convert.
We specialize in creating organizational structures for your content that are intuitive, easy to navigate, and streamline the discovery and research process.
Outdated branding can undermine your institution’s credibility. Our branding strategists help you update your language and messaging, ensuring that your audience understands your authentic value.
From page copy to blog posts to premium content offers, we provide a full range of writing services and support tailored to your unique voice.
Our custom site structures are built to incorporate multiple subsites and translation features that serve the full spectrum of your audience.
We set up comprehensive analytics and tracking systems to provide actionable insights into your website’s performance, then develop strategies to achieve maximum impact.
From page copy to blog posts to premium content offers, we provide a full range of writing services and support tailored to your unique voice.
Whether it’s integrating with learning management systems, student portals, or alumni databases, we ensure seamless interoperability and enhanced user experiences across all platforms.
Today’s students have more higher ed options than ever before — and they don’t have the time or patience to wade through complex website architecture (nor should they have to).
Learning institutions need websites that make it as easy as possible for applicants to take the next step in their educational journey with utmost confidence. As the most popular CMS on the internet, WordPress offers an easy-to-use, intuitive, cost-effective platform that streamlines the user experience on both the front and back ends.
When multiple contributors and stakeholders are involved in content creation and management, things can get unnecessarily complicated. But with WordPress, universities and other learning institutions can streamline these processes effortlessly.
By establishing robust workflows, WordPress ensures content accuracy, consistency, and adherence to institutional guidelines. Role-based access control allows for precise permissions, so only authorized personnel can publish or edit specific sections of the website. This level of control is essential for maintaining the integrity of academic and administrative content, as well as complying with accessibility and privacy laws.
WordPress Multisite is a game-changer for higher education institutions that need to manage multiple websites from a single dashboard. This feature is invaluable for universities with various departments, faculties, or campuses, each requiring its own site with unique content and branding.
With WordPress Multisite, you can centralize updates, streamline user management, and simplify maintenance processes, reducing the load on your IT staff. It also enables individual sites to share themes and plugins, ensuring a consistent and cohesive user experience across your institution’s entire web presence.
Managing content in WordPress is intuitive and efficient, making it perfect for higher education websites. The back end, powered by a drag-and-drop block editor, offers a user-friendly interface that simplifies creating and organizing content. Site administrators can easily create pages and posts without extensive technical knowledge. This ease-of-use accelerates content updates, while the media library ensures all images, documents, and videos are well-organized and easily accessible.
Once your institution’s WordPress site is up and running, user training and documentation are vital (*wink*) for ongoing management. WordPress’s intuitive interface significantly reduces the learning curve, plus comprehensive training resources are readily available. At Vital, we also provide training sessions tailored to your team’s specific needs, empowering you to effectively manage content, administer sites, and utilize WordPress’s powerful features without calling in backup (but we’re always on call if you need us).
Optimized specifically for WordPress websites, WP Engine hosting ensures your university’s website remains fast, secure, and scalable — critical for handling high traffic during peak times, such as enrollment periods or major events. WP Engine provides automatic backups, daily malware scans, and advanced security features, protecting your institutional data and reducing downtime risk. The managed hosting environment also includes staging sites for testing updates and changes before they go live, minimizing the risk of disruptions. And with 24/7 support, the WP Engine team is always ready to tackle any technical issues promptly.
WordPress’s extensive integration capabilities are a significant advantage for any site, but can be especially critical for higher education websites. The platform supports numerous plugins and third-party services, seamlessly integrating with existing learning management systems (LMS), student information systems (SIS), and customer relationship management (CRM) tools. This connectivity enhances website functionality, enabling features like online course enrollment and student portals.
For instance, integrating with an LMS like Moodle or Blackboard can allow students direct access to course materials and grades from the main university website. Similarly, CRM integrations can streamline managing prospective student inquiries and alumni relations.
As an institution of higher education, you need a CMS that ticks a lot of boxes. Not only does it need to have an accessible back end that your team can update with minimal tech knowledge; it also needs to showcase a front end that any user can navigate, be they a prospective student, parent, donor, or what have you.
Higher ed institutions typically come up against the same set of potential challenges when searching for and vetting a CMS:
What else should you be looking for? We’ve got a few ideas — read this article to learn more.
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. |
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Once all the boxes are checked, there’s nothing to it but to do it. Let’s launch this thing!
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.
With over a decade of experience in WordPress, Vital’s team ensures that your website can adapt 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 both WordPress and 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 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.
Years of Web Design Experience
WordPress Sites Built
Web Design Awards Won
Percent of the Web Powered by WordPress
What’s in the eBook? This 30-page guide is your digital marketing playbook for attracting more qualified applicants, building your academic brand, and bridging the gap between acceptance and enrollment to fill more seats and grow your school’s programs.
Everything you need to know about working with Vital on a higher ed WordPress website design and development project.
That 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.
Nope — our experienced development team is well-versed in the security measures required for the WordPress open-source platform. As with any website, a secure hosting provider, up-to-date plugins, ongoing maintenance, and tight code are your best defense against security breaches.
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).
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.
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).
No we do not. WordPress 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.
Let’s talk about how we can boost your enrollment and add more value to your website!
