School
website
design
and
development
that drives enrollment
Your website is your
digital front door.
If anyone’s going to come on in, it has to do more than just look good. We’re talking quality wood, working hinges, intuitive knob placement, and a doorbell that’s wired to chime on the other side. You’ve got to know when students are ready to be welcomed in, right?
Honey, they’re home!
Website Creation
We know you’re not looking for another cookie-cutter website. That’s why, from the first sitemap to the final line of code, our team designs and builds websites that are as unique as they are strategically built. We believe your site should reflect the story of your institution, turn visitors into applicants, and look good while doing it. (No, it’s not too much to ask.)
ARTICLE
The Strategies Behind the Best College Websites
We scoured the internet to find some of the best college websites, so you wouldn’t have to. These are some of the components we saw over and over again!
Website Audits
Whether you’re revamping your website or starting a new one, you need to know what’s working and what’s not. Our audits dig deep, looking at performance, UX, accessibility, SEO, design, and content to give you a clear picture of how your site is serving your audience — and where it’s falling short. No fluff, just actionable insight and recommendations.
ARTICLE
3 Key Focus Areas for Your Next Digital Marketing Audit
Running your own digital marketing audit (including your website design) can spotlight what’s working, what’s not, and where it might be time to bring in backup.
HubSpot Development
The HubSpot CMS is flexible, powerful, and built for growth. And we know HubSpot inside and out (in fact, we’re kinda experts), and we love to leverage it for higher ed. From custom modules and landing pages to full-scale CMS builds, our dedicated HubSpot team brings design and development together to create seamless, user-focused experiences that are easy for your team to manage and scale. Let us take the web development load off your mind with clean builds, no workarounds, and zero tech headaches.
ARTICLE
Discover the Power of HubSpot for Higher Education
Take the chaos out of your school’s tech stack with HubSpot. From automation and lead tracking to clean reporting and connected tools, we help higher ed teams use the right Hubs to streamline their marketing, work smarter, and get real results.
User Testing
A great website isn’t built on guesswork — it’s shaped by real feedback. We conduct user testing with the audiences that matter most, uncovering how prospective students actually navigate and interact with your site. What’s drawing their interest? What’s driving them to take action? We use these insights to identify friction points, validate assumptions, and make confident decisions about what to improve and where to improve it.
UX/UI
A seamless user experience (UX) and clean user interface (UI) are at the heart of effective higher ed websites. Our team combines smart design with intuitive structure to create experiences that are not just beautiful, but truly user-friendly. Every page, button, and interaction is thoughtfully planned to balance your brand story with user expectations. The result? A site that works the way prospective students expect — and converts the way you need.
Search Engine Optimization
A beautiful website means nothing if nobody can find it. Our team of experts builds SEO best practices into every stage of your website project, from site architecture to on-page content and technical setup. It’s all about the right prospects finding the right page when it matters the most. You can expect a comprehensive SEO strategy that results in more qualified organic traffic at the top of the funnel and more enrolled students at the bottom.
ARTICLE
SEO for Schools: The Philosophy Behind the Tactics
Learn why keyword research and strategy are more important than ever when it comes to enrollment marketing for the education industry.
Most vendors will send you a Figma link with the exact number of shiny pages they were contracted for and
call it a day.
And don’t get us wrong — those sites are often stunning.
They say beauty is only skin deep, and the same goes for a website: a great-looking site that doesn’t engage, convert, or scale with your goals doesn’t leave you with much substance at all. At Direct Development, our approach is about
more than aesthetics
(though we’re all about that, too). It’s creative with claws, backed by data, and designed to do more.
Our website design and development services are built on the principles of inbound methodology. Magnetic, strategic, bold — sometimes out of scope, and that’s okay. It’s hard to design without seeing the bigger picture. It’s why we create digital experiences that do more than look good — they work hard behind the scenes to attract, inform, and inspire prospective students at
every stage
of their journey.
Catch our creative team in action!
see how we...
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