Spring is a peak time for prospective students to begin researching higher education programs, and a vast majority say that a college website has a lasting impact on whether they decide your school and program are a good fit.
Each active program in the college has a collection of program pages in CHSSWeb that combine marketing and academic content. These pages are often the first entry point to your program—from search engines as well as from department and college websites—and therefore represent an important opportunity to make your program shine.
We recommend reviewing your program pages regularly to keep them accurate and up to date. Here are some steps you can take to ensure prospective students can clearly see the benefits of enrolling in your program.
Make the best use of your Overview page.
This page gives you space to describe and promote your program to prospective students. The content is flexible and yours to create, but feel free to reach out to the CHSSWeb team if you would like to discuss a strategy.
Here are a few nice examples of overview pages:
- https://mais.gmu.edu/programs/la-mais-isin-css
- https://english.gmu.edu/programs/la-mfa-cw
- https://historyarthistory.gmu.edu/programs/la-ma-ah
- https://economics.gmu.edu/programs/la-ma-econ
While these are all designed a bit differently, each presents content geared toward the information of interest to prospective students for that program.
Keep your Meet a Student and Meet an Alum pages current.
These sections are populated by profiles that you create, add to your website, and associate with your program. These tabs will only appear if at least one profile is associated with a program. They are a great way to showcase the student experience and highlight alumni accomplishments.
Regularly review the profiles associated with your program.
- Do you have profiles?
- Do they represent your program well?
- Are they current?
Find out more about managing profiles in CHSSWeb.
Make sure contact information on your program page is current.
Find out how to update contact information on your program page.
Don't forget current students.
Make sure that current students who may find themselves searching for information on a program page can access advising and other content for current students. If not, let us know. We can help.
Check Requirements and Applying pages.
Finally, while the Requirements and Applying pages are updated from the yearly catalog process and through Graduate Admissions, if you see something that is not correct, please let us know.
Note: Shortly after the catalog is released each June, the CHSSWeb group runs an import which updates requirements to match the new catalog.
Remember, your program page is often a prospective student’s first impression when searching online—make it count!
Find out more about how to manage and edit program pages in CHSS Web.