10 Tips and Tricks for Writing College Website Text

Bio

            Kaylie Astin is a professional marketer who loves to tell stories. As a freelance writer, Kaylie published her work in local and national magazines and currently works as a copywriter for Davis Applied Technology College. She is a student in the Master of Professional Communication program at Weber State University.

Introduction

            As a copywriter, I’m used to criticism, but when my boss told me she felt the college lacked a strong, consistent voice, it stung. I’d been working in Davis Applied Technology College’s marketing department for about a year, and I thought I was doing well.

            Not only was I wounded, but also confused. I went back to writing annual reports, social media posts and ad copy, but I wondered what was missing. Then my light bulb moment happened.

            What if our website was the reason people weren’t calling, taking tours, and enrolling? What was the point of buying Facebook ads that sent people to a website that was difficult to navigate, wordy and inconsistent? If people couldn’t find the information they needed, they wouldn’t slog through walls of texts to find hidden nuggets of clarity. They would just leave.

            In our college’s case, the site was a mess, and everyone knew it, but it was a project that kept getting shelved. The site was built using content from multiple authors, each of whom had different opinions about what content to include. Some information was current and some information was outdated. Some pages had a different voice than others. No one had ever systematically reviewed all the content to ensure accuracy, consistency and user-friendliness.

            Whether your college’s site is also a mess or it’s just time for an update, you have your work cut out for you. The good news is you get to decide how the final product will read. That’s also the bad news.

            I don’t have to tell you that most colleges have a lot of information on their websites. Sorting through your content will take a long time, as will rewriting it. But the end product will be worth it! Remember that, because you’ll need some extra motivation to get through the long haul. Let’s get started.

1. Get inspired

            Avoid writer’s block before it starts. You don’t need to come up with something brilliant right away. By visiting other colleges’ websites, you can get ideas.
            Here are a few sources to consider:

·      Similar colleges

·      Local colleges

·      Niche colleges

·      National and international colleges

            It’s a good idea to cull from as many sources as possible. Local colleges are useful to associate and differentiate yourself from the competition. Similar colleges can demonstrate how to appeal to a similar market. Niche colleges can tell you how to achieve a look for a very specific audience. National and international colleges might have already capitalized on trends that haven’t reached your neck of the woods yet. As an added bonus, using a variety of sources will keep your site from turning into a copycat of someone else’s.

            Kaylie’s list of inspiration

            Local example: Salt Lake Community College has blatant calls to action and a clean home page.

            Similar college example: Ogden-Weber Technology College has a parents’ section, which my site lacked.

            Niche college example: Neumont University’s use of icons and short sentences has strong appeal for the geek crowd.

            International example: The University of British Columbia makes good use of short headlines, one-sentence subheads and links. Information is accessible but not overwhelming.

2. Organize yourself

            Even if you’re only revising part of your site, organization matters. You’re planning on including some internal links, right? (If not, you should be.) It’s difficult to decide what to link to if you don’t know how it all fits together. You can’t write effectively until you’ve got a big-picture plan.

            Believe me, I tried. It was a mess. I would start one section, but then I’d have to stop to ask myself, “Now, where was I going to put this again? Wait a second, I can’t write this until I write that. Why is this section here in the first place?”

            Although organizing your site makes things simpler for you, the true beneficiary is your audience. Whether you’re the webmaster or not, you have to think about usability. Consider how each of your audiences will find information (more about that later). If your content is buried in an area of your site where users wouldn’t instinctively think to look, it doesn’t matter how clever or persuasive it is.

            Organization Techniques 

            You can organize sections of your website in several ways.

·      Mind map

·      Index Cards

·      Lists

            Mind map

            If you have a visual streak, you might prefer a mind map with different sections branching out from a central location. Put your college’s name in the center. Write each main section you plan to include on a separate branch, and then branch into subtopics from there. If you prefer a linear look, you can do the same thing with brackets and lines (think family tree or March Madness), moving from left to right.

            Index Cards

            For every page you plan to include in the site, write the page heading on an index card. Once you’ve got all your pages, start organizing them, putting related topics together. When you’re done, compare your groupings to what’s currently on your site. Maybe yours is similar to the site, maybe yours is better or maybe you’ll find some pages on your site that are unnecessary or missing.

            Lists

            Since you’re a writer, creating a Word document might be just the trick to boost your creativity. Or it might come in handy later in the process if you combine organization methods. Word, of course, offers the benefit of cutting and pasting so that it’s easy to move things around if you’re not sure where to put them.

            No matter which technique(s) you use to organize the sections of your website, leave plenty of room for revision!

3. Think about your audience

            When you identify your audience, think about all the people who will use your site and what they’ll use it for. Ask yourself, “If I were a viewer, what would I be looking for? How would I find it?”

            Most colleges will have multiple answers.

            Students

            Your primary target is your students, but let’s dig deeper. What kind of students? Current students? Future students? High school students? Adult students? Diverse students? High or low income students? Returning students? High-performing students?

            Some websites define their content this way–their main tabs are named “Current students” or “Future students” and they have subpages or links that lead to information for more specific populations. Only you can know if that will work for you. Whether or not you use those labels on the front page, make sure the people you’re targeting can get to your information easily.

            Employees

            If your college is anything like mine, a substantial portion of your traffic comes from employees. Employees use their college websites to track paycheck and tax information, get event information, look for internal job postings, find job-related information, and more. Think about the needs of administration, faculty, and staff as you organize your website so you can guide them to the information they need.

            Parents

            Although students usually make the final decision about which college to attend, they get plenty of input from parents, who are likely paying all or part of the bill. Put yourself in your students’ parents’ shoes. What information will parents crave as they send their babies away? If I were sending a child to college, I’d want information about the following:

•         Social environment
•        Learning environment
•        Cost
•        Job prospects
•        Quality
•        Specific situations

            Here are a few questions a parent might ask.

            Social environment. Will my child be safe? Will he or she have friends? Will there be people there with similar interests? Is it a party school? What kind of peer pressure will my child be exposed to? Will my child be respected if he/she is different from other people?

            Learning environment. Is it a high-stress school? What are the expectations? What kind of opportunities will my child have to develop his/her interests? What does a degree from this institution mean? Can my child handle the demands of the program?

            Cost. Have I saved enough for my child’s education? If not, what financial aid programs are available? What about scholarships? Will my child have a mountain of debt at graduation?

            Job prospects. Is my investment worthwhile? Does this program lead to a job? What will you do to help my child find employment? How quickly do students typically find employment?

            Quality of education. What will my child learn, day-to-day? How are courses taught? What kind of expertise does faculty have? Will an education from this institution prepare my child for life in the real world? Will it make him/her a better citizen?

            Specific situations. If my child is different somehow, my questions about how your school will handle those issues will be specific. Emotionally challenged, physically challenged, low-income, racially diverse, LGBTQ+, international and other unique students all have something in common: their parents want answers from you. For example, special accommodations may or may not be required in different situations. How will you handle that?

            If I’m a parent of a special-needs or special-circumstances kid, I’m probably used to advocating for my child; however, if I see you haven’t made any effort (beyond legal requirements) to acknowledge that students like my child exist, that could be a deal breaker. If you can’t answer every question on your parents’ page, use links to make it easier for parents to find the information they need.

            Donors

            Donor information should be obvious. I don’t recommend a flashing neon sign, but make your link to donor information as clear as possible without being tacky. Make the URL easy to remember so your fundraising staff can easily rattle it off when they’re soliciting donations.

            General

            Your audience will have specific needs, and you’ll be on the right track as you put yourself in your viewers’ shoes. But you might not think of everything–especially not the little things. Market research can help you find out what your customers want. You can create simple surveys online for free (Google Forms, Qualtrics, and Survey Monkey are good resources), or pay someone else to do the research for you. The best way to find out what your customers expect from your site is to ask them. Is your site difficult or easy to navigate? Do they love your videos or do they distract from your message? What information is most helpful?

4. Gather information

            As you fill in the content gaps on your site, you may need to collect more information. You may not have enough information, you may have outdated information, you may want to add new material or you may not know which text you’re allowed to cut.

            Some sections of your site will have strict legal or agency requirements governing what they are and aren’t allowed to stay. It may seem redundant or irrelevant to you, but rules are rules!

            Besides legal requirements, you must also consider department, marketing and data needs. Getting information from faculty, employees and administrators is the biggest headache of the website revision process, unless everyone at your college immediately answers emails and returns phone calls.

            I’ve been most successful when I (a) ask for someone’s input in person and (b) revise first, then submit a draft to that person for approval.

            Keep in mind that if a block of text looks like legalese, it’s probably there for a reason. Also remember that you may be able to provide a link to that information rather than copying and pasting it to the page (as long as you check if that’s allowed first).

5. Be consistent

            If your website has multiple authors (or sometimes even with a single author), you’ll likely find inconsistencies in tone. Here are two first-sentence examples from Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College’s website:
            Example 1: JATC Sheet Metal Apprentice

As a JATC Sheet Metal Apprentice, you will be working for an employer affiliated with Sheet Metal Local #312. 

            Example 2: Web Development

Web Development is part of the Media Design program offered through the Ogden-Weber Tech College for adult students seeking new skills and career options, including those interested in upgrading their current skills.

            These program descriptions are from the same website. But notice the difference in tone. The first example addresses the student directly, telling him/her exactly what they will be doing in the program. The second example describes how the program fits into the college and who it’s for, and doesn’t address the prospective student at all, referring to students in third person.

            Both sentences are grammatically correct. But in order to give the college a unified voice, they should sound similar. If I were to rewrite the second sentence to match the tone of the first, I would write this:

If you’re looking for a new career or skills upgrade, a web development certificate will give you an edge in the media design world.

            Likewise, as you revise your website, match your tone from one page or section to another. If one page is conversational and written directly to the student, do the same on the other pages.

6. Consider design

            As a writer, I don’t always think like a designer, but I’ve found it much easier to do so since I studied media design. If you can, take design classes and learn to use design software—it sounds counter-intuitive, but it will make you a better writer. You will understand how text and images fit together in a document, and your writing will become more design-friendly.

            Even if you don’t design, you need to think about how your words look on the page. At my workplace, I write the text before the designer looks at the project. The more I work with other members of the creative team, the better I’ve become at writing for their needs. This saves a lot of time! When you know your team’s style, you don’t have to write as many drafts.

            It can help to get specifics for your website from your designer, though this might not happen until later drafts. Will there be captions? What fonts will the designer use? Will the text flow from left to right? Where will your text have to fit? Will you need pull quotes?
            In some cases, especially if your website redesign will be outsourced, you may not know the designer’s or developer’s style, and that style may clash with yours. Sometimes, as I write, I get ideas about how my words will look on the page, or I fall in love with my own words. If that’s you, prepare to let your ideas and your words go. Accept that you’ll likely “kill your darlings,” as the saying goes, because in the world of design, however many words you’ve written is always too many.

            You can count on the designer needing lots of space. So break up your text in sections as much as possible. One of the easiest ways to do this is to create lists.

7. Create lists

            Bulleted and numbered lists are your friends. But how do you convert your paragraphs to lists? Become a comma hunter. If you find three commas in a row, chances are you’ve found a good sentence to convert to a list.

            Lists can perform many useful functions on your site (see what I did there?):

•       create white space
•       create variety in your layout
•       make your designer’s job easier
•       make your text reader-friendly
•       help your SEO
•       shorten your writing
•       keep related items together

           

            Whenever possible, convert lists to bullets or numbered lists. This is especially true if you need to break up long blocks of text or you have a lot of factual information.

            When you’re writing a college website, potential lists are easy to find. Here are some places to look:

•       Program or course descriptions
•       Persuavive copy (check out SLCC’s Top 10.5 Reasons to Step into SLCC)
•       FAQs
•       Admission requirements
•       Steps to enroll

            Lists aren’t the only great way to break up your content and create white space. Here’s another tip to make web designers love you.

8. Create headers

            Why write headers? Here are a few reasons:

            They’re SEO-friendly

            Your designer or developer uses HTML tags to set headers apart from the rest of the text. When Google (or another search engine) finds those <h> tags, it knows the tags are different from the rest of the text. Headers are even more effective when you include keywords (ask your developer to hand some over) and search phrases.

            They’re easy to read

            If you’ve ever looked online for information you desperately need, only to discover pages-long blocks of text, you understand how unwieldy too many words can be when you’re in a rush. Assume all your readers are in a rush. They want to find what they need, and fast. Headers break up the text and tell your viewers what the next paragraph will be about. If the text isn’t what your readers need, they can move to the next paragraph.

            They’re design-friendly

            Remember what I said earlier about white space? Headers are like toys for designers–more big letters for them to make pretty! If the sections of your text are clearly marked by headers, it’s easier for designers to spread those sections across a page or several pages. Tiny sections make for more white space so your text and images don’t fight for real estate. Then there’s more room on your page for the most important stuff—the words that will close the deal.

9. Calls to action

            Don’t leave your viewers in any doubt about what you want them to do. Give them an action and make it obvious. This is not the time to be subtle. If your future students have to guess, you won’t get the result you want.

            Salt Lake Community College’s site puts their calls to action in big, obvious places. Not only that, but they include a Spanish version of those calls to action so no one is left out of the fun. Some of the calls to action are static on the page so that no matter where you scroll on the site, those calls to action follow you.

            Think carefully about what you want your viewers to do. If your goal is to recruit new students, what would be most effective? Talk to your marketing and recruiting teams to find out which steps of the recruiting process are statistically most likely to lead to enrollment, and ask your viewers to do just that. Do you want to them to schedule a tour? Talk to someone in recruiting? Fill out an application form?

            The same goes for your other audiences, such as current students, donors and employees. Sometimes they might just be looking for information; however, if there’s an action that would help them and your college succeed, consider a call to action for them, too.

10. Simplify. Simplify again.

            When you’re writing for a website, follow this rule: shorter is better. That’s easier said than done, so here are a few tips.

1.     Eliminate adjectives. Here are some adjectives colleges love: big, little, many, successful, expert, famous, well-known, professional, academic.

2.     Eliminate adverbs. Here are a few of my own overused adverbs: really, very, usually, probably.

3.     Eliminate jargon. Colleges have their own education-speak. Add business-speak (leverage, utilize, develop, deliverables), and you’ve got plenty of verbal candidates for elimination.

4.     Eliminate passive voice and tentative words. Here are a few examples:

• your transcript will be evaluated

• students will be admitted

• instructors have attempted to accommodate students

            • our students might possibly succeed if they try enough

5.     Eliminate redundancy.

            Being concise will also help you be more precise. When I’m writing my rough drafts, I deliberately write too much because I know I’ll cut words later. When you’re revising, it’s easier to cut words and keep the sense of the sentence than to add words to fill up space. Trimming words reveals your intended meaning without any added fluff. That’s what your readers are looking for, after all.
Interview – Blog Editing

            Many colleges include blogs on their websites. However, blog writing and website writing aren’t the same. Many of the earlier tips don’t apply to blogs, even though you’re still writing for the web. Rather than laying out information, blogs are about sharing stories.

            In her work for the Utah Women and Education Initiative, Danielle Christensen edited work from several different authors to prepare it for web publication as blog posts. The articles were completely different in style and content, so Danielle had plenty of work to do.

            Let go of perfectionism

            Unlike the rest of your site, where you’re establishing a consistent voice, blogs can have multiple authors with many stories to tell. Don’t edit blogs so much that you lose the author’s voice.

            At first, Danielle tried to make her blog contributions perfect. It wasn’t long before that kind of detail bogged her down. She had to take a step back. “I came to see that I could go too far,” she says.

            Make suggestions

            When she received a blog post, Danielle’s first step was to read through the document, checking for flow and readability. As she read, she made comments. She made some edits directly while offering suggestions for revisions in other places. Then she sent it back to the original author, who might confirm the changes, do their own revisions, or let Danielle know if she misunderstood.

            Focus on the story

            When you’re writing for a college website, the story isn’t about your college or the great things it’s doing—it’s about the people who study and work there and how they interact with the college.

            Danielle agrees. Editing is necessary (even when authors disagree with her changes), but only to clarify the message. “Most people were very willing [to accept my edits],” she says. “I recruited blog posts from a lot of people who weren't professional writers… I was after their stories. And they were really glad that editing would be part of the process.”

Conclusion

            Rewriting a website is a huge undertaking! But if you’re committed to writing clear and concise text, your words will make your website more effective. It may take several steps to get there. Take inspiration from others, organize your thoughts, consider your audience and gather your information before you start. Once you begin writing, make your words web-friendly by breaking up your text with headers and lists. These steps will cut out unnecessary words so your meaning shines through.

            When you write and revise well, you’ll turn your site into the marketing powerhouse it was intended to be. As the central resource for information and recruiting, your site will earn your viewers’ trust. Your marketing team expects that the people they refer to your site will get accurate, up-to-date, and user-friendly information. Now that you’re rewriting your site, they will!

            A well-organized site with clear information and strong calls to action is your college’s best marketing tool. Rewriting your site will make all the difference. Then your website will drive people to your college, not away from it! Viewers want relevant information, and they want it now. It’s up to you to deliver it to them.