How to Choose the Right School Website Provider: 10 Questions to Ask

Choosing a school website provider for a new school website is a decision your school will live with for years. The company you pick will design your website, host it, keep it secure, train your staff and answer the phone when something goes wrong in the middle of a busy term. Get it right and your website quietly works for you every day. Get it wrong and you inherit a site your staff avoid, a support line nobody answers and a renewal bill full of surprises.

Your website is also the first place most prospective parents meet your school. It carries your branding and values, it is central to communication with parents and your wider community, and it shows the education you offer long before a family visits. That makes the choice of provider worth some care.

This guide is written for head teachers, business managers, office staff and trust leaders who are comparing school website providers and the services they offer. It covers the questions worth asking every provider, the red flags to look out for, and what multi academy trusts need to think about. Use it whichever company you choose.

What does a school website provider actually do?

A good school website provider does far more than build a homepage. Expect them to handle the whole job, from the first conversation to the years after you go live:

• Create a design that reflects your school’s branding, values and community
• Showcase school life through photography, news, events and social media feeds
• Build it on a content management system (CMS) your staff can use without technical help
• Move your existing content across from your current site
• Provide secure hosting, backups and ongoing security updates
• Help you publish the information schools are required to show online
• Train the school staff who will keep the website up to date
• Support you by phone and email, with advice and guidance for as long as you are a customer

Some providers only do the design and leave the rest to you. Others sell a platform and the tools to build a site, then expect your team to build it yourself. Knowing which kind of company you are talking to, and exactly which services are in the package, is the first step.

10 questions to ask any school website provider

These questions will quickly separate a specialist from a generalist web design company. Ask every provider on your shortlist the same ones, discuss the answers with the team who will use the website, and compare them side by side.

1. Have you worked with schools like ours?

A nursery school, a primary school, a secondary school, a special school and a multi academy trust all need something different from a website. A primary school website is read mostly by parents on their phones. A secondary school has to speak to Year 6 families, current parents, students and future staff all at once. Ask for examples from schools of a similar type and size to yours, and ask what the provider would do differently for you. A specialist in the education sector will have an answer straight away. A company whose customers are mostly businesses may not. You can see how this works in practice on our page about school website design for every type of school.

2. Can we see live examples of your work?

Mockups and portfolio images are useful, but a live website tells you far more. Ask for links to school websites the provider has built and spend ten minutes on each one, ideally on your phone. Are the menus clear? Can you find the term dates, the latest letters and the contact details quickly? Do the pages load fast? A strong service portfolio should be easy for any provider to share. You can browse examples of our work here.

3. Is the design bespoke or built from a template?

Neither is wrong, but you should know which you are buying. A ready-designed template can be a cost effective choice for a smaller primary school. Bespoke web design starts from your logo, colours, branding and photography and is built around your school’s ethos and values, which matters more for secondary schools, sixth forms and trusts trying to stand out to prospective parents. Ask how the design process works, how many rounds of changes are included and whether you will see your design before anything is built. A professional provider will welcome your ideas and develop them with you.

4. Who built the content management system, and how easy is it for staff?

The content management system is the part of your website your staff will use every week, so it matters as much as the design. Some providers build their own CMS for schools. Others use WordPress or another general platform with school features added on top. Ask for a demonstration and, if you can, have the person who will actually update the website try it. How many clicks does it take to add a news story, upload a letter or change a calendar date? A user friendly CMS saves hours over the life of your website, reduces staff workload and makes it easier to keep communication with parents current. Ask what tools come with it, such as calendars, newsletters, forms and curriculum pages.

5. How will you help us stay compliant?

Schools in England are required to publish specific information on their websites, and the requirements change. Ask every provider how they help you meet them. Do they check your site before it goes live? Do they tell you when the rules change? Does the CMS remind you when a policy is due for review? A provider that only says “the website will be compliant” without explaining how is one to question further. Our guide to AI and compliance for school websites explains what to look for.

6. What happens to the content on our current website?

Rebuilding a school website from scratch is a huge job for a busy office. Ask whether the provider will transfer your existing pages, documents, news and images to the new website, and whether there is an extra cost for it. Ask too whether they will flag content that is out of date as they go, so you launch with a tidy site rather than a copy of the old one.

7. What training and support is included, and who answers the phone?

Ask how your team will be trained, whether training is limited to a set number of people or sessions, and what happens when a new member of staff joins next year. Then ask about support. Is it unlimited support, or capped? Is it by phone as well as email? Will you speak to a real person who understands schools, or join a ticket queue? Ask other schools who use the provider how quickly their questions are answered. Their answers are worth more than any brochure.

8. What is included in the package, and are there any hidden costs?

School website pricing varies widely, so compare like with like. Ask each provider for a clear list of what is included in the package and what costs extra, and compare school website services like for like. Things that are sometimes charged separately include:

• Setup or design fees
• Hosting, backups and SSL security
• Domain name renewals
• Content transfer from your old site
• Staff training after launch
• New features and software updates
• Optional extras such as a school app, extra pages or a trust website

A lower headline price can cost more over the years if the essentials are optional extras. Ask what the total cost will be over the length of the contract, not just the first year.

9. Is the website accessible and mobile friendly?

Most parents will visit your school website on a phone. Ask how the design works on mobile devices, tablets and desktop screens, and whether it is fully responsive. A user friendly, mobile first design benefits parents, pupils and your whole community. Ask about accessibility as well: a school website should work for families with visual impairments, families who use screen readers and families for whom English is an additional language. A good provider will talk about accessibility standards without being prompted.

10. Can we move to you while we are still in contract with another provider?

Many schools delay a new website because their current contract has months left to run. Ask whether the provider can start designing your new website now and begin charging when your existing agreement ends, so you never pay two companies at once. At Schudio we call this The Confident Move.

Red flags when comparing school website providers

As you work through your shortlist, be cautious if a school website provider:

• Cannot show you live school websites they have built recently
• Will not give you a clear list of what the price includes
• Charges for every new feature or software update
• Limits support to email only, or to a set number of hours
• Has no clear answer on how they help with your school’s requirements and compliance
• Expects your staff to build the new website themselves
• Works mostly with businesses and has little experience in the education sector
• Cannot put you in touch with real people at schools they work with

Choosing a website provider for multi academy trusts

Multi academy trusts have extra questions to ask. A trust needs a strong central trust website and a family of school websites that each keep their own identity. Central teams need to see compliance across every school without doing every school’s job for them.

Ask whether the provider can design both the trust website and the individual school websites, whether schools can share content and branding while keeping their own character, and whether the trust gets a central view of compliance. At Schudio, our MAT Portal gives trust leaders that oversight across all their schools. Read more about multi academy trust website design.

A quick checklist for your shortlist

Our top tips come down to one thing: get clear answers in writing before you sign, whether you need a brand new website or a redesign of your current one. Check that you can answer yes to each of these:

• We have seen live websites the provider has built for schools like ours
• We know whether our design is bespoke or a template, and we have seen the design process
• Our staff have tried the CMS and found it easy
• Content transfer is included
• Training and support are included, and we know who will answer the phone
• We know exactly what the price includes and there are no hidden costs
• The provider has explained how they help us stay compliant
• Hosting, security, backups and updates are included

How Schudio answers these questions

We have worked only with schools since 2011, designing and supporting school websites for primary schools, secondary schools, sixth forms, special schools and multi academy trusts across the UK. We built our content management system ourselves, for school staff rather than web developers. Content transfer, a compliance audit before launch, unlimited training, unlimited support from a team who know schools, secure hosting and new features through the year are all included in the package. Primary school website packages start from £475 a year plus VAT with no setup fee, and we quote secondary schools, sixth forms and trusts for their own needs.

If you would like to see how our school website design services could work for your parents, staff and community, start with our school website design page, or go straight to the page for your type of school:

• Primary school website design
• Secondary school website design
• Sixth form college website design
• Special school website design
• Multi academy trust website design

Ready to compare school website providers?

Ask us the ten questions above. Call us on 0333 577 0753 or book a chat with our team, and you will speak to someone from our team who knows school websites and the education sector, not a salesperson reading a script.