The Finalsite Blog

In this episode of "Strategize Like a Boss with Mia Major", Mia is joined by Aaron Schorn to discuss the power of authentic content and involving your students to help tell your school's story.

Creating a storyline is the key to cohesive messaging that shares your story across platforms and markets. Learn top tips from partner agency Sametz Blackstone on how to guide your efforts. 

Philomath School District launched their new website this week, with an improved user experience and accessible design.

Finding the right job titles and office structure of a marketing communications office can be challenging. Learn more about new titles and office arrangements that work for private schools. 

More than 80 websites launched between August and September. Here are just some of our favorites.

Shanghai American School's new best-in-class website is built on the importance of authenticity and community. Read the story behind this international school's epic redesign.

With twenty-five awards in ten months, our design team’s award count is about to turn 100 — and we couldn’t be more excited! See who made the list.

To ensure your website visitors get a website navigation experience that seamlessly gets them from point A to point B, avoid making the following seven mistakes.

A well-thought-out navigation can help you to improve your website's user experience and meet your goals. Give one of these navigation experiences a shot during your next website redesign!

LinkedIn can help schools engage parents, alumni and faculty in a more professional manner than on other social media channels.

Personalization makes it easy to dynamically change how users view and interact with your school’s website through targeted, personalized content that increases engagement, time spent on the website, and conversions through inquiries and donations. 

Facebook allows schools to reach prospective and current students where they are already spending their time, interacting with family, friends, and brands, keeping up with news, sharing content, and more. And recently, Facebook’s updated algorithms have created a place where schools can have meaningful interactions with its followers.

A site’s navigation contains the tools we provide the user to move through the site, finding information and accomplishing tasks. Follow these seven steps to build an easy-to-use navigation on your school website.

Finalsite is launching Messages as the successor to eNotify that features a whole suite of new features and options. To help get you started, we’ve outlined 10 key improvements and additions we’ve made that we know you’ll quickly wonder how you ever got by without them.

These three international schools recently launched some impressive new websites. Be inspired by some of their features in this blog.

Use these 8 strategies to grow your school's Twitter profile now (with new examples!)

Millennials are philanthropic and willing to donate their time and money to organizations they care about but also have more debt, and lower incomes than previous generations. Engaging them on their terms and overcoming common objections to affordability, ease of giving, and worthiness of your cause will reap big rewards. 

In this week's episode of Website Fixer Upper, I share the importance of "thank you" pages in the admissions funnel, and how to create one using Finalsite Composer.

It’s no surprise that Google is stealing the show with millennials. It’s presenting content about you on your behalf, before the viewers even get a chance to click on your site. Here are three things you need to know.

In this blog, we share proven strategies for creating copy that gets read, and is relevant and valuable to millennial moms and dads.

Learn why video matters, the different types of video your school should use, and how to use video to attract and recruit millennials.

With 50% of millennials using social media to research products and brands prior to purchase, and another 30% of millennials engaging with brands at least once a month, social media is where millennials spend a lot of their time. And making the most of that time is critical to your success in attracting and engaging millennial parents.

To successfully engage millennial parents, your school’s online presence and brand has to adapt to the needs of these digital pioneers. Learn tips for building brand loyalty with marketing strategy that connects with millennial parents online. 

We've narrowed down thirteen dos and don'ts for designing a website that offers a unique and engaging user experience for millennial users.

Every school needs a way to collect payments if they run an online store, have an application fee or accept donations. To help you make the right choice, we have outlined eight key questions to ask your prospective payment provider.

While Instagram has undergone some recent changes turning it from a simple, photo-sharing platform into a marketing and advertising powerhouse, the network still operates on the importance of sharing high-quality images (and now videos), to engage followers — a strategy essential for schools.

In this blog, we focus on the three emerging traits of today’s online consumer according to Google, how to understand these traits and ways to identify Finalsite modules that best engage today’s user to help you reach today’s current and prospective families.

Whether you joined the Finalsite family 20 days or 20 years ago, there’s something in the Finalsite Client Portal for every level of admin and every step of your journey. Dive into some of its features in this blog.

The Inter-Community School of Zurich (ICS) has and continues to inspire not only their community, but also other international schools with their forward-thinking, cutting-edge marketing and communications. Be inspired by their website redesign story.

Former NAIS president and president of Heads Up Consulting Pat Bassett joins Tim on Episode 22 of Apply Yourself to discuss how schools can engage with millennial parents and alumni.

Finalsite has partnered with BlueSnap, an online payments technology company, to launch Finalsite Payments, a new all-in-one payment solution for schools.

Imagine how easy it could be, for everyone, if all payments and donations could be made online, through one mobile-friendly, international-friendly, payment platform? Recognizing this as a key issue for our clients around the world, we have released our new online payment platform, Finalsite Payments.

In episode 3 of Website Fixer Upper, I’m tackling an important page that every school website has that gets a ton of website traffic...but is often poorly structured do its rather “boring” nature: A “forms” page! 

A marketing plan is a crucial piece of your school’s overall business plan. It outlines your goals, how you’ll get there, and the budget and resources you need to make it happen. Follow these eight steps to get started.

In this blog, we'll cover how to effectively showcase and communicate your district's brand to current and prospective families.

Recent news articles have focused on the fact that some school and educational websites contain tracking technologies and potentially sell or target their user’s data, including students

From SERPs to CROs, we're defining the most important inbound marketing terms that every school marketer should know before beginning their inbound strategy.

Many schools are missing out on engaging this important—and caring—group to enrich their community, increase donations and improve retention. In this blog, we share actionable ways you can start reaching your school's prospective and current grandparents.

Michelle Starke, PR & Marketing Manager at Leysin American School in Leysin, Switzerland (and a member of #TeamMeredith) joins Max and Meredith on Episode 3 of Finalsite #WorldTour.

Welcome to our new video blog series, Website Fixer Upper! In this new series, we're showcasing how you can take the good bones of any website, and transform pages into incredible digital experiences.

This blog looks at key features and considerations with online publications and new ways to present this tried-and-true communication piece with the Finalsite platform.

This year, as we added more than 70 new districts to the Finalsite family, we’re doing a second round-up of some of our most inspiring and original school district website designs that went through the biggest transformations.

In this blog, we share a ten-step guide for developing and executing your social media plan, complete with this free worksheet to create your own.

Social media is an essential communication tool for schools, but how can you use it strategically during crises? Here are five easy steps to follow to assure you are best equipped to use the media when an unexpected event occurs.