“We need a new website. How quickly can you get one launched?”

If that question made you flinch or experience an anxiety-laden flashback, you’re not alone. Urgent requests like this often come without planned budget allocation, inducing stress and chaos. It’s something nearly every web team has faced or will tackle in the future.

As someone with 15 years of experience in higher education and marketing strategy, I can offer you some good news: Refreshing your site design and visitor experience doesn’t have to be expensive or time-consuming. With a data-driven content strategy, you can create a new look and a low-stress, long-term design strategy without spreading your team and budget too thin.

A Proven Process for a Customized Plan

The heart of our approach is helping you build a strategic plan to determine whether you need a new website or if a refresh can address your needs and goals. While these key steps can work for every organization, we’ve refined them specifically for higher education and healthcare clients:

• Website audit: Are your pages answering the questions users ask? How many clicks does it take from the homepage or search to find the answers? What devices are they using? What are they seeing on competitor websites?
• Technical evaluation: How healthy is your site behind the scenes? Can its infrastructure handle a front-end design refresh? Are your page templates flexible enough to adapt to strategic requirements?
• Stakeholder input: Beyond the leadership team, who are your key stakeholders? What do your content superusers think of their website tools? Does the IT team have concerns or ideas?
• Governance: Who really owns your website? Which content has the highest priority? Is there a structure in place for making strategic decisions? How do you communicate site needs and opportunities with stakeholders?

Watch Lisa Starkey-Wood’s Webinar

Redesigning Your Site Without Rebuilding It

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All this data-gathering and analysis goes into a final report that details your customized path forward to an affordable website refresh. Another valuable outcome is a phased approach for “quick hits” that show immediate results followed by iterative enhancements over the longer term.

A Closer Look: Before and After Examples

Let’s look at two of our recent website redesign projects to illustrate the effectiveness of our approach. You’ll see ideas that your organization can implement on your own or with a little help from Stamats.

University of Southern Maine

The USM website needed a new look quickly—and it needed to be budget-friendly.

Phase 1: Homepage

• Make top navigation and mega-menu more actionable
• More focus on the needs of prospective students, including program options, campus locations, and fun engagement opportunities
• Scale back use of secondary brand colors to bring back USM’s primary color palette

Phase 2: Program Pages

• Re-energize priority program pages with scannable, relevant, and engaging content
• Use new templates to boost key program features and outcomes for better search rankings
• Infuse a new color palette

The Results: An immediate boost in visitor engagement. Overall, the new homepage and program pages had a 6% increase in average session duration compared to the prior year. Some program pages showed this engagement increased by more than a minute!

Coming Soon: For phase 3, the USM team will update the next batch of program pages, migrate key content pages like admissions and financial aid to the new templates, and continue to rollout the brand color refresh to the remaining web components.

Related Reading: De-clutter Your Digital Junk Drawer: How to Prep Your Content for Redesign

Dominican University

The web team overseeing the Dominican University website knew they needed a new look, but they weren’t sure if they needed a new website.

Phase 1: Put the Data to Work

Use site analytics to guide decisions, especially for streamlining the heavy main navigation and dropdown menus
Align content strategy and template design to answer questions for prospective students at each point on their user journey
Provide clear next steps for prospective students

Phase 2: Flexible Templates

• Create scannable, immersive, and flexible content templates for programs and key content pages
• Deconstruct large text blocks into action-centric content blocks
• Provide clear next steps for prospective students

The Results: A significant uptick for visitor engagement across numerous key metrics:

• 20 second increase in average session duration
• 35% increase in key event rate
• 9% increase in organic click-through rate
• 6% jump in average search position

Coming Soon: Phase 3 for Dominican will include a campus-wide events calendar, a faculty and staff directory, site search enhancements, and content optimizations for SEO.

Related reading: How to Maximize Website Traffic with a Content Audit—and What to Do Next

Redesigning a website without rebuilding it is not only possible but can be highly effective with the right strategy. By following a proven process, gathering stakeholder input, and prioritizing improvements in phases, you can have an immediate impact on your website’s user experience and achieve organizational goals without extensive costs or resources.

So, if they choose to click through to your site to get more information, your landing page had better make that work worth their time!

A landing page is the first page a visitor sees when they arrive on your site. It has two main jobs:

• Answer the visitor’s questions
• Provide action steps to fulfill the next task in their journey

The kicker? It has to do both within 10 seconds—that’s about how long a person takes to decide whether the page suits their needs.

When landing page content is poorly prioritized, not scannable, or badly structured, it creates a negative user experience. That means a high bounce rate, less lead generation, and fewer conversions.

If your landing pages aren’t doing their job, try these three strategies (and a bonus tip!) to create landing pages that convert interest into action.

1. Prioritize Key Messages

The average website visitor spends less than 10 seconds on a landing page before deciding whether to stay or leave. This means you need to make a strong first impression and quickly convey the value of your institution or healthcare facility.

• Validate their click: Affirm that they’ve found the right place to answer their questions (that’s the heart of SEO!) and address their needs.
• Don’t bury the lead! Clearly state your unique selling proposition upfront. What problem do you solve? What sets you apart? What’s in it for the visitor?
• Speak “to” the visitor: Not at them. Use “you” language and focus on the benefits of choosing your institution or facility.

2. Provide Context & Perspective

Landing pages need to provide relevant information based on the visitor’s stage in their decision-making journey. Think of it as a three-step process:

• Discovery: Visitors are exploring their options and seeking general information.
• Research: They are comparing options and looking for specific details.
• Commitment: Visitors are ready to act (e.g., apply, schedule an appointment).

Create dedicated landing pages that address the specific questions and concerns of visitors at each stage. Consider developing a content plan that maps your existing pages to these stages and identifies gaps to fill.

3. Give Them a Next Step

Don’t assume visitors know what to do next. Every landing page should have at least one clear call-to-action (CTA) that guides them towards the desired action.

• Use buttons, not just hyperlinks: Buttons are more visually prominent and easier to click on, especially on mobile devices.
• Be direct: If the CTA is “Apply Now,” take the visitor directly to the application form. Avoid unnecessary intermediate pages.

Listen: Did I Say That Out Loud? Podcast – Why Are CTAs a Big Deal?

4. Say Thank You (and Mean It)

Thank you page content is often overlooked, and it’s a valuable opportunity to reinforce engagement and build trust.

• Offer helpful resources: Provide links to relevant information, such as FAQs, blog posts, or social media channels.
• Prepare them for next steps: If you’ll be contacting them, let them know what to expect and what information they might need to have handy.
• Promote upcoming events or opportunities: Keep them engaged with your institution or facility by highlighting upcoming events, webinars, or newsletters.

By using these strategies, you can create click-worthy landing pages that provide value and guide visitors towards conversion. Remember, your landing pages are often the first impression a prospective student or patient has of your institution or facility. Make it count!

Is the project fairly similar to other projects, such as a website rebuild or writing X amount of pages?

In this situation, not giving a budget has a higher percentage of receiving similar bids for comparison. As long as your scope is clear for what you want, most agencies have standard pricing for websites and content writing type projects.

Industry research: Over the last two years, of all the RFPs Stamats has responded to, not responded to, won, or lost, the average website budget in a signed or sunshined agreement was $312,744. The highest at $953,763 and lowest at $172,000.

When budgeting, some additional costs include:

• Content writing
• Migration
• Software licensing
• Integrations into third parties

Is the project a digital marketing enrollment strategy?

This is where I believe a budget would best serve you so that you can get a comparable answer. Digital marketing offers a wide range of advertising tactics, but each has very different costs.

“Understanding the budget range helps RFP responders put together the best package of ad tactics they believe will achieve your stated goals.”

Here are examples of seemingly similar ad tactics with very different costs:

• Display ad campaigns often have a cost of $3-$5 per thousand ads served (CPM).
• Programmatic campaigns are also display campaigns, but they use one or more purchased lists to target ads. Because of the list cost, programmatic cost is often two to three times higher than regular display campaigns.

Imagine you were buying a house and you asked your realtor to find you the best deal for a 3-bedroom, 2-bath, 2-car garage with at least 2,000 square feet in a specific zip code. Even though this sounds like a lot of details, there are significant differences. For example:

• Peoria, Illinois: $159,900 to $349,000
• San Antonio, Texas: $165,000 to $650,000
• Omaha, Nebraska: $355,000 to $920,000

You can see that the same specs can vary in price by over 400%. Providing a budget would have allowed the realtor to give you better options. It’s similar with digital marketing. You can provide scope, such as the amount of programs and enrollment goals, but if the budget is very limited you might not be able to afford the options.

Where a realtor has an opportunity to talk to you and understand your needs, an RFP response limits the personal side of crafting the best solution. Therefore, more context will create better plans for you to review.

What should you include in a digital campaign RFP?

Your main objective is to find an ideal partner. Since your budget most likely can’t change (although wouldn’t it be neat if the budget was adjusted each quarter based on results?), you need to focus the discussion on tactics and outcomes.

Without a budget in your RFP, a partner will suggest a wide variety of tactics that might not be relevant to your budget. That requires additional rounds of review. If you get dozens (even hundreds) of responses, you might not be negotiating with the top five best partners, but you won’t know that because they each provided different budget strategies.

What if I don’t have an approved budget and I need options for approval?

This is a very common situation. Schools approach us in early stages to ask for typical scopes and ranges. If that isn’t an option, consider asking on a listserv or network of friends for their range. You can also turn to public data. Using ChatGPT, type in “How do I find what a public school paid for their website?” Then refine from there.

What if I still don’t want to give a budget?

Consider asking for a plan with three different budget scenarios. Scenarios in any case can be a good idea to see what strategies would change with more or less budget. It often isn’t just “spend more or less”—the actual tactics should change.

I was once asked in an RFP, “If we provide an extra 1 million dollars to the campaign, what would you do?” I won’t detail my answer because I think it was pretty awesome (you can call me and we can chat about it!), but it definitely was not, “Send more money in the current strategies.”

If you want a true apples-to-apples comparison in digital marketing, I believe it is in your best interest to provide a budget range.

One last suggestion specific to digital RFPs: Consider the overall price of ad spend and management. In the last 20 audits conducted, every single one was improperly allocating ad spend due to poor ad management. When you focus on how little you are spending on management, you most likely will end up overspending or poorly spending in ad spend. A well-run campaign with higher management fees should be able to produce the same amount of conversions with less ad spend and often with an overall lower cost. It takes management fees to make sure the entire process is optimized.

When Stamats recently took over digital campaigns for a private university in New England, we quickly realized that the current campaign set up was bleeding money spending most of their budget on branded search. Most of the budget was going towards people who already knew the university name and were including it in their search query.

By blocking branded search from Performance-Max campaigns and shifting to asset groups focused on specific programs while dedicating search campaigns to exact match branded searches, we were able to increase conversions by 244% while cost per conversion dropped by 58% with no increase to their budget within one month of launching the campaign updates.

We saw similar results when a community college in the Midwest hired us to manage their digital campaigns. We determined the best way to maximize their current limited budget was to align their ad spend and creative strategy with important dates in their admissions cycle, including program-specific application deadlines, open house events, and semester starts. This strategy led to a 135% increase in conversions and a 53% decrease in cost per lead with no increase in their budget within two months of us taking over the campaigns.

Curious about results like these? Contact me to discuss a digital campaign audit.

Doreen Fagerheim, AVP of Digital Media and Web Marketing at Belhaven University, and I recently gave this presentation at the Cascade CMS Users Conference.

Our session introduced an exciting feature that makes inserting repeatable phrases into a site very easy to maintain. Our presentation on Cascade Bricks guided the attendees through the essential steps and best practices for implementing, constructing, refining, scheduling, and publishing content bricks within a Cascade site. We showcased tangible instances of how Belhaven University used bricks to craft a more efficient and strategic content writing and governance approach.

What Is a Cascade Brick?

A Cascade Brick is a block of content that will inherit the design of the component the brick lives in. Think of it like a modern-day mail merge—you build the field for the text, and then you can easily update it sitewide with new content and most importantly, the appropriate style.

Cascade Bricks are perfect for content that lives on multiple pages or block types and may change in the future, such as:

• leader names
• tuition pricing
• phone numbers
• accreditation wording
• quick facts
• number of programs
• links to catalogs and handbooks

How Do I Use Cascade Bricks in My Content Plan?

First, think about content that you reuse over and over. Or more importantly, content you want to but often hold back because you don’t want to deal with editing multiple pages in the future. You no longer have to hold back adding the detail to multiple pages. This is one of the biggest a-ha moments when talking with clients.

​Second, determine if the content should be a brick. Not all content aligns with bricks. Follow our flowchart to determine if your content is a brick.

Ask yourself:

• Is this evergreen content?
• Will the brick still work if it’s at the beginning or middle of a sentence?
• Will the sentence structure need to be adjusted on all pages?
• Will the brick adapt well to all types of blocks?

​Ensure that all writers reference the bricks spreadsheet and use the bricks in writing new content.

How Do I Write with Bricks in Mind?

Once you have determined your plan, create a spreadsheet to track your brick text and the name. In your Word document, make sure your content is written with the bricks. Otherwise, it will be hard for migration to identify what to configure as a brick during the site build.

It’s easier to over-plan on bricks during writing than under-plan.

What If My Site Is Already Live?

If your site has already gone live, start with bricks as you edit content. For example, if you are changing dates for the fall semester, move the fall dates into a brick. Every time you touch shared content, evaluate if it can be moved into a brick and do that as you edit it.

How Do I Set Up Bricks in Cascade?

Stamats worked with Hannon Hill to create a sample site attendees can use to set up their site with bricks in Cascade CMS. After installation, create bricks in the Global Setup section of your CMS and add them to pages by replacing words with the brick name enclosed in brackets.

Who Can Install Cascade Bricks?

Bricks are accessible to all users with a Cascade site, with updates automatically applied nightly. They offer the optimal solution for content management efficiency. We love that Cascade constantly enhances its platform with enhanced features for integration and adaptability with bricks.

If you need assistance getting started with bricks or would like a copy of our content matrix template, please reach out to me. ​

Related Reading: Analytics Storytelling: What Has Your Website Done For You Lately?

Cascade Bricks Toolkit Created by Stamats

Make your website better and save time with Bricks. Download our free toolkit to get started today.

We’ve all seen them—Higher ed websites filled with PDFs. Maybe it’s the flyer promoting the Chess Club’s next meet, the Parents Weekend schedule, or even the new student application instructions—all PDFs, and all with limited or no accessibility.

Unless a PDF is written with accessibility in mind, people who use assistive technology (e.g., screen readers) to access the content or have low-vision or color blindness will have difficulty using the pretty info in those documents.

Fixing inaccessible PDFs can be a simple task or a complex nightmare. Help yourself, and all your users, by doing these few things to your document before you make a PDF. And keep this list handy so you create the habit of authoring more accessible PDFs in the future.

1. Test & Fix Before Conversion

Before you convert to PDF, fix everything you can. It’s always easier in the original program. Microsoft products such as Word, PowerPoint, etc. have robust accessibility checkers built in. After conversion, you may still need to fix the document title and double check the reading order and contrast.

Unfortunately, Google slides and Canva don’t have similar tools. There are a few plugins that will test accessibility in XD: Adee (free while in beta), Colorinspo (limited to color checking), and Stark (limited free options). The other Adobe products don’t seem to have any accessibility testing tools.

Still, you can manually test color contrast, look for anything (layers?) that determines reading order, and, if your original program supports it, have your computer read the document aloud. Get Adobe’s PDF Accessibility Checklist.

2. Add Alt Text in Your Photo Library

As you add photos to your shared library or digital asset management system, add a 126-character text alternative (alt tag) to the photo. Then, every time a designer, editor, or intern drops the image in a document, it will have an alt tag. Content purists (that would be me) might suggest subtle edits for each use, but in the real world, an 80% alt tag is better than none.

3. Add Alt Text to Your Logo on Flyers

Sure, every image needs alt text, but not all images carry the same value. I have seen too many single-page PDFs where the only ID for the institution is the logo, yet the logo has no alt text. That means someone accessing the content with a screen reader will never know the institution’s name. (On the other hand, a 64-page annual report with the logo on every page might be better served by marking the logo as decorative.)

4. Let Your PDF Speak

If you’ve already created the PDF or you’re facing a large inventory of old PDFs that need to be made accessible, this tip is for you: Check the reading order by activating the read aloud function in Acrobat Reader (the free version) and listening to your document. If the reading order is scrambled, you’ll know soon.

Fixing a scrambled PDF requires Acrobat Pro, and some skill or experience tagging a PDF. As a practical matter, if you’re sorting a large backlog of PDFs into queues for staff with different skill levels at making PDFs accessible, this is a great first step. If the doc makes sense, it can go in the easier pile.

Make Accessibility a Habit

You don’t need to delay converting existing PDFs into an accessible form. Create a process that works for you and your team. Keep in mind you are creating documents that give ALL people better information about your institution without the frustration created by inaccessible PDFs.

We’d love to talk with you about accessibility and your institution’s website. Contact us anytime.