Industries
Higher Education — Your website serves everyone. That's the challenge.
A dozen audiences, a hundred content contributors, and a thousand opinions about the homepage.
The problem.
Your university website has a dozen audiences, a hundred content contributors, and a thousand opinions about what the homepage should look like. Prospective students need to find programs. Current students need class schedules and campus services. Alumni want to stay connected. Faculty want control over their department pages. And leadership wants the site to reflect the institution's brand.
Everyone's right. And that's exactly why higher education websites are so hard to get right.
The solution.
Higher education websites are among the most complex content ecosystems in any industry. The sheer number of audiences, the depth of program information, the decentralized editorial model — where departments often manage their own content with varying levels of CMS skill — and the competing priorities between recruitment and institutional communication all create a content management challenge that requires real experience to navigate.
The organizations that succeed treat their website not as a single entity but as a content system — with shared architecture, governed standards, and flexible components that serve each audience without fragmenting the experience.
We'd love to talk.
Ready to talk through your project? We're ready to hear from you. Drop us a line.
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How Blend helps higher education institutions.
We understand the editorial dynamics, the audience complexity, and the political realities of university web governance — including the fact that "governance" in higher ed means navigating competing priorities with diplomacy, not just assigning content owners. Two decades of higher education projects give us the pattern recognition to know where things typically go wrong and how to get ahead of it.
What can higher education web work include?
Web strategy, design, and development for the specific challenges of university content and university editorial teams.
Admissions and enrollment
- Program page architecture optimized for prospective student search behavior
- Admissions funnels and conversion pathways
- Parent and influencer content pathways
- Virtual tour and campus experience integration
Content architecture and governance
- Content models for academic programs, faculty profiles, events, news, and departmental content
- Cross-promotion structures that reduce duplication and keep information current
- Multi-stakeholder governance frameworks
- Department-level flexibility within institutional guardrails
Editor support
- CMS training for departmental editors
- Component-based design systems that give departments flexibility within brand standards
- Editorial workflow design for decentralized publishing environments
- Ongoing support for editorial teams as they grow and change
Web Strategy
Content strategy, information architecture, governance, and CMS planning — the strategic decisions that make complex web projects succeed.
Design
Design that works for your audience and your editors — from visual systems and prototyping to accessible, structured interfaces.
.NET Development
Custom .NET development on Optimizely, Umbraco, and Contentstack — built for complex content and the editorial teams who manage it.
Case Studies
A few higher education projects we're proud of.
Our thoughts and guidance in the higher education space.
Before you dive into your higher ed project, here's what's worth thinking through.
Optimizely
As a Platinum Partner and past Partner of the Year, we have a long track record of successful projects with Optimizely (formerly Episerver).
Learn More about Optimizely
Umbraco
As one of Umbraco's Platinum Partners, we have both consulted on and developed for Umbraco, the "Friendly" CMS.
Learn More about Umbraco
Contentstack
Blend is a Contentstack Solutions Partner, giving us the power of an industry-leading headless CMS to our offerings.
Learn More About ContentstackFrequently asked questions.
How do you handle the "too many stakeholders" problem?
Through governance structure and content architecture. When the content model defines clear content types with clear owners, and the governance plan defines who can publish what and where, the stakeholder management problem becomes much more manageable. We also facilitate alignment workshops early in the project to build consensus before design decisions are made.
Can you work with our existing CMS?
If your site is on Optimizely, Umbraco, or depends on a headless model, we can work with it directly. If you're on another platform, we can provide strategic and content architecture consulting even if we're not the team doing the development.
How do you handle department-level content that looks different from the main site?
Through design systems and component libraries. Rather than giving departments unlimited layout freedom (which leads to brand fragmentation) or no flexibility at all (which leads to resistance), we create component-based systems that let departments customize their pages within a defined visual and structural framework.
How do you handle program pages that need to serve both SEO and prospective students?
By structuring program content around the questions prospective students actually ask — outcomes, requirements, costs, next steps — rather than mirroring the academic catalog. This approach serves both audiences: students find what they need quickly, and search engines find well-structured, topically relevant content.
Can you help with migration from our current higher ed CMS?
Yes. We've migrated university sites from a variety of platforms. Higher ed migrations are particularly complex because of the volume of content, the number of content owners, and the distributed editorial model. We plan migration as a phased project with clear ownership at each stage. Learn more about migration →