What happens to a school without a website?

A school without a website doesn't collapse. It carries on with the parents it has. What it loses is every parent who looked for it online, found nothing useful and chose somewhere else. You never see those parents, so it never feels like a problem.

What do parents find when they search for you?

They always find something. Just not something you wrote.

A map listing with the wrong phone number and a photo of the gate taken by a stranger. A directory page with a blank description. An old Facebook page. A review from someone who was cross four years ago.

That is your school online, and you had no say in any of it. A website is how you get the say back.

Why does it matter if the school is already known locally?

Because the parents you need next are not local yet.

Families moving into the area. Families abroad planning to come home. Parents whose first child is three. None of them have a neighbour to ask. They have a phone.

I do the same thing with every new supplier. Before I use anyone, I search the name. If nothing proper comes up, I move to the next one. I don't ring to ask why they have no website. Nobody does.

What about countries where most schools have no website?

That's the best position to be in, if you move first.

Where ninety schools in a hundred have nothing online, the ten that do take every search. A parent types private school and the name of the town. Three schools come up. Yours is either one of them or it does not exist.

It will not stay like that. Once a few schools in a town have a proper site, the others follow, and being found gets harder and costs more. First is cheap.

What does the school office lose?

Hours. Every question a website would answer comes in by phone or WhatsApp instead. Fees. Term dates. Ages. Uniform. Is there a bus. Do you have space in year three.

The same ten questions, every day, answered by the one person who also has to run the office. Put the answers on a page and half of those calls stop.

What is the cheapest way to fix it?

You don't need a big site. You need a real one. In this order.

1. 01Claim your Google Business Profile. It's free. Fix the phone number, the opening hours and the photos.
2. 02Put up a small website. One good page can do it: who you are, ages, where you are, how fees or admissions work, photos of the actual school, and how to contact you.
3. 03Add a button that opens WhatsApp or a short enquiry form. Make it work on a phone.
4. 04Ask ten happy parents for a Google review.

That's a few days of work, not a project. And it puts you ahead of most schools that have had a bad website for ten years.

What should you avoid?

A free site with someone else's adverts on it. A site built by a relative who has since moved away with the password. A beautiful site nobody at the school can update.

The test is simple. Can your office change the term dates today without calling anyone? If not, it will be wrong by next term.

So is it urgent?

If you are full and turning families away, no. If you have empty places and you're not sure why, start here before you spend anything on advertising.

I went through the full case in does a school really need a website, and the checklist is in what a school website must have. If you want one built that your office can run, tell me about the school.