Website development for
universities & schools.
Enrollment portals, course catalogs, student dashboards, and high-performance marketing sites — built accessible, built fast, and built so your team can manage them without filing an IT ticket.
Where the right website moves enrollment.
Four scenarios where we consistently see measurable impact on enrollment, staff efficiency, and student satisfaction.
University Main Site Redesign
Before
Legacy CMS from 2015. 4-second page load on mobile. Brand inconsistency across 40 department sub-sites. IT owns every content update. Prospective students can't find program information and leave.
After
Modern headless architecture with a component library every department can use. Sub-1-second loads. Unified brand across the institution. Content editors manage their own pages without IT tickets.
50% more program inquiries
Course Catalog & Registration Portal
Before
PDF course catalog updated once per semester. Students email advisors to check seat availability. Registration requires 3 different logins. Courses fill before students realize they're available.
After
A searchable, filterable web course catalog with real-time seat availability, prerequisite checking, schedule builder, and direct add-to-cart registration — all in one authenticated session.
Real-time availability, zero PDF
Student & Parent Dashboard
Before
Students and parents navigate 5 separate portals for grades, financial aid, schedules, billing, and communications. Password resets generate 40% of IT helpdesk tickets. Parents can't see what they need.
After
A unified authenticated portal with role-based views — students see their full academic picture, authorized parents see billing and degree progress — all in one login with SSO.
40% fewer IT helpdesk tickets
Training Company Marketing Site
Before
Template WordPress site from 2019. No SEO optimization. Booking happens via phone call. The site doesn't reflect the quality of the programs being sold.
After
Custom high-conversion marketing site with program detail pages optimized for search, an online booking/inquiry form integrated with CRM, and a visual identity that positions the company as a premium provider.
3x organic traffic growth
Built for the teams who own the student experience.
University marketing and communications departments
Your site is the first impression for prospective students and their families. A slow, hard-to-navigate site costs you enrollment. You need a modern site that your team can manage without IT.
Registrar and enrollment offices
PDF catalogs and phone-based registration are friction for students and workload for staff. A modern enrollment portal reduces contacts, improves data accuracy, and gives students self-service control.
Training companies and continuing education providers
Your curriculum is strong but your digital presence doesn't reflect it. A conversion-optimized marketing site with online booking turns your web traffic into program inquiries.
K-12 districts and online education providers
Parents and students expect a modern digital experience. A unified portal reduces helpdesk load, keeps families informed, and positions your district as a forward-thinking institution.
From audit to accessible, fast site.
Discovery & Architecture
We audit your current site's performance, content structure, SIS integrations, and accessibility gaps. We define the CMS, hosting, and component architecture before design starts.
Design & Accessibility Review
We design with WCAG 2.1 AA compliance baked in — color contrast, focus states, keyboard navigation patterns, and ARIA semantics defined at the component level before development begins.
Build & Integrate
We develop the site, integrate with your SIS and SSO provider, implement the CMS content model, migrate existing content, and run performance and accessibility QA in parallel.
Launch & Ongoing Support
We hand off with full documentation, staff training on the CMS, and a 30-day launch support window. Ongoing retainer options available for content updates, security patches, and performance monitoring.
Questions about education website development.
How do you ensure WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance for education websites?
Accessibility is built into our development process, not bolted on at the end. We use semantic HTML throughout, meet minimum 4.5:1 color contrast ratios for all body text, implement proper ARIA labels and landmark regions, ensure full keyboard navigation on all interactive elements, and test with screen readers (NVDA, VoiceOver) during QA. We run automated scans with axe-core and deliver an accessibility audit report at launch. For institutions under OCR settlement agreements, we can document compliance against specific remediation requirements.
What CMS options do you recommend for universities?
It depends on your team's technical capacity and content volume. For marketing and program pages managed by non-technical staff, we typically recommend Craft CMS or WordPress with a custom theme — both give content editors full control without developer involvement. For large institutions with complex governance (multiple colleges, departments, distributed editors), a headless CMS like Contentful or Sanity paired with a static site generator gives you performance and security without compromising editorial flexibility. We don't push any single platform — we recommend what fits your team's reality.
Can you integrate the website with our Student Information System?
Yes. We build read-only and authenticated integrations with major SIS platforms — Ellucian Banner, Ellucian Colleague, PowerSchool, and others — to power dynamic content like real-time course availability, program prerequisites, registration status, and student-facing dashboards. Authenticated portal features (grades, schedule, financial aid) are built with secure session management and role-based access controls. Public-facing content like course catalogs is typically served from a cached data layer to ensure fast load times regardless of SIS performance.
How do you handle ADA compliance for existing education websites?
We start with a full accessibility audit using a combination of automated scanning and manual testing with assistive technologies. The audit produces a prioritized remediation list categorized by severity and legal risk. We then fix issues in priority order — focusing first on navigation, forms, interactive elements, and PDFs (which are often the largest compliance gap for institutions). For ongoing compliance, we set up automated monitoring so new content doesn't introduce regressions after the remediation project closes.
What performance standards should an education website target?
Education websites should target a Google Lighthouse performance score of 90+ on mobile, Core Web Vitals in the 'Good' range (LCP under 2.5s, FID/INP under 100ms, CLS under 0.1), and sub-2-second Time to Interactive on a mid-range Android device on a 4G connection. These benchmarks directly impact search visibility — Google uses Core Web Vitals as a ranking signal — and are especially important for enrollment marketing pages where a 1-second delay reduces conversions by 7%. We measure against these benchmarks before every launch.
We understand education websites — not just websites
Education sites have constraints that consumer sites don't — ADA compliance obligations, distributed content governance, SIS integrations, and the need to serve populations with varying technical literacy. Our founder built educational programs and knows what the student experience actually requires. We deliver accessible, high-performance sites at 40–60% less than US-only agencies.
WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility
Built in, tested with screen readers, documented at handoff
Lighthouse 90+ performance
Core Web Vitals in the Good range before every launch
Ready to build a site that actually converts prospective students?
Tell us about your current site's biggest pain points — speed, accessibility, enrollment conversion, or content management. We'll audit what you have and show you what's possible before you commit to a project.