Review of 5 Free Educational Website Builders for Developing Websites for Colleges and Schools

By David Norman


(From Professor Doom: I was asked to talk more about the topic of website builders, but, bottom line, I’m really not expert in such things. So, I had a friend in the IT department who knows this stuff far better than I put together the following.)

A great way to express the school’s ideology, vision, and make its presence felt is by creating a website. A website for schools and colleges is somewhat similar to the websites we come across every day. But features that set them apart are the professional style, information board, important links for students and student dashboard, which is a whole new horizon in itself.

Gone are those days when you needed to hire a professional coder to create even a simple website for your school or college, all you need now are the website builders that make the entire process seem like a ‘cakewalk.’ If you’re a coder or have no clue about coding, you can still create stunning and beautiful websites through the drag-and-drop features of the website builders.

There are hundreds of website builders available in the marketplace, and while some of them do wonders for businesses, some are specially made for creating educational websites. We know that you are spoilt for choice, hence we got down to do what we do best, critiquing. After curating the options available to us, we present you five of the best free educational website builders for schools and college.

Wix

Wix has been a trusted name for business website building that is associated with finesse by most of its users. It’s simply the best in the market. The quick and straightforward website-creation process of Wix is one of its many selling points, including ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence), hassle free website management, variety of styles, multiple fonts, and stunning templates.


Apart from having a massive heap of more than 25 templates for educational purpose that makes it an ideal website builder for schools, Wix also offers some additional features like SEO management and mobile-phone optimized websites. Additional applications and widgets can be added to the webpage along with subsections containing blogs, feeds, news updates, syllabus and FAQs. Wix lets you add a forum to your website, which is ideal for any educational website. Plus, the membership feature enables you to offer member only access to restricted information (such as parent and student logins).

Apps like Wix Online Calendar and Wix Events are also useful for education websites, apart from Wix Chat, Comments and Voice Comments+, and Wix Video. Wix offers a free trial for 30 days for you to make up your mind. However, the free website builder by Wix does have some handy features that can be used to create a basic website and then proceed with the licensed product when the need arises.

Weebly

We would like to point out to Weebly as being the quintessential website builder for teachers due to its extravagant features and being a part of the coveted 50-best website lists of Time’s Magazine. The engaging multimedia features are ample for creating an educational website with a range of features and resources that are dedicated to learning.


Weebly allows the creation of an educational website with limited editing and viewing rights for parents and their children through complete access control. The integrated blogging section, class homework, scores, and broadcasting news for parents makes the website more cost-effective, efficient, and requires less administrative efforts from your side.


Private tutors can use Weebly to design websites for educational purposes too. Hence we referred to it as the best free educational website builder focused on teachers and learning. Teachers are known to have their hands full of work anyway; using Weebly is as easy as A-B-C.

Edublogs

A powerful educational website building tool that comprises of some stunning features and templates dedicated to education and learning. Edublogs is the next big thing for delivering knowledge-based services online through educational websites.


The website building tool is a one-stop shop for all your website development needs. Take the dozens of templates dedicated to education websites that are hard to ignore for creating a somber layout for the perfect appearance. You can create a student discussion board and an information forum that can be used by both the teachers and students to obtain information and interact through discussions.

Edublogs lets you customize your website with interactive features like student discussion sections, digital newsletters, and making the content on the website more engaging by organizing the multimedia on the website. Edublogs creates a members-only interface to enter a website that grants permission only to the registered students and teachers. This feature comes in handy when creating a University Management System or a similar system for any other educational institute.

Jimdo

Jimdo claims to create a website within three minutes after you have provided with some basic information regarding what exactly you want in your website. Imagine integrating eCommerce like fee payment, admission booking, paying admission fees, dues, etc. through an educational website for school or college.


Whether you are a newbie or a tech-savvy genius, creating an educational website through Jimdo is as easy as it can get with the range of customizable templates. The Artificial Designing Assistance lets you create a suitable website from scratches within a few moments. Introduction of a blog or personalized custom content can be used to give your educational website a boost.


On top of that, Jimdo lets you take complete control over the access of HTML and CSS that makes it easy to handle and manage your website. All these great features and education-specific templates for no cost.

Ning

As a teacher, tutor, or a learning institution, your first priority is to gather the demographic audience of the right kind, which is parents and students. Ning uses the website tool to send alerts to students that are looking for a similar institution like yours. The tools also come handy while designing an educational website with efficient functionality like Student Management System. Ning is not limited to being just a website-builder; it’s a guide on which you can depend for all your educational or institutional website needs.


An eclectic combination of monetization and social networking can help create a better connection with students through online teaching on the website. Create a professional educational website with the section of templates specially dedicated to the cause and make the website appear better than ever. Create a blog, put the institution on the map, create interactive polls, and quizzes through the interactive designing platform.


Another stunning feature that makes Ning stand out from the crowd is the security of the website and an additional SSL certification for your educational website, making it fully secure for students, teachers, and parents.


Which Ones Do You Choose?


I recommend you to use all the four free educational website builders and experiment as you never know which template would just catch your eye. They’re free to use and have a lot of features, applications, widgets, styles, and templates that are tailor-made for educational websites.

The best of them is Wix, which has a huge range of templates that impart a professional look to your educational website. The monthly charge of $4.50 is quite cost-effective for the features that you can get. But, as we mentioned earlier, always use the free trial to see a glimpse of how scintillating your website can look after using Wix and then decide to go for the ‘premium’ account.