Website Design Agency for STEM Colleges, Universities and Schools

”The web is the great equalizer and new opportunity creator for all” was my response to our very first website client back in 1995. Thirty years later, the web has moved from the margins to heart of modern life. Now, it’s the digital soul of an institution. All roads lead to it.

For us, a prospect-centered website, re-imagined and remade for prospects is powered by these principles:

1. Outsmart, Not Outspend. (Mirror institutional strategy/optimism).

2. Produce Great Content/Creative That Wins. (Play to win).

3. Make The Students the Hero of Your Story. (Be memorable).

4. Prioritize Page 1 Google/AI Search Results (Drive enrollment).

5. Position the Institution as an Investible Idea. (Aim higher). 

Best Practice for Designing Websites for STEM Institutions

A website is now the digital soul of an institution. All roads lead to it. Here are some guidelines worth following:

1. Merchandise hope.
2. Create separate prospect-facing and internal-facing websites, so the prospect-facing website is an enrollment conversion machine and the internal-facing website serves current students, faculty and staff.
3. Don’t be a bore. A college can’t bore people into enrolling, or buying into its brand ideals.
4. Design a fields of study section to inspire/guide prospective students, enhance content relevance, establish thought leadership, and create an alternative entry point for academic programs.
5. Deploy a smart program finder. Half the site visitors think a college doesn’t offer a program when it does.
6. Romance prospects with high-fidelity academic program pages. We call them money pages where brand preference is created. Feature students, alumni, faculty, career paths, employers, reputation-building stats, curriculum-design, skills imparted, program opportunities and related labs and centers of excellence.
7. Spotlight special STEM scholarships. Show how AI is being integrated into the curriculum and pedagogy.
8. Use retail merchandising techniques to promote related academic programs.
9. Secure Google page one rankings and ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini inclusions for the college programs. If a program can’t be found, prospects can’t consider enrolling in it.
10. Create a career pathways section outlining possible career paths.
11. Create “Day in the life of” landing pages.
12. Distill a “Why Us” argument.
13. Streamline admissions process. Avoid frustrating prospective digital native students with arcane process. Develop an accepted student microsite.
14. Invite prospects to visit the campus in person and provide a campus virtual tour as a digital alternative.
15. Make students and alumni the hero of the institutional journey, not the institution. Celebrate successful alumni.
16. Prominently display STEM designation to attract more international students who are entitled to extended practical training opportunities.
17. Express Gen-Z diversity — religious, racial, and gender in your photography.
18. Produce and present a brand anthem video to tell your brand story and why the college matters.
19. Create a STEM lovers resource channel as an extension of the college website. Feature symposiums, summits, graduate addresses, keynote speakers, and STEM topics such as 3D printing, solar eclipses, robotics and scientific breakthroughs. Promote all this via social media.
20. Start a career-guidance and thought-leadership blog that is populated with fresh content that becomes an SEO/AIO magnet.

STEM Institution Website Samples

University of Pittsburgh School of Computing and Information

Homepage

Academic Program Page

Faculty Spotlights Page

If you are seeking a transformative higher education marketing agency or a college website design agency, please see our work and consider partnering with us.