How to Build a Successful Education Website Using WordPress?

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Advancement in internet and web technologies is changing the face of the education system. The internet can be used in various ways to transform the education system; one of them is creating an educational website. Whether you are a web development company looking for tips to deliver stunning educational websites to your clients or have an educational institute and hire a WordPress developer for the same purpose. This article aims to guide on how to build successful educational websites using WordPress.

Types of educational websites

There are different types of education websites. These types can be divided into three simple categories:

• A website for school or college organizations: It provides information about the school, college, teachers, students, and classes and courses offered.
• An online education portal website offers educational materials, tutorials, and live classes to students looking for subject-specific resources.
• Membership-based education website: It allows students to log in, take classes, check their grades, and submit assignments. It enables instructors to create, manage courses, conduct online and offline classes, and monitor their student’s progress.

Some of the essential elements to include in your WordPress educational website are listed below:

• Homepage: You can display the school’s logo, pictures, important notifications, and even information on this front page.
• About us page: Include school’s history, story behind its establishment, branch locations, certificate earned on this page.
• Courses: Add detailed information on the various courses offered.
• Teachers bio and information: Provide information about your staff, teachers, and team members.
• Registration form: For the sign-up process.
• Contact Form: Add an inquiry form to allow potential students or users to get in touch with you.

Apart from this information, you can also add other required elements that you feel are necessary, such as payment method integration, etc.

The Fundamental steps in developing an educational website:

Coming up with an appropriate domain name for your website

The foremost step is to select a domain name for your educational website. A domain name represents your institute online and gives it an identity. Usually, searching for the domain name takes most of the time. But in this case, you can use the name of the school, college, and institute as a domain name.

Register domain and purchase a hosting plan

You will require a place to host your website content to display it on the internet. Therefore, it is essential to choose a reliable web hosting service provider that can provide the needed storage and bandwidth at a reasonable price. If you are confused about choosing a web hosting company for your website, you can consult your offshore app development company.They are likely to have expertise in this matter.

Install WordPress

WordPress offers an excellent platform for creating any educational website—also, it is a unique content management system. Therefore, almost every web hosting company allows you to install WordPress in just a few clicks. However, if you are a newbie in this arena, it is advisable to hire a WordPress developer for your website to avoid any possible mistakes.

Install a stunning WordPress theme

A WordPress theme allows you to change the appearance, layout, and design of your website. Hence, it becomes essential to choose a beautiful WordPress theme that suits your purpose perfectly. Here are a few things that you can consider:

Design: Choose a theme with a layout and features that give your educational website a clean and professional look.

Designer: Poorly coded themes may have technical errors and can result in poor performance and low search engine ranking for your educational website. Therefore, it is advisable to use a theme from an experienced designer with good reviews.

Responsive: Select a theme compatible with each device not to miss an audience on any platform.

SEO-Ready: You should consider an SEO-optimized theme to rank higher in the search engines.

Developer’s support: If you are going for a premium theme, you will likely get support from theme developers.

Steps to Install WordPress theme

• Go to ‘Appearance’ in your WordPress dashboard and then choose ‘Themes’.
• Hit the ‘Add New’ button on the top.
• There are two ways to upload themes —- 1) Directly from the WordPress repository (applicable to free themes) and 2) Upload Method.
• Directly from the WordPress repository —– When you hit the ‘Add New’ button, it will show the free themes on the repository. Choose a theme that matches your niche and install it. Lastly, click activate to make the installed theme the default one for your educational website.
• Upload Method —– First step is to download the chosen theme on your system. After clicking ‘Add New’, select ‘Upload theme’ and upload the desired theme and click install. Lastly, click “Activate’ to make it the default theme.

Install WordPress plugins for educational website

Plugins will enhance and expand the functionality of your educational website. Here is the list of a few plugins that you can consider for your educational website that will help you – creating and managing courses, student enrollment, evaluating assignments, receiving payment, and delivering classes.

• Tutor LMS
• LearnDash
• LifterLMS
• techPress
• CoursePress
• Sensei
• WPCourseware

It is wise to choose plugins that fulfill your requirements. Apart from these, you can also use a plugin for SEO, backup, and website security.

Include content on your educational website

Lastly, add relevant content to your educational website such as – information about the school, classes, and courses, News and Events, Parent testimonials, Blog/Newsletter, etc.

We have tried to equip you with all the necessary tools to build a fully functional WordPress educational website. If you are looking for an offshore WordPress development team with expertise and experience building cost-effective websites, please reach out to us.