What purpose do you think your child nutrition program website serves? A child nutrition website is one key representation of your program in the ever-happening world of technology. It is a lens through which students, parents, staff and other stakeholders interact with your operation. External stakeholders often gauge the credibility a CNP from the way it is represented on their website. Your child nutrition program website is the single-most effective tool to display the incredible dining experiences students have at school. Hence, a website that is impeccable looking and gives a neat and well-organized impression is sure to set you apart from the rest.
Your aim is to convert the maximum number of students and parents who visit your child nutrition program website into consistent meal consumers for both breakfast and lunch. That doesn’t come easy for sure, visitors who come searching to your site have a certain end-goal in mind. With extremely small attention spans and goldfish memory of as low as 9 seconds, creating an everlasting impression is the deal breaker.
What is constitutes a seamless CNP web design?
1. Brand it like none other
Your child nutrition program website (being the face of your program) needs to portray your establishment in the best positive light. Needless to say, your website goes a long way in positioning your program, product and service offerings as noteworthy. The branding of your operation should be consistent and uniform across all platforms and an aesthetically appealing and highly intuitive web design is one of the most integral parts of the entire branding process. Not only does your design set you apart from the rest but also instills a sense of trust for a fruitful relationship with your students, teachers, staff and other stakeholders.
A consistent brand image depicts professionalism and helps to make your students sure of their choice when they opt to dine with you each day.
2. Give off the right cues
As aforementioned, potential students follow the trail set by you through your child nutrition program website’s tone, layout and other features that define the overall feel. By feeding your target audience with the right pieces of information at the right time every step of the way, you basically pave the way for them to reach their end goal, that is to dine with you daily. They’re here to seek/gather information of your program offerings and your website should cater to them holistically.
3. Break it down for your audience
- A conspicuous call-to-action button on the homepage or most visited landing pages can do wonders in increasing conversions.
- Outline a step-by-step meal application process to help students qualify for free/reduced meals.
- Highlight the nutritional benefits of the school meal.
- Bring your child nutrition program website to life by posting regular updates including in-house promotions, national breakfast and lunch week details/activities, and fitness and wellness tips.
Do not expect your audience to read through the entire content on your website, as most people skim, it is highly dependent on you, how you get the most relevant and eye-catching information on your website noticed. This helps your visitor to analyze the options provided by you against their own personal criteria and make a well-informed decision.
Child nutrition program website elements that click
A highly intuitive and user-friendly web design does not only keep students engaged but also makes them your repeat visitors. A pre-conceived and well laid-out content plan with uncluttered layouts is essential to deliver vital information that is easy to analyze and absorb followed by the desired appropriate actions.
Lucrative child nutrition program website solutions abound the digital landscape ensures that your website branding is in accordance with the target audience. Aesthetically appealing layouts with color combinations that are true to your school district, legible text with professional high-resolution photography and meaningful graphics together creates the impact that entice visitors to stay.
4. Make it responsive
In this ever-evolving digital scenario and a mobile-first era, a responsive design that fits well onto all screen sizes and is especially mobile-friendly should be a priority of every child nutrition program website.
With Generation Z (and their parents) spending most of their time on mobile devices it is highly likely that most of web searching is done on these devices. Optimizing your web design, layout and content for mobile devices can make or break the entire student experience. A responsive design makes your website accessible from virtually anywhere and removes any barriers to smooth and efficient website surfing.
5. Keep the Functionality and usability in mind
In addition to being mobile friendly, your child nutrition program website needs to be bug-free and tested for any possible glitches that may hinder the user experience. Functionality and usability goes hand in hand when you need to disseminate important and large chunks of information (i.e. menus downloads, etc.) If the website is too cluttered, hard to navigate, inconsistent and not user-friendly chances are that you are going to lose potential visitors. So before your program suffers at the expense of your CNP website, taking the right measures to streamline all facets of your website will help you in the long run.
6. Keeping it relevant
Make it relevant for audiences along the continuum, as websites which become obsolete or outdated with time do not garner adequate traction. A CNP web design that stays relevant not only for today’s technology but also for the future is what passes off as a highly effective one. Designing your child nutrition program website in accordance with the latest design trends keeps the CNP program ahead of both competition and technology and positions you as an entity that moves with time, adding value to a range of audiences that visits your website.
7. Professional copywriting
Every brand has a story to tell and it is important that you ensure that your child nutrition program website translates into a story that your audience can connect and relate with. Content is king, and only through high quality content can you convey your program’s unique goals, objectives and overall story in the most appealing manner.
Visitors, inclusive of all stakeholders expect your website’s content to be relevant, engaging and value-adding while, maintaining a consistent brand tone at all times. Gen Z students and their parents want to know that you are committed to providing quality products and services during breakfast and lunch. They are definitely in no mood to settle for less. A well-formulated content strategy ensures that all your stakeholders are on the same page and positions your program as worthy of their patronage and loyalty.
8. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
No matter how immaculate and seamless your CNP website design might be, the efforts really pay off when it is strategically paired with the right search engine optimization efforts and other digital marketing strategies. To get your child nutrition program website noticed above the competition, digital marketing efforts and web design should be coordinated side by side.
SEO is a very competitive tool in ensuring that your website stays relevant even years down the road and it helps strengthen your digital marketing strategy as your program evolves.
9. Give them a virtual tour
A classy and highly responsive web design goes above and beyond enticing imagery, great color scheming and power point presentations. Website solutions that aim to make CNP websites a content hub for all kinds of visitors looking for valuable information should make sure that it works for everyone: most importantly students (but also for teachers, staff, parents and the surrounding community).
A high graphic and interactive video encompassing the student dining experience (to include: meal periods, serving lines, food/menu offerings, and seating) is a great way to ensure that your visitor does not go away dissatisfied or uninformed.
10. Website maintenance for consistent user-experience
Now that you have finally designed and implemented a highly responsive website design that is easy to access on the go, it is imperative that it should be maintained to ensure a consistently superior user experience. Web solutions need to cater to this highly sensitive area of ensuring that your child nutrition program website does not underperform resulting in a lack of credibility.
Website maintenance that is done on a regular basis helps keep malware and hackers from taking over your website, helps you manage, improve and better your back-end and front-end code and hence maximizes ROI.
By considering the information provided, you are well prepared to begin the process of ensuring your program’s website adequately engages all stakeholders in supporting efforts to attract students.
