In these unprecedented times, it’s more important than ever that education institutions have a strong digital content strategy to communicate and maintain relationships with Chinese international students, both to help current students continue their studies and to bolster future intakes (particularly crucial considering the absence of offline events such as recruitment fairs, study tours and open days).

In a previous post, I talked about why it is essential to have good foundations for your digital content strategy, and why a good foundation starts with your website and WeChat account. In this post, I’ll give some recommendations on how to building a functional and effective website for Chinese international students. We’ll look closely at some of the most important aspects: navigation structure, design and menu hierarchy. 

Navigation structure

Once you have a clear idea of the motivations of prospective international students and the sort of information that is important to then, this can inform the framework and content direction of your institution’s Chinese website. 

Below is a good example of an effective navigation structure from Zhejiang University. As you can see, they’ve placed a lot of emphasis on the ‘hard facts’ about the institution, such as its faculties, scientific research, education and teaching and the admissions process. But there’s also room for ‘soft facts’, such as its recreation and sports offerings, information about campus life, an image gallery and videos. As a whole, this represents a good cross-section of the key considerations of prospective students and parents, current students and alumni.

Homepage design

While it might be tempting to try to squeeze as much information on your homepage as possible, it’s actually easier for users to find the information they’re looking for if the design is clean and concise. A visually appealing hero image has the added benefit of helping to communicate your brand personality. 

Below is an example of a well-designed homepage from UNE’s Chinese website. The information is succinct, making it easy for users to navigate the page, and there are lots of images that draw the user’s eye. 

You can also see how seamlessly the homepage design adapts to other devices like tablets and mobile phones. Mobile responsiveness is very important in China, as most internet users are on mobile devices.

Website heirarchy

Following on from the previous suggestion, rather than trying to squeeze lots of information onto the homepage, it is better to add second- and third-level pages to enrich the content. 

The example below from the University of South Australia (Uni SA) website shows the menu hierarchy for their different schools, with the business school selected in blue. On the next image, we’re digging another level deeper to find information about the business school. A little bit further down the page, you can go even deeper into the site to a third level to learn about the university’s MBA program

This multi-level structure doesn’t only help with your website’s SEO ranking, it also makes it much easier for visitors to navigate through the site.

Summary of website recommendations

In this together

My vision for founding Sinorbis has always been to connect China with the rest of the world, and this has never been more critical than right now. 

In the spirit of solidarity, Sinorbis is offering to make our platform accessible to universities, schools and service providers for FREE for a limited time. This includes:

• Access to our website and landing page builder – fully optimised for China.

• Two purpose-built landing page templates to get you up and running quickly

• Integration with Zoom webinars.

• The ability to link registrations to your CRM.

• No payments. No credit cards. No strings attached.

If you are interested in this offer, you can register your interest at our website.