Higher Ed Websites in 2026: Key Trends and Priorities

The Real Pain Point: Content, Capacity, and Governance

The biggest challenge we hear — over and over again — is content. More specifically, institutions are finally reaching the point in the process where they recognize just how painful content work actually is, and how hard it is to do well.

What often starts as a design or platform conversation quickly becomes a resourcing and staffing problem. Many teams simply don’t have the internal capacity to manage large-scale content work. There isn’t a dedicated owner to run the process, make decisions, coordinate stakeholders, and enforce standards, even when there’s a strong desire to improve governance.

At the same time, schools are facing the reality of significant content migration. Moving to a more structured, template-driven system means rewriting content to fit new models and patterns. That’s necessary work, but it’s time-consuming and complex,  especially when legacy content still needs to be evaluated, preserved, or retired.

The result is a perfect storm: ambitious goals for governance and quality, limited staff capacity, large volumes of content to migrate, and years of accumulated legacy material. That’s why we’re approaching this problem in multiple ways — combining strategy, tooling, process design, and hands-on execution — rather than treating content as something that can be “cleaned up” at the end.

CMS Replatforming: Fixing a Setup That Isn’t Working

Most schools are already on a CMS that is generally a fine choice. The platforms we see most often are Drupal, WordPress, Hannon Hill Cascade, Modern Campus CMS (formerly Omni CMS) TerminalFour, and occasionally Sitecore. 

The problem usually isn’t the platform, it’s how it’s configured. In many cases, the setup is either too flexible to manage well or too expensive to maintain, which creates ongoing friction for teams trying to publish and improve content.

What we’re seeing most institutions do now is evolve the system they’re already using—addressing publishing issues, reducing complexity, and eliminating single points of failure. Occasionally, schools do choose to change CMS platforms, but those decisions are typically driven by poor configuration rather than a fundamentally flawed system. The more significant shift is moving away from page-based content and toward structured content. That shift is essential for scalability today and will be critical for supporting AI-driven experiences in the future.

SEO: Moving Beyond Technical Fixes

Many schools want to address SEO as part of a website redesign, which often starts with fixing technical issues—cleaner HTML, better structure, improved URL patterns, and site performance. These are important foundations, and they should be addressed.

But technical fixes alone aren’t a strategy. Many institutions haven’t clearly defined what they want to rank for, which audiences matter most, or how content should support enrollment and program visibility. That work needs to happen upfront. Without it, SEO becomes a checklist rather than a focused effort aligned to institutional priorities.

Website Personalization: Relevance That Supports Enrollment

We’re seeing strong interest in personalization, especially as schools look for ways to make their websites more relevant to prospective students. That instinct is right. Relevance matters, and thoughtful personalization can help support movement through the admissions journey.

From our experience, the most effective personalization efforts are focused and measurable. Tools like OHO NextStep allow institutions to introduce personalized calls to action in ways that are clear, manageable, and directly tied to outcomes. 

We’ve also supported broader content personalization strategies for specific sub-audiences, such as international students. These approaches require a significant content investment, which makes alignment critical. Successful personalization depends on a clear strategy, a sustainable content model, and a measurement plan that accounts for long enrollment cycles.

Analytics: Shifting from Traffic to Impact

Analytics still matter, but the focus needs to shift. Metrics like time on site and bounce rate are useful signals, but they don’t answer the more important question: is the website supporting enrollment?

We typically see two scenarios. Some schools already have strong reporting structures and need to preserve them through a redesign, which requires auditing Google Analytics, validating key events, and carrying that setup forward intentionally. Others recognize the importance of analytics but need support defining what to track and how to use the data effectively. In both cases, OHO helps institutions build an analytics strategy that connects website activity to enrollment goals and measurable outcomes, so the website can demonstrate impact, not just report traffic.

AI Readiness: Preparing Content for Visibility and On-Site Tools

As part of a redesign, it’s increasingly important to plan for AI content readiness. We think about this in two ways. First, how does your content appear in external AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Claude? That visibility is closely tied to strong SEO fundamentals: clear structure, authoritative content, and pages that are easy for systems to understand and reference.

Second, how is your content structured to support your own AI experiences on the website? If you plan to implement AI chat or AI-powered search, the quality of those experiences will depend on how your content is modeled. This makes structured content a critical consideration when selecting or reconfiguring your CMS. The system must support clearly defined content types that are consistently labeled and maintained. That structure allows content to be indexed, exported, and fed into on-site AI tools reliably. Without it, AI experiences will struggle to deliver accurate and trustworthy results.

Looking Ahead: Building Foundations That Scale

Taken together, these trends point to a clear shift in how higher education websites need to be planned and supported. Success is less about chasing the latest platform or feature and more about building the right foundations—content, structure, governance, and measurement—to support enrollment today and adapt to what comes next. Schools that address these realities early will be better positioned to scale, evolve, and make their websites work harder over the long term.