Web Site Design Tips for SCS Webmasters

• Current faculty list, administrative list, and staff list
• Current calendar and/or list of events
• Mission Statement and Beliefs
• Announcements (especially for back to school)
• Campus info: school profile, picture, info about facility, directions, location, opening & closing times

• AR list
• mission and beliefs statements (multiple languages)
• SIP if available (document form)
• clubs
• sports & schedules
• extracurricular activities
• course descriptions
• school history
• local handbook
• PTA newsletter
• faculty email addresses (optional)
  

• www links
• grade & subject area overviews
• Curricular Projects
• Student work
• Guidance office services
• Special Ed services
• Supply list for each grade

You might think of more items to add to your web site. Ask your visitors (via email, poll, or form) what content they want which is not already provided on the site. You are encouraged to share those ideas with other SCS webmasters so they may also include those items on their sites.

Tell your visitors the purpose of your site

Share the purpose of the site with your visitors. You may place it on a separate web page or you may place it on the same page as your site map. The following general purpose is a modified version of the purpose of the SCS web site.

The _______________ School web site has been established as a dynamic forum to educate and inform the public. It serves as a communication vehicle to publicize the goals, accomplishments, activities, and services of _____________ School. Intended audiences include students, parents, prospective parents, employees, prospective employees, and the community at large. All content contained on the web site is consistent with the educational aims of Shelby County Schools.

How will visitors find your site?

Even though the URL to your web site is rather long, advertise it as much as possible. Make sure it is on the school letterhead, in the school newpaper, in the PTA newsletter, on your school TV announcements (if applicable), and in local newspaper articles and press releases. Visitors may come to your site via the Shelby County Schools web site. Some visitors will find your site through the use of a search engine.

To make your site more friendly to search engines, provide metadata and make certain to use ALT tags on all images. Some structural elements provide information about the document itself. This is called metadata about the document. Design your metadata and you will provide important orientation information to visitors. META tags are placed in the HEAD section of your page. Metadata to include: keywords, description, author, and generator.

• To help visitors find the web page use keywords in the HEAD of your document.
  
  <META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="put your keywords here and separate each with a comma and a space">
  
  
• Control your page's summary by providing a description in the HEAD of your document.
  
  <META NAME="description" CONTENT="put a concise and unique description of your page here">
  
  
• To add information about who wrote the web page and how, use author and generator information. Place this information in the HEAD of your document.
  
  <META NAME="author" CONTENT="put your name here">
  <META NAME="generator" CONTENT="name the software program you used to create the web page">

Introduction - Planning
Purpose - Structure - Basic Web Site
Design - Navigation - Accessibility
Place Content - Update - Evaluate