Pretty in pink: Lesley Waters’ homepage is packed with information
The perfect cookery school website should be conceived like any piece of visually effective communication. The school’s core message needs to be both loud and clear and its ethos well etched on the homepage – not hidden away in a secondary tab. A cookery school based on a farm, for instance, should capture the field-to-fork concept with a rustic, earthy and natural aesthetic.
In most cases the website is your shopfront so make sure its branding reflects your offering. A quality logo, strong professionally taken pictures populated with teachers teaching and students cooking (and having fun), and a line that summarises your “mission” in a nutshell all help to draw immediate attention and encourage stickability.
An uncluttered and bold layout is vital in keeping that attention, as is easy navigation. Well labelled index tabs and informative pages with rich and relevant content are all key to getting students on board. Tell us something interesting about your team members – at Looking to Cook, for example, we quiz head cookery school tutors on their likes and dislikes.
Above all, make sure visitors can find full details and prices on current and forthcoming courses – this is what 90 per cent of readers are seeking when they come to your website. Encourage written feedback, too, this is like gold dust to potential customers.
Websites should respond and deliver swiftly. The internet is a superfast resource and people rarely want to dither or be forced to work too hard. If someone is logged-on, looking to cook, and able to glean all the information they require with just a few clicks then they’ve clearly found a website that is a recipe for success.
View some of the best cookery school websites as chosen by the Looking to Cook awards.
