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College and university recruitment marketers have a more challenging job than ever. The higher education landscape is in flux and hitting enrollment numbers is crucial- but with thousands of colleges trying to attract prospective students, it can be difficult to stick out in the crowd.

If you’re a digital marketer managing a website built on a Drupal content management system, there are a seemingly endless number of modules available to help make your life easier. With such a large and active user community supporting Drupal’s open source platform, there are modules already built that can address just about whatever need you have for your website, especially search engine optimization.

Few people would be surprised to know that before a new website or feature is launched, it passes through a quality assurance (QA) process to make sure it works exactly how it is supposed to and is free from errors. However, many might be shocked to find out what is involved in a standard QA process. It’s actually much more extensive than just looking for links that don’t work or spelling errors in the website content.

In higher ed, resources are often tight. But there is one resource that we have in spades: students. In addition to their experiences, which provide endless fodder for content opportunities, students can also be invaluable resources in your communications office in helping manage your websites. They are motivated to gain professional expertise and bring a perspective close to that of your primary audience.

However, like any resource, student web workers should be managed purposefully. Here are some guidelines for ensuring that you maximize value from your student workers.

Some designers find inspiration just about everywhere, while others find themselves having to purposefully seek it out. With so many amazing, talented, creative people making mind-blowing art everyday and so many avenues for them to show it off, it’s not hard to find work to excite and motivate you. If you’re looking for creative inspiration, start with these folks who are pioneers making their mark in the design world.

Jon Contino

When you’re going about your online visits, checking out websites for shopping, reading, information gathering, or just having a bit of fun, it’s easy to tell which of those sites had a user experience designer as part of the creative process. You can bet a usability expert played a big role in building the sites that are easy to navigate, keep you interested and engaged, and make you want to come back.

As more colleges and universities launch comprehensive fundraising campaigns, stand alone campaign websites are increasing in number and growing in complexity. These sites are becoming critical communications tools that are an integral part of a capital campaign.

Planning Your Capital Campaign Website

How donors interact and use a capital campaign website changes over time. We’ve identified three key phases for the capital campaign. Your website should be designed to be a primary communication tool in each phase:

We all love a good hack. Something to make our workdays easier and our workflows more efficient. One of the best parts of finding a cool, new app, extension, or tool is sharing it with others and knowing that they too can bask in the glory of an easier worklife. And so, we’re sharing our favorite Chrome extensions (seriously, we use these pretty much on a daily basis) for UX designers, but don’t worry, you don’t have to be a UX designer to use and love them. Let the basking begin.

If it’s your first time going through a website redesign process or if you’re new to website management, there is a lot of new terminology to get a handle on. Learning a little bit of “web developer speak” will go a long way toward making sure your entire team is on the same page, and the outcomes of your website project match your expectations.

Knowing the difference between these four basic development issues is a great start toward making you a web developer’s best friend, so let’s dive right in.

If you're thinking about improving your website, you should be thinking about content strategy. Simply put, content strategy means getting purposeful about your content and creating habits that support its ongoing success.