Website Redesign Case Study: A Private K-12 School
Case Study · Private Education
Client
Keystone School
Engagement
Website Redesign and Admissions Optimizatiom
pERIOD
2025 to present
The Challenge
A reputation the website no longer reflected.
The legacy site did not match the school’s reputation or its admissions goals. A family arriving to research Keystone met a dated design and a homepage that had grown crowded over six years of additions.
The specific friction points were clear. Navigation had swelled to more than ten drop-down items, which forced choice overload on parents who just wanted to find one thing. Admissions content was dense and hard to scan on a phone. Calls to action were inconsistent and easy to miss, so a parent ready to act often had no obvious next step. The three actions that matter most to a school, Visit, Inquire, and Apply, were buried.
What we built: the admissions journey
The redesign focused on four areas, each aimed at making the admissions journey obvious for a busy parent.
Navigation and information architecture
We collapsed the oversized menus into focused, parent-friendly categories and made the three key actions, Visit, Inquire, and Apply, visible and consistent across every step of the journey.
The admissions funnel
We reframed admissions content to answer the question a parent is actually asking at each stage, which is “what do I do now?” Persistent calls to action and simplified, mobile-friendly forms reduced the friction between interest and action.
Visual storytelling
A new homepage hero pairs strong headlines with emotion-forward imagery and video, and scannable sections carry a family through academics, student life, and community without a wall of text.
Mobile, accessibility, and performance
Buttons and tap targets were built for one-hand use, semantic structure and color contrast support accessibility, and media and scripts were streamlined so pages load fast.
Search Footprint Expansion
The school credits the new site with more tours and more applications.
The school reports measurable movement in the direction that matters to admissions. In the Director of Marketing and Communications’ own words, the new site led to scheduling more tours and more applications, and it is returning its investment daily.
Alongside that, the redesign delivered clearer engagement on admissions pages, a smoother path through inquiry and tour forms on mobile, and a site whose visuals, copy, and structure finally align with the school’s mission.
Growth Metrics
In the Client's Words
“Brett, Leslee and the Movement Maker team helped us transform our website into a streamlined, modern and effective resource. Before we brought them on, our website had become crowded and difficult to navigate. Over the previous six years, we added items to our homepage to help families but inadvertently turned it menu heavy and clunky.
The team spent time visiting with us and used website usage tools to learn how people really used our site. With those insights, they created a new site that evolved from the previous look and gave users much easier ways to find what they needed on desktop and mobile.
They improved the web copy and artfully added calls to action so prospective families could ask for more information, schedule tours, or apply. This led to us scheduling more tours and more applications. Because they host our site, they also help us with continuous improvements as our users’ needs change, and I’m thrilled with how our site is performing.
I wholeheartedly recommend the Movement Maker team. They’re outstanding professionals and good people.”
– Edmund Tijerina, Director of Marketing and Communications, Keystone School
Why This Matters For Private School Admissions
For a private school, the website is the admissions office that never closes. A family researches a school online long before they call, and the site either makes the case or quietly loses them to a school whose site is easier to trust and easier to act on.
A dated or cluttered site does not just look old. It costs tours and applications, because a parent who cannot quickly find how to visit or apply moves on. Making that path obvious is one of the highest-leverage things a reputable school can do for enrollment.
Strategic takeaway
A strong school with a confusing site leaves enrollment on the table every day.
Keystone did not have a reputation problem. It had a website that no longer reflected the reputation it had earned. A strong school with a confusing site leaves enrollment on the table every day the site stays in the way.
The redesign closed the gap between what the school is and what a family experiences before they ever step on campus.
Recommended by the people you'd most want to reach, before they ever call.
When someone starts researching who to trust, they rule out anyone who is hard to find or hard to act on. If your reputation is strong but your website isn’t doing it justice, that is business you never see walk away. If that sounds like you, book a discovery call and we’ll walk through what’s possible.