School Websites...

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

well, im in charge of building my school's website. i actually ended up taking this project from another black belt because nothing was being done/updated on the site. so now im responsible for it, and lets just say its not going well. i need to start off with a template or an idea for a template. i wont give you guys the link to the site, because thats how awful it looks right now, i couldnt even think about showing it to you guys. anyway does anyone here design there school's site or have any template ideas or thing their school's site has a good design i could look at? anything and i mean anything will help. thanks in advanced!

[ps1]

I think ours is nice.

https://www.ohiobjj.com

Hope it helps.

[DWx]

I don't currently run a website or my school website but I have dabbled in stuff in the past and do bits and pieces of graphical design sometimes.

First and foremost it’s best to decide who is going to visit your site and why they are going to visit your site. I'm guessing in your case it will be students and prospective students. You will need to decide what info they will be looking for and make sure it’s easy to find this info. Usually a links toolbar at the top or side will suffice.

The usual things to include are: class schedule & location(s); information on instructors; a bit about the style(s) you teach; events calendar; latest news; photo/video gallery; contact details; page with useful links to orgs/associations, partner schools etc.

Colour is important. Sadly a fair few people insist on making their website into some sort of rainbow monstrosity which just hurts your eyes. Also people are more likely to think the site is amateur-ish and will be distracted from the info. Try to pick 2 or 3 colours + black & white and do the whole site in this colour scheme. Try to stick to a basic font too. No swirly curly letters, they’re again too hard to read and distract from what the text is saying. Sans serif styles tend to display better too.

Throughout the site it’s a good idea to use a standard template and colour scheme to retain some level of cohesiveness and it just makes the whole lot look more professional.

Personally for me, a picture really is worth a thousand words. If I’m checking out a school I go straight for the pictures and videos. You can tell visitors plenty about your school and style with words but if they can see good technique for themselves then it is so much better. Plain text is just boring so images interspaced in your articles will usually look better.

I don’t know if this is the case for your site but quite often there is a limit on how many images your host will let you store on their server. If this is the case its worth using free external sites such as ImageShack, Photobucket, Picasa etc. to upload your tourney, seminar, grading albums etc. to and then link to them. You can then be selective about what images you choose to upload to your host’s server. Same goes for videos. Use something like YouTube and Googlevideo and then embed them on your site. This also increases traffic to your site too if people find your videos on say YouTube and then visit your site to find out more.

Another thing to ensure is that you have a range of pictures. This means adults/children, high/low grades, gradings, tournaments (if you do them), normal class training. Just having lots of images from one event is boring and doesn’t say much about what you do. New students will want to know that you are a “complete” school.

Oh and personally I hate “Enter” pages. They are a waste of time, especially when you want to find something quick, first you have to wait for it to load, then you have to wait for the main page to load and then finally get round to looking for what you wanted.

Probably talked too much now…

I like our website (apart from the stupid “Enter” page at the beginning): https://www.burbagetkd.com

[ps1]

good advice!

[whitematt]

I used a template approach for my site. A bit of modification here and there, and it didn't turn out too bad.

https://www.pellamartialarts.com

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

I used a template approach for my site. A bit of modification here and there, and it didn't turn out too bad.

https://www.pellamartialarts.com

i like that...what program did you use(dreamweaver, frontpage..?)

[NewEnglands_KyoSa]

I don't currently run a website or my school website but I have dabbled in stuff in the past and do bits and pieces of graphical design sometimes.

First and foremost it’s best to decide who is going to visit your site and why they are going to visit your site. I'm guessing in your case it will be students and prospective students. You will need to decide what info they will be looking for and make sure it’s easy to find this info. Usually a links toolbar at the top or side will suffice.

The usual things to include are: class schedule & location(s); information on instructors; a bit about the style(s) you teach; events calendar; latest news; photo/video gallery; contact details; page with useful links to orgs/associations, partner schools etc.

Colour is important. Sadly a fair few people insist on making their website into some sort of rainbow monstrosity which just hurts your eyes. Also people are more likely to think the site is amateur-ish and will be distracted from the info. Try to pick 2 or 3 colours + black & white and do the whole site in this colour scheme. Try to stick to a basic font too. No swirly curly letters, they’re again too hard to read and distract from what the text is saying. Sans serif styles tend to display better too.

Throughout the site it’s a good idea to use a standard template and colour scheme to retain some level of cohesiveness and it just makes the whole lot look more professional.

Personally for me, a picture really is worth a thousand words. If I’m checking out a school I go straight for the pictures and videos. You can tell visitors plenty about your school and style with words but if they can see good technique for themselves then it is so much better. Plain text is just boring so images interspaced in your articles will usually look better.

I don’t know if this is the case for your site but quite often there is a limit on how many images your host will let you store on their server. If this is the case its worth using free external sites such as ImageShack, Photobucket, Picasa etc. to upload your tourney, seminar, grading albums etc. to and then link to them. You can then be selective about what images you choose to upload to your host’s server. Same goes for videos. Use something like YouTube and Googlevideo and then embed them on your site. This also increases traffic to your site too if people find your videos on say YouTube and then visit your site to find out more.

Another thing to ensure is that you have a range of pictures. This means adults/children, high/low grades, gradings, tournaments (if you do them), normal class training. Just having lots of images from one event is boring and doesn’t say much about what you do. New students will want to know that you are a “complete” school.

Oh and personally I hate “Enter” pages. They are a waste of time, especially when you want to find something quick, first you have to wait for it to load, then you have to wait for the main page to load and then finally get round to looking for what you wanted.

Probably talked too much now…

I like our website (apart from the stupid “Enter” page at the beginning): https://www.burbagetkd.com

i agree and have done most of what you have said already. i definately agree on the enter page, although yours is nice, i hate them. we have enough room on the hosts server for all of our pictures and videos. i just need to get an idea for a template. i like yours. where did you get it from? and what program do you use?

[harleyt26]

I just can't resist an opportunity to shamelessly plug my group. http://www.ocalatesshinkan.com/

Tom Hodges

[marie curie]

Oh those are very nice

Mine I did with just some very basic HTML

http://www.pitt.edu/~sorc/pittkaju/

[whitematt]

i like that...what program did you use(dreamweaver, frontpage..?)

I actually did this on a Mac with a program called iWeb. It's pretty straight-forward, and worked really well. It does have some limitations, but nothing I wasn't able to live with.

Matt White