Do you have a school counseling website for your program? I've been surprised to see that not everyone does. When you are thinking about using a service, what is the first thing you do? I check the website. If you don't have a website, you are missing out on being the person that parents, teachers, and even students turn to in order to find the support they need.
You can check out my old school website at cpescounselor.weebly.com.
What are the important things to include?
You can check out my old school website at cpescounselor.weebly.com.
What are the important things to include?
Home Page
This is what your stakeholders see when they first log in. Make it simple, easy to understand, and professional. The two most important things to include on your home page is a brief description about your program and your contact information. Many people have probably come to your website looking for your contact info, don't make them hunt it!
About Me
Make sure to include a picture on your about me page! Parents have surely seen you in the building but may not know your name and position. You want to help to put a face to a name. It's also nice to include your profession background and a little bit about you personally.
School Counseling Program
Here's where you get to share about your wonderful program. You can share your curriculum, how to request individual counseling, and what groups you provide. You may need to explain what a comprehensive counseling program is. I like this video to help explain.
Other Pages
You have lots of options for additional pages on your website. It might be helpful to think about what questions you are often asked. Do parents call asking for book recommendations? Do teachers ask for social skills resources?
Some ideas you could include:
Some ideas you could include:
- Parent Resources: book lists, links to parenting websites
- Student Resources: middle school information, anything that you show or share during a lesson, pbskids.org information pages
- FAQ page
- Blog: I embedded this in my school website long before I started counselorup.com - I used it to share what we were doing in our classroom lessons, school events, etc.
- Announcements
Things to Avoid
- Too much personal information
- Outdated information
- Leaving important information "below the scroll" - if visitors have to scroll down, they might miss it
- Too many fonts
- Large blocks of text
- Counselor-specific domain name for a whole department
- Burying your website in your school site so that it's hard to find
Do you have a school website? What's your best website tip? Share here so others can see your great pages, leave a comment below. I've also created a printable checklist for creating (or updating) your own website.
| creating_a_school_counseling_website.pdf |
