Beyond Web was proud to design and develop the Mount Clear College website, which reflects the school’s commitment to opening doors for its students.
Client:
Mount Clear College
Services:
School Website Design
School Website Development
Marketing & SEO
Website Hosting
Completed:
February 2022
Duration:
3 Months
A hub of inclusivity and academic rigour, Mount Clear College is the epitome of meaningful education. The school emphasises excellence and providing students with a supportive environment in which they can succeed both academically and personally.
Mount Clear College is a coeducational college with a distinct university feel. Once split into two secondary colleges – Ballarat Boys’ Technical School and Ballarat Girls’ High School – the two institutions amalgamated in 1981 to create a diverse and welcoming environment for all students.
The school is located 7 km from Ballarat, a regional city in Victoria, Australia. The area is rich in history and culture, providing students with plenty of opportunities to explore outside of the classroom. Students enjoy easy access to the city’s many parks, museums and galleries.
With a focus on providing a well-rounded education, Mount Clear College offers a wide range of courses and extracurricular activities; the school prides itself on providing numerous career pathways, but never at the expense of students’ wellbeing. Every individual is cared for and supported so they can make the most of their time at Mount Clear College.
The school’s website is a reflection of these values. A bolded and centred ‘welcome’ section on the homepage is flanked by images of Mount Clear College and its students, accompanied by a warm opening message from the principal.
With the goal of reaching potential students from all walks of life, Mount Clear College requested that their new website be as accessible as possible. This was a high priority during the design phase; considering that 50 to 60 percent of web traffic comes from mobile devices, it was essential that the website be responsive and easy to navigate on all platforms.
The end result is a sleek and modern website that is simple to use, refreshing to look at, and packed with information. The use of white space, generous font sizes, and clear headings makes for an uncluttered user experience, while the photos and videos bring the college to life.
Not only is the website accessible to mobile users, but it is also completely editable by the school’s administration team. This was achieved through the use of WordPress (CMS) – the institution can regularly update the website with news, events, and information about courses and facilities without having to rely on Beyond Web’s availability.
It can be incredibly difficult for schools in regional areas to attract students from outside their local catchment. A seamless website is essential for these schools, both to help them stand out as a sophisticated institution and to ensure that potential students can easily find the information they need.
Mount Clear College’s website is designed with easy navigation in mind. A collapsible menu declutters the on-screen real estate, while prominent buttons and calls-to-action help users find what they’re looking for with ease.
The use of clear headings, short paragraphs, and bullet points makes for a pleasant reading experience, even on smaller screens. The website also includes a virtual tour of the campus, opening yet another door for potential students who might not have the opportunity to visit in person.
A valuable advantage of having a website is being able to track user engagement and behaviour. Beyond Web covered all bases here, setting up Google Analytics for the Mount Clear College website so the administration team could track pageviews, unique visitors, and other essential data points.
With an in-house quality assurance team, strict testing was carried out to ensure a totally seamless browsing experience across all devices. It’s a small detail that, when overlooked, has big consequences in terms of viewership and growth.
Search engine optimisation was a priority also, with Beyond Web working hard to ensure that the Mount Clear College website would rank highly on search engines. Their original domain was carried over from the old website to preserve ranking, with additional steps taken to improve the website’s position in SERPs.
The school can now make more informed decisions about their marketing campaigns and website design, using hard data to back up their hypotheses.
With an outdated website that was difficult to use and unresponsive on mobile devices, Mount Clear College were in dire need of a refresh. Beyond Web delivered on their promise of an accessible and modern website, helping the school reach more students than ever before.
Mount Clear College’s previous website was by no means dysfunctional; it was, however, prone to clutter and overwhelm. It felt distinctly ‘school’-like, but the college wanted its own unique identity that spoke to its innovative and forward-thinking approach to education.
The new website is clean, bright, and easy on the eye, using smooth animations and buttons to bring the user from one page to the next. The focus is on engagement and accessibility, with an uncluttered interface that makes it easy for users to find what they’re looking for.
Beyond Web reinvented their website to feel fresh and modern, yet still professional – perfect for a college that wants to stay ahead of the curve in every way. A clean and helpful directory now sits at the foot of each page, providing users with quick and easy access to the most important information.
Where the original drop-down menus were overwhelming, a new collapsible menu states each category of results in clear and bolded font. There is nothing disjointed or jarring about the user experience; it feels natural and easy to follow.
In the 21st century, our focus must always be on connectedness; digital media has brought us closer together than ever before, and schools are no exception. The new Mount Clear College website was designed with this in mind, promoting a sense of community and connection between students, staff, and parents.
The college can now engage its web users through regular ‘news’ posts that bridge the gap between the virtual and physical world. These are perfect for sharing school news, announcements, and even upcoming events.
Mount Clear College’s new website almost feels like a virtual portal into the school itself, with high-quality images of the school grounds and facilities giving users a taste of what to expect. Beyond Web understands that a school’s website is more than just an information hub; it’s a tool for connection and engagement.
A new website for a new era – Mount Clear College is moving forward in the right direction, with Beyond Web leading the way.
We want to know more about what makes your school tick. We treat this stage of deployment the same way we would any other scientific discipline, wherein you will provide our Project Manager with some key assets and after an in-depth kick off call we'll begin analyzing each component to build a site that is uniquely yours.
During the design phase, you will see your vision come to life and exceed all expectations. We will produce an initial design of the homepage, we then produce a one page master template using our modular block approach. You will have the chance to provide feedback on your homepage and interior pages.
Once you have been approved, your front-end developer will start crafting your website by coding it and making sure the design works across every browser and device. Your site will also go through a rigorous Q&A process to make sure it's mobile-friendly, cross-browser compatible, and much more.
“Beyond Web simply ticked all of our boxes and understood what was fundamental to having a positively different approach to conventional web design — successively making our brand stand out. I would highly recommend Beyond Web’s services to anyone looking for a way to revamp or build a new website for their school or business.”
Marketing Manager - Mount Clear College
