The latest cutting-edge technology has changed the way we approach all aspects of life, including education. Whether you run a large-scale educational business or have just launched a small startup, there is no better way to scale up in your niche than building a stunning Internet presence. If you are a passionate educator with a growing number of potent students, you might well consider increasing awareness about what you do by developing an agile, user-friendly website.
While this is all well and good, launching an entire website might be challenging, especially if you are new to this field. The chances are that you presume weeks of research and the months of the actual launching process, but it’s not that complicated as it might sound. The sky’s the limit in terms of moving your educational services to the Web with WordPress. We did all the research for you to ensure that your website-building process goes smoothly.
Today you will learn what makes a powerful WordPress educational website, why it’s critical to have one, and how to launch it without effort.
What Makes an Awesome Educational Website
The growing demand for remote educational services has encouraged many experts in the field to create their websites. An outstanding educational website with impressive design enables you to enhance your brand awareness by delivering special offers straight to your target audience. As a rule, a perfect educational website provides crucial detail on your courses and background, not to mention convenient learning options online.
And this very last point is where things might get complicated. Building up a powerful online gateway to your services is a more challenging process than developing a traditional website. However, your effort and time will definitely pay off, and below are the compelling reasons to give it a try:
– Increased brand awareness. Most successful educational institutions offer their services online, no wonder why there is so much hype around them among the public.
– Flexible learning options. Recently many people opt for online education due to lack of time and uncomfortable commute. A neatly designed website allows both you and your customers to enjoy the benefits of e-learning.
In light of this, we’ve done in-depth research and rounded up a step-by-step guide to building a unique educational website tailored to your specific needs. Some of you might just start with a small-scale startup without online courses available on your website. If that’s the case, you can skip some of the features below.
How to Set Up Your Perfect E-Learning Website
Before you get to the actual process, there are two critical things you need to do: find a great web host and have the WordPress software installed.
As for hosting, you will likely be spoilt for choice. There are myriads of hosting providers out there, so choosing a proper one might be quite overwhelming. Fortunately, you are in the right place at the right time. You can save yourself plenty of time and resources by knowing exactly what to look out for.
As an instructor, you certainly want to search for the following standard features all webs can benefit from:
- A proven track record of customer service
- Adding multiple domains if needed
- Robust performance
- Agile maintenance features
- Effective cybersecurity measures
As far as education is concerned, you should be aware of pricing. In case your students need to create their own webs, you might want to look for excellent hosts with fair rates and sufficient data storage capacity. There are several top-notch solutions tailored to your specific educational needs in terms of the features mentioned above. According to our research, the most reliable hosting providers include SiteGround, iPage, Bluehost, and Weebly, to name a few.
Once you are all set to move on to the customization part, your next step will be finding the appealing theme for your future site and managing plugins that will allow you to offer and sell e-learning services.
Step 1: Find the Stunning Theme
A perfect education-related theme should contain essential features that enable you to build up a stunning one-stop website hands down. One suggestion is to choose a theme designed with education in mind, meaning that it should feature some key options for your web needs. Get the most of your web-building experience by choosing a visually appealing theme with a robust framework. As a bonus, as you start your journey on WordPress, you are going to find many educational themes that offer advanced options, such as:
- Individual pages for different educators and courses
- Support tailored to unique events
- Flexible payment options
- Gallery page
- Sustainable contract forms
Now that you know what features should be included in your website, you can look through WordPress’s best offers and easily spot the perfect theme yourself.
Step 2: Choose the Right Plugin
As long as educational services are concerned, the chances are that you want to provide online courses, and, for that matter, you can use any list of top educational plugins for the reference. Nonetheless, we’ve carried out a rigorous selection process to find the best solution for you. Below, in the article, we would like to share our favorite plugin pick with compelling offers.
LearnDash Plugin
LearnDash is one of the most trusted WordPress LMS plugins used by world-class companies and educational institutions for launching their online courses. Whether you are a newbie or an experienced user, its feature-rich interface enables you to launch multi-layered online courses with relative ease. It integrates with WooCommerce and, thus, offers flexible payment options. On top of that, you will enjoy its powerful admin ProPanel; however, most add-ons are available for Premium Members.
Overall, LearnDash is a reliable plugin option for creating fancy online courses. However, count on the slightly higher price, though it’s reasonably budget-friendly for what it offers.
Conclusion
If you happen to be an experienced educator seeking an efficient way to skyrocket in the educational vertical by setting up a website, making the first move might be quite stressful. However, with so many web-building options available in WordPress, creating your online presence has never been easier. So, stop sitting on the fence and set up your website in a flash.