Now Available: A Template for Department Landing Pages To Help With Recruitment

For department heads and Drupal administrators:

The Division of Marketing Communications is announcing the launch of a brand-new template for department landing pages (aka homepages) on the WPI website. 

In support of the university’s strategic goals, the purpose of this template is to help recruit more students by positioning our academic departments as the valuable assets that they are. Use of this template is optional but strongly encouraged.

Rationale

Current state: Each academic department page looks different from the next, an effect of departments being responsible for their own webpage content under the university’s policy of distributed authorship. It makes sense: Each department at WPI is unique, with its own features, benefits, faculty, and areas of research. 

Challenge: Prospective students are looking for specific information, often comparing multiple departments and degrees to see which one might be a better fit. To ensure a seamless user experience that leads them to inquire or apply, consistency across department landing pages is crucial.

Solution: Marketing Communications created a flexible template that departments can follow to help with recruitment efforts. Make it your own while still providing key information, clear action items, and an overall positive user experience.

Key Benefits

• Attractive design: Our creative team designed the template according to marketing best practices, optimizing the content and layout for prospective students. 
• Selling points: The template will help each department tout its unique benefits and features, demonstrate career impact, and capture the imagination of prospective students.
• Customizable template: It can be adapted to fit any existing department. 
• Search engine optimization (SEO): The addition of several headings with keywords provides SEO benefits. Simply plug in your department name. 
• Strong calls to action (CTAs): These will steer prospective students toward the desired pathway (i.e., requesting information or starting an application).
• Improved focus: It reduces excess links that have the potential to lead prospective students away from the desired path. Remember: While your department news is important, it is the prospective students’ engagement and actions that are critical. 
• Less clutter: If you want to retain important content that falls outside the template’s guidelines, you might consider moving it to a different part of the website.